e of the constitution states the president shall take care that the law be faithfully executed. that is the end of the quota but it couldn't be more clear take care that the law is faithfully executed. that's why we call the president of the executive. his job isn't to make the law to rule as the court was on the wall. the president's job is to execute the law. the question here is does the law matter or not? spending bill that would allow the funding for the u.s. department of homeland security for the rest of the fiscal year, between now and september 30, their bill does try to stop president obama's executive amnesty plan. many people, it appears if you

believe what people have said, a substantial majority of the senate agrees that the president shouldn't have done what he did. what's our obligation to try to undo that? the house has donheir the house is done their part by sending a bill over that does that. the president himself said 22 times that he didn't have the authority to do what he eventually did. i guess this is one case where i agree with the president 22 times. something 22 times. something of a stick at don't agree with the president here's 22 times i agree with the president that 22 times he said he can't do or couldn't do what he eventually decided to do. and what was that? the president said he can't unilaterally change the country's immigration laws. he didn't have that authority, the 22 times he said he didn't have the authority. he didn't have that authority on november the 20th 2014 when he took actions that clearly were designed not to enforce the

law, he doesn't have that authority now. so the house-senate over a bill that tries to clarify the president doesn't have that authority that the legislative branch of the federal government is the house of representatives, and the senate of the united states. it's not whoever gets to act less. occasionally the president was i'm going to take executive action if the congress doesn't do its job. the key point there is it's the job of the congress to pass laws, not the job of the president. if the president wants to repeal the law, if the president wants to change the law, nobody is in a better position than the president to encourage the congress and the congress -- the country to do that. he doesn't have a default option if the congress doesn't act by some certain date i will just do it myself. that is not in the constitution of the president is not going to

find it there. i continue to believe that the house passed department of homeland security funding bill is the way to send a message to the president that he can't act unilaterally, that there is a constitutional way to do this. i've not given up on winning over six democrats in the senate that clearly we would need. everybody understands the importance of 60 votes in the senate, and there are 54 republicans, not 60 but there are more than six democrats that said the president they didn't agree with what the president did. i think in all cases they say we agree with the funding levels or we would vote for the funding levels for the department of homeland security. seems to me those two things come together pretty nicely. you get a chance by debating this bill to undo what the president did and to fund the department of homeland security. there are at least six democrats

who said that those are two different things that they are for. this is a case where we get to do that. we need to do this by passing the house measure that ensures spending at an important time with critical needs of homeland security but also would stop the president illegal amnesty. we should not let that stand. you don't know where these legislative fights wind up until you have been. maybe that's why no democrat yesterday was willing to have this debate. because maybe they don't know what happens if really the attention is called to the past positions they've had or the need to fund the department of homeland security. but you don't know how these legislative battles work out if you don't have them kick i think we need to have this one. leader mcconnell said our first choice if you try to pass the house bill.

mr. president the law shouldn't be followed advocate that it be repealed advocated a to b. change. don't advocate that it be ignored. the ignore clause of the constitution doesn't exist. there is no ability of the executive to do that. the united states is a nation founded on the rule of law. every trade agreement we enter into, all our relationships with other countries, people who come here. we talk about this is the country where you can look at the law and rely no matter what your status is, on the law itself to the president is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. yet president obama repeatedly has found ways to circumvent the congress by picking and choosing which laws he wants to enforce or in the case of the overwhelmingly complicated health care law, picking and choosing what dates that the law

is to be complied with even though the law often has very clear other dates. the president well i think there's a better date. this is a bill the president was a major advocate of. he had a chance to put the dates in there and didn't. i'd recently reintroduced, madam president as the senator from ohio has taken the chair, i'd recently reintroduced the reinforce -- iowa. the president can't continue to blatantly not do what the law says has to be done. this is the i produced in the last congress where it passed the house with a bipartisan vote but in the last congress we weren't allowed to vote on it. apparently there were a number of my colleagues who think not only are we no longer allowed to vote on bills now it's even a bad idea if we debate the bill. that was the vote is yesterday.

this wasn't approving anything except last debate a bill. that's what we should be moving forward now. so we can fund this part of the government that the president president complicated the funding for with his action last november. the enforce the law act permits the congress come if the congress believe the president isn't enforcing the law to go to court not to wait months and years for an aggrieved citizens have to go to court with her own money and say we don't believe the government has the authority to do this but the congress could go to court go to court early on that judge decide if the law is being enforced as written or not. the enforce the law act would reestablish the proper limits of executive branch it would restore checks and balances. it would also provide a defender of citizens who, in their capacity don't have to defend,

fight the government by themselves if the congress itself believes the president has taken a 40 that he doesn't have or it is enforcing the law in a way that wasn't intended. i think we have to stand up for the rule of law. i have joined in a court case supporting the state of texas who is suing the administration over what they believe is all kinds of added expenses put on them by the president's power grab in deciding on his own which immigration laws will be enforced in which. senator cornyn, senator cruz and i were signatories to this brief filed in december. 24 house members joined us including the chairman of the g. sherry committee thing we agree with these states that many responsibility have been placed on them because the president of the united states chose not to enforce the law as written.

26 states have now joined on to thatthe lawsuit filed by the state of texas, and i look forward to the conclusion of that suit because i think the judge is likely decide that no there isn't the selectivity of which laws you enforce, that the president has applied here and there are great costs created for states as a result of that. every senator in this chamber madam president, has a constitutional obligation to curb unilateral executive overreach. we have a chance to do that with a bill that could be before us. we have a chance to do that with the bill that the house has sent over. this whole issue goes to the very heart of the system of checks and balances in our country, and reiterates the importance of the constitution, following the constitution adhering to the rule of law. i would like to see is have a chance to do that as this department of homeland security funding bill showed and

eventually, i'm confident, will come to the floor. and i would yield. >> madam president? >> the senator from new york. >> first, it's good to follow my good friend, member chair of the rules committee which i'm ranking member. i don't agree with him but he is a fine man. now, i rise to dispel attempts by the other side of the aisle to dodge responsibility for funding the homeland security department in a responsible way. here's what's happening. the right wing of the republican party is risking a dhs i department of homeland security shutdown to get their way on immigration. they are saying, take our hard right stance on immigration or we won't fund national security.

now, most americans don't agree with that view. most americans are for a rational immigration policy. a large majority in this body, bipartisan led by senator mccain and myself voted on that in 2013. but you have a small group led by the junior senator from texas who says it's our way or we are going to shut down one of the premier agencies dedicated to our security. as an engaged in equality with my good friend from texas, the majority leader, republican colleagues have the majority. they can debate immigration anytime they want and in fact we welcome that debate. we think the immigrant people are on our side. we are willing to have that debate. we are eager to have that debate but not with a gun put it had not only of us but of the american people. don't do what we a narrow

minority want, or we are going to shut down the department of homeland security at a time when security is of utmost importance given what's happened around the world, what we just saw what happened to the jordanian pilot yesterday. this strategy makes no sense. the junior senator from texas is leading his party at best into a cul-de-sac. at worst over a cliff. we are not going to be taken hostage. and if he thinks, if you are my good friend the majority leader, senator mcconnell, thinks that by bringing this bill up again and again it's going to change what happened yesterday it's not. so we are saying to the other side, now that you've seen the boat, now that you've shown

speaker boehner that we can't pass his bill or even in the senate get real. i say get real to my friend the majority leader, and to speaker of the house. roll up your sleeves let's work out a dhs, a department of homeland security bill and pass it. let's not hold that agency hostage. let's not just renew them every couple of months. as the secretary of dhs said yesterday that's like getting a car and only having five giving you five miles of gas at a time. just doesn't work. so get real. let's negotiate take dhs spending bill. i know that our senator from maryland, the ranking member of the appropriations committee our senator from new hampshire,

the ranking member of the homeland security subcommittee of the appropriations are eager to sit down and pass a bill that we can all agree on in terms of funding homeland security. and then we can debate immigration. then we can debate immigration but no hostagetaking. none of this bullying it if you don't do it my way i'm going to hurt a lot of innocent people. it didn't work in 2013 when republican numbers plummeted after they tried to shut down the government. it won't work today. we will not allow a government shutdown. we will not allow hostagetaking. we will ask our colleagues to get reasonable, do things the way they used to be done debate each issue on the merits. they have the floor. they can debate any issue they want, and move forward. now, i would just say one other

thing to my republican colleagues. the junior senator from texas has you tied in a knot. i say that to speaker boehner as well. speaker boehner the junior senator from texas has you tied in a knot. now you're going to have to find a way to untangle it, but we will not be bullied. we will not be told we have to negotiate because you seek to hurt innocent people and hurt our security. we will move forward. so let me suggest the way to go forward. let's put it could claim homeland security bill on the floor. let's make america secure -- good clean. and severely we are happy to debate immigration to the republicans heart content. but let's stop this governed by crisis mentality, especially when national security hangs in the balance. so madam president i urge

speaker boehner, i urge senator mcconnell to come to their senses, in this wild goose chase and let us vote on a clean bill forthwith. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> madam president i come to the floor in my position as the vice chair of the appropriations committee. and to urge the senate to pass a clean homeland security appropriations bill. now, yesterday the senate rejected a procedural vote to take up the house homeland security funding bill. madam president this is not about debating the weeds of the which bill versus that bill. there are two distinct differences. the house bill has both the funding for fiscal year 2015 and it that would take care of every single agency under the department of homeland security

to defend and protect the nation. but at the same time it is loaded with five immigration writers that we call poison pill riders because the president said if legislation for homeland security passes with these five immigration riders, he will veto the bill. the president wants to fund an appropriations bill. so do i. the house homeland security bill is taken up by the senate -- if taken up by the senate would just simply gain a delay tactic. tactic. we would talk debate, offer lots of amendments towards immigration. and after we get lots of amendments on immigration it might go to the president. the president would veto it. it would come back. and after all is said and done more would get said then get done. we got to pass the funding for

the protecting of the homeland. yesterday the entire world was just gripped with poignancy and sorrow about the ghoulish murder of a jordanian pilot. the threat of terrorism is in the world. attacks by isil upon people the possibly of a lone wolf in our own country a cyber attack in retaliation because we dare fight back against isil or we are willing to challenge some of the other international creditors directed at us. you know we've got -- predators. we've got to protect the united states of america. that's what the department of homeland sector does. the department of defense protects us over there. the department of homeland security protect us here. after 9/11 one of the worst days in our countries history,

the congress came together shortly and we passed legislation to create the department of homeland security so we would take every agency that is involved in protecting the homeland put them under one umbrella so that they could look out for us. now, we need to look out for them. everyday we asked men and women who served in the coast guard and secret service, on border control protecting our borders and customs making sure, you know, fraudulent products like counterfeit drugs are not crossing the borders into our country. now we need to pass that bill. we need to make sure we do not have a shutdown or a slimmed down when the funding expires -- slammed down -- on february 27. in december when i chaired the committee in the closing hours

of passed congress, i worked with my subcommittee chairman senator landrieu, the vice chairman of homeland security approached senator coats and we put together a crucial funding bill that totaled $46 billion to invest in agencies that protect us your it was $1 billion more 1 billion than the continuing resolution. we could've taken that bill up then, but there was a desire because of controversy over the president taking executive action on immigration not to do it. so now here we are in february. now it's our time to find a clean homeland security bill -- fund. immigration is a serious policy issue. i don't dispute that. it deserves a series of debate but don't add it as a series of

riders on a funding bill. rather, let's take the immigration and severely. now, i reminded our colleagues that in the last congress this senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill, only to have it die in the house. so we said let's pass our bill again. let's have the house take it up and let's have a real debate on it. but in the meantime we will have funded the homeland security bill. now this isn't just barbara mikulski talking about more government spending. every past head of homeland security, the department of homeland security, has urged the senate to pass a separate bill. tom ridge the original executive of this agency michael chertoff who also served under president bush, and janet napolitano, they are calling for it and so my.

madam president, right now our coast guard is out there safeguarding our waterways. we in maryland, we just love our coast guard and we love them because number one they are always there for search and rescue. number two, they are always there to protect our bacon whether it's against a possible oil spill are drug dealers trying to sneak up that day. they are there. we also know how brave they are. look come we all recall how with helicopters they went in and rescued people during the horrific hurricane katrina and they do every day. and there's a secret service. secret service is in the process of reforming itself. they need to protect the president, the vice president the first families. but, you know, what? they are also out there being other being the governor jeanne in fighting things like credit card fraud. and then there's the cyber warriors protecting our critical infrastructure, our critical

infrastructure, our banking, our power grid. then there's fema. right now responding to disasters whether its blizzards or hurricanes. and then the state and local first responders. one of the programs i am so proud of in the department of homeland security is the fire grant program. the fire grant program is a competitive grant program. not an earmark program. eight competitive grant the ground where local fire departments particularly those in a rural community, can apply for a grant to buy the necessary equipment they need to protect them so they protect us. madam president, i know you're familiar with this in nebraska. turnout here for a firefighter, the respiratory equipment to protect their breathing, the telecommunications the fire retardant we count material,

that can cost as much as 1000-$2000 per firefighter. you can't do this when fish fries and chicken dinners. they need the help of their own government to be able to help them. so, madam president, i just say let's pass a clean homeland security bill. let's stop terrorist threats that secure our borders let's safeguard our waterways. let's make sure we're protecting our homeland and be able to move to a clean bill. >> i was very pleased to hear the ranking member of the appropriations committee senator mikulski, who's done such great work on this committee and putting together the bipartisan agreements that was negotiated last december with the chairman of the house appropriations committee congressman rogers. that was a bill that as she pointed out funded the efforts

of the department of homeland security to keep people safe to address emergencies to try and protect us from cybersecurity threats a whole range of efforts that go on within the department. and i wanted her to hear a comment that i just understand was made by the house of provisions homeland sector subcommittee chairman john carter, who is a republican from texas who, when he was asked about what the outcome of this debate would be on funding the department of homeland security his comment was, and i quote ultimately there may be a clean bill. well, senator mikulski if the house republicans, the chair of the subcommittee and the house are acknowledging that ultimately there may be a clean bill to fund the department, to

do what was negotiated by you and congressman rogers last december, doesn't it make sense that we should get a clean bill done now as soon as possible so there is uncertainty for the department of homeland security so they can continue the planning efforts so they can continue to address the threats to our national security? should we just get this done now and stop his ideological fighting and putting at risk people in this country because of somebody's got an ideological concern about this bill? >> first of all, i think the gentlelady for bringing representative of carter's comments to my attention but i absolutely agree with your analysis, and actually even with the comments by representative carter. we should have a sense of urgency in passing the homeland security bill. the terrorists and the bad guys, whether they're organized crime trying to get across our

borders whether there's a terrorist watching us. they are saying, hey they are so busy fighting each other, they don't have time to think about fighting ourselves. so they are watching us laughing at us because while we squabble and quibble and dribbled they are out there plotting against us. and madam president and i say to the chair, the transit of the subcommittee, i do think that there is a sense of urgency. i also want to comment on the house, when we're working in the closing hours of actual money part of the bill i found remarkable bipartisan consensus. left to our own, you know, analysis about how to be you know wise stewards of taxpayer dollars, but make those important security investments there was widespread bipartisan agreement. may be a priority therefore

different line items, but by and large we knew exactly. we did it within the caps but we did it within the allocation and we got the job done. we could do this job this afternoon. i feel a great sense of urgency. because while the bad guys are plotting against us we are busy plotting how we can fight each other. >> i certainly agree with the ranking member of the appropriations committee, and i would just point out we have heard in the last two days from the national, the conference of mayors who has urged us to pass a clean bill to fund the department of homeland security. we have heard from the emergency managers across this country who are concerned about the risk to assistance for disaster relief and for fema. and we just today got a letter from the national association of

counties urging the passage of a clean bill of to ensure that the safety of our communities can be maintained. so this is as you said we should not put at risk these communities the efforts that are going on across this country to keep the nation safe. because there are those people who are angry at the president about an executive action. we can have that debate but we should be having that debate separately. now we need to find this department of homeland security to ensure that there are no risks to our citizens. thank you very much. senator mikulski, and thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> senate to debate from yesterday and the senate is about to start today's session with the general speeches leading up to 11:30 a.m. a vote on moving ahead with the homeland sector defunding bill which contained provisions blocking the president's

executive actions on immigration. the senate has failed to advance the bill twice. in the previous post all democrats and republicans dean heller of nevada have voted not to move ahead with the bill. the house finishes up worked for the week today taking up a bill on small business. live coverage of the house is on c-span, and now live to the senate floor. . the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. s eternal god, who transforms common days into transfiguring and redemocrat alternative moments, may we honor -- and redemptive moments may we honor your name.

make our lawmakers great enough for these momentous times, as they seek to live worthy of your great name. may your precepts keep them from life's pitfalls, guiding them through the darkness to a safe haven. cleanse the fountains of their hearts from all that defiles, so that they may be fit vessels to be used for your glory. lord, because of your unfailing love we're determined to walk on the path you choose. let your peace be within them, as your spirit inspires us to glorify you in their thoughts, words, and actions. we pray in your wonderful name.

amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i move to

proceed to h.r. 240. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 5 h.r. 240 an act making appropriations for the department of homeland security for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2015, and for other purposes. mr. mcconnell: mr. president i understand there is a bill at the desk that is due a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: h.r. 596 an act to repeal the patient protection and affordable care act and health care-related provisions and health care and education reconciliation act of 2010, and for other purposes. mr. mcconnell: in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to further proceeding. the presiding officer: objection having been heard the bill will be placed on the

calendar. mr. mcconnell: mr. president yesterday democrats voted once again to protect politicians about blocking homeland security funding. i don't understand why they don't want -- why they'd want to block the senate from even debating a bill to fund homeland security. it really just doesn't make sense. you'd think our democratic friends would at least want to give the senate an opportunity to make improvements to the bill if they want to make such improvements. why would our friends want to stand tall for the ability of

politicians to do things president obama himself has described as unwise and unfair? why would our friends go to the mat to protect the political class from the consequences of overreach president obama has referred to himself as ignoring a law? well here's the good news. there is a way forward. there is a way to end this democratic filibuster. all it requires is a little common sense and a little democratic courage. remember several democrats previously indicated unease with the idea of overreaching in ways president obama has seemed to imply would -- quote -- "violate the law." end quote. so now is the time to back those words up. now is the time for our friends on the other side of good conscience to vote with us to break this party filibuster of homeland security funding and help us protect american democracy. now, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that the motion to proceed to h.r. 240 be

agreed to and that it be in order for the managers or their designees to offer amendments in alternating fashion with the majority manager or his designee being recognized to offer the first amendment. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: reserving the right to object. mr. president, there is bipartisan objection to the request by the majority leader, but, mr. president, it is worth spending a minute or two hearing what republican senators have had to say the last few hours. john mccain, the senior senator from yas, is that the definition of insanity? voting on the same bill over and over again? jim inhofe: "i think three's enough. there is division within the conference on this." jeff flake arizona: "we can go

through the motion, sure. but i don't think we're fooling anybody." another republican senator: "i wish we could take no for an answer and figure out the next step." mr. president, what has happened in the last 30 hours? we knew 30 hours ago about isis. we watched their brutality killing thousands and thousands of innocent people. going back, i guess in memory to the days we thought would never exist again. killing thousands and thousands of people many centuries ago. ginghis khan killing thousands of people. isis has been doing this but they also added things we watched not because we wanted to but because they forced us to. beheadings. somebody kneels down in front of them they cut off their head with a knife. they film that, send it around

the world for us to watch. but what happened 30 hours ago? the brutality we thought reached its pinnacle got worse. what isis did approximately 30 hours ago is put a jordanian pilot in a cage -- a cage -- dumped flammable liquid over that cage and then filmed that man being burned alive for 22 minutes. we have been forced to watch that. yes, isis is awful the worst uncivilized. but that's what we're dealing with. we're dealing with that. now, mr. president republicans have forced this entirely unnecessary debate. all the papers, not only the nevada papers, but pick up "the new york times," pick up "the washington post," you'll see a picture of a young woman from

nebraska. her name is blanca gimess. a young woman now she came to the united states as a baby -- a baby -- because of the direction taken by the president of the united states, this young woman and hundreds of thousands of others who dreamed of being able to lead a different life are now leading a different life. blanca has gotten two college degrees now. she's going to law school next year. she works she pays taxes. why in the world are republicans afraid of blanca? why? why? it's been said by martin heinreich, claire mass -- claire ma cass kill. it appears the republican senate is more afraid of dreamers than

they are of isil. mr. president, i know that the chairman of the subcommittee on homeland as it relates to appropriations came to the floor yesterday and talked about regular order. i say to my friend that regular order in the senate has a number of different connotations. one of them is clear so clear and that's why john mccain spoke out jeff flake jim inhofe and others spoke out. because in the senate, we need to fund our different subcommittees and appropriations and we've done that except homeland security. we have these terrorist acts all over the world taking place right now. we saw it in canada. we saw it in australia all over the european community. in paris all over there. we've had so many frightening things happen, and we, the united states of america are in a position where we're not going

to fund homeland security because of blanca gamez? mr. president, we would love to debate immigration. we've done it here on the senate floor before. it was a wonderful bipartisan debate and we're willing to do it again. and i'm going to offer consent -- i'm going to object to my friend's consent agreement. that's on the record. i'm going to make my own consent agreement. i'm going to make a consent agreement that seems to me to be pretty good. and what i ask is consent following the enactment of the text of the homeland security appropriations act for this year 2015, at a time to be determined by senator mcconnell, after consultation with me, but no later than monday march 16, the senate proceed to the consideration of border security, economic opportunity, immigration modernization act as passed by the senate by a vote of 68-32 in the year 2013, in june of that

year, the text of which is at the desk. that is my consent agreement. mr. mcconnell: mr. -- the presiding officer: there is an objection to the request of the majority leader. is there an objection to the request of the democratic leader? mr. mcconnell: mr. president reserving the right to object, just a correction to my good friend the majority leader. there is no republican opposition to the consent that the democratic leader objected to. it's clear on our side. it would allow us to have a fair amendment process. if there are differences with the house regular order as a remedy. it's called going to conference. none of this is possible while the democrats continue to filibuster even getting on the bill. and so, therefore i object. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: let me again state words i didn't make up. john mccain, actually

paraphrasing what albert einstein said. a true definition of insanity is someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over again with the same result. that's what john mccain said. is that the definition of insanity voting on the same bill over and over again and getting the same result? jim inhofe, i think three is enough. jeff flake, we can go through the motion but i don't think we're fooling anybody. another republican senator i wish we could take no for an answer. mr. president, there is bipartisan support to move forward on a free-standing bill that sends homeland security directly to the president. we want to do that. that's what should be done. that's regular order. and if you and the rest of the republicans -- i say this to the presiding officer -- want to come and debate immigration we're willing to do that, and that is what my consent agreement calls for. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: as my good friend the democratic leader reminds me, for eight years the majority leader always gets the last word. so let me say again the consent

that i offered to which the democratic leader objected was unanimously approved on our side. and what it would do would be to set up an order for amendments rotating from side to side which is exactly the open amendment process that the democratic leader seems to feel somehow we're preventing. that's exactly what i offered. i'm not going to propound if again, but i'll just lay out what it said. to offer amendments in an alternating fashion with the majority manager or his designee being recognized to offer the first amendment. we go back and forth and back and forth. so that's about as open as i can imagine. and so -- and it was, there were no objections to it on the republican side, regardless of how members who were being quoted by the democratic leader may have observed the overall process for going forward. there is no objection over here to having amendments on both

sides, alternating from one side to another. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the minority leader. mr. reid: the american are crying out that we defend our homeland. they're doing it around the rest of the world. why shouldn't we? that is what this is all about. you want to debate immigration go ahead and debate immigration. but not on the back of homeland security leaving it totally naked and not giving us the ability to do what needs to be done to protect our homeland. mr. mcconnell: mr. president there is a bipartisan desire to fund the department of homeland security and i'm sure we'll resolve this sometime in the next few weeks. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order the time until is 1 11:30 a.m. will be equally divided in the usual form. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the assistant minority leader. mr. durbin: the calendar of

business has been put on the desks of senators. it makes reference on page 12 to s. 272. that's a bill than that's been introduced by senator shaheen who is on the floor here and is the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee spooming for the department of homeland security -- responsible for the department of homeland security as well as senator barbara mikulski of maryland. this is on page 12 is the answer to our dilemma. this solves our problem. s. 272 is a bill that's going to fund the department of homeland security for the remainder of this year. this department that we count on every minute of ever day to protect america will receive all the funds they need and they'll receive it almost immediately because there's no debate between the house and the senate about how much to send to the department. the debate comes down to all the other extraneous matters which the house republicans added to this bill.

so if we're looking for a solution to the problem i thank the senator from new hampshire and the senator from maryland. we have page 12, s. 272. what the senate heard just a few moments ago from our democratic leader is something that none of us will ever get out of our minds. imagine, imagine this juror jordanian pilot cap -- this jordanian pilot captured, put into a cage with flammable fluids, liquids. they started a fire and burned him to death. the king of jordan was visiting the capital when that horrible news came out and rushed back to be with his countrymen. and he has now vowed that jordan which has played a crucial role in trying to find peace in the middle east, is now dedicated to stopping isis even more. so if isis thought they were going to break the resolve of the king of jordan and the

jordanian people, exactly the opposite occurred. if isis is resolute in their bear barrett -- bar barrett, we need -- barbarity, we need to be resolute. to think that not funding the department of homeland security is disgraceful. the secretary of the department of homeland security came to our lunch just a day or two ago. and he said, trying to operate this department, the department of homeland security, with this temporary funding is like trying to drive a car with a gas tank that only holds five gallons and you don't know where the next gas station is going to be. well that's what he's up against. and so the department of homeland security is unable to fund critical, necessary investments. so what is the issue? what is the political issue that is so important to the republicans that they would stop the funding for the department of homeland security? well i'll tell you what the lead issue is. the lead issue is dreamers.

14 years ago i introduced the dream act. i said, if you were brought to america as a child a toddler an infant, a small child by their family and they didn't file the papers so that you could be legal in america and you grew up in country and had no serious problems in your background graduated from high school and wanted to be part of america, we'd give you a chance. you'd have to go on to high school or enflies our -- or enlist in our military, we'd put you on the path to legal status. well we couldn't pass that. it would pass in the senate not in the house and so forth. finally, president obama stepped up. okay, there are about 2 million people in this country just like this brought to this country when they were kids and now they want a chance to work here, to live here, to even go to school here without fear of deportation. he created something called daca the daca program allowed

them to register, pay their fees and be protected from deportation. 600,000 signed up. 600,000. 35,000 in the state of illinois. they signed up so that they could get protection from deportation. the house republicans and the republicans in the senate have insisted that we deport these young people. let me tell you the story of one of these young people very quickly, because i know there are other senators seeking revolution. there is everardo arisa. he was brought to the at the age of 7. he grew up in costa mesa, california. he dreamed of being a doctor. it was not until he applied to college that he realized that his immigration status made that next to impossible. he was accepted at the university of california riverside, but because he was undocumented he didn't qualify for a penny of of federal

assistance to get through school. when he was a sophomore he met with a counselor to ask him how am i going to get to medical school? and the counselor told him you can't go to medical school. you are undocumented in the united states of america. he didn't give up. he did not give up. in 2012 he graduated from the university of of california riverside with a chemistry major and research honors and then a miracle occurred. president obama issued an executive order called daca and eduardo arias was given a chance to sign up for protection with this presidential order. and he did. after he received this daca protection eduardo worked for a year as a mentor for at-risk kids in his own hometown of costa mesa. the following year through americorps he worked in local clocks volunteering and working through americorps with some of

the poorest people living in his community. during his year as a health educator he decided now with the protection of daca to apply to go to medical school. eduardo arias is in his first year atlloylloy loyola school of med sun. he is one of 7 protected by daca to go to school. loyola said you can go to medical school but for every year you are in medical school, you have to promise to give one year of your professional life working with the poorest people in my home state of illinois, in small towns and rural areas as well as big cities. and he agreed to t he is a giving caring -- he has a giving care heart. he agreed to it. to finish medical school and give the years necessary of service back to the poorest people in my state. why do the republicans want to deport eduardo arias?

why do they want to take this outstanding individual who has struggled and succeeded in life, who knows no other country but america, and deport hum to mexico? -- deport him to mexico? will we be a better nation if this young man is not a doctor? will we be a better country if he's not given a chance to give back? here's what he wrote to me about this daca program which the republicans want to abolish. "daca changed my life," medical student arias wrote me. "it opened the door to the future ahead of me. if it were not for daca, i would not be here. i probably would not have pursued medicine. i am blessed to do what i want to do and to give back to the country that has given me so much." mr. president, we are a nation of imgrants. immigrants have come to this country and made it what it is. we should never forget that. this is the latest generation of

imgrants who want to give back to america and make us a stronger nation. why the americans are opposed to giving them that opportunity i cannot understand. they clearly have not met these young men and women. if they did their feelings would chapping. so let's debate this. let's have the debate on daca but not at the expense of the appropriation for this dment. page 12 of the senate calendar, senate bill 272 offered by senators shaheen and mikulski. here is our answer: a clean bill to protect america against 2reu68 andterrorism and start up then the debate on immigration. that's the right thing to do for our country. i yield the floor. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you mr. president. mr. president, in light of the eloquent remarks from the assistant democratic leader, who is my friend, i hope he will listen carefully to the proposal that i'm about to outline.

mr. president, in just over three weeks the law that funds the department of homeland security will expire, jeopardizing the department's ability to carry out its critical mission: legislation to provide funding to the department throughout the ermder of this fiscal year has passed the house and is awaiting action in the senate but progress has stalled. the democrats have blocked it from even being considered because it is not a "clean" bill. on my side of the aisle house republicans have insisted that provisions remain in the bill directing the administration to spend no funds implementing a series of president deption --

presidential orders issued over the past few years. the senate has held two votes this week to try to begin debate on this bill, both of which have failed on mere party lines. thus, we have reefed reached an impasse. in an attempt to find a path forward, yesterday i filed an amendment in the nature of a substitute that would accomplish three goals. first, it would ensure that the department of homeland security is fully funded to perform its vital mission to protect our people. second it would allow the senate to go on record in strong opposition to the president's extraordinarily broad immigration executive order issued last november. and, third it would protect the

dreamers whom senator durbin just talked about. now, let me go back to the november executive order. this particular executive order represents a misuse of the president's authority that threatens to undermine the separation of powers doctrine in our constitution. as the president himself has said more than 20 times he does not have the authority to expand the law in this manner. he made the exact point in remarks of july 2011 when he -- and i quote -- "i swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books. now i know some people want me to bypass congress and change the laws to my own but that's not how our system works.

that's not how our democracy functions. that's not how our constitution is written." end quote. mr. president, the president was exactly right when he stated that reality. the substitute that i propose would block the sweeping 2014 executive order but it does not overturn the more limited executive orders from past years. specifically my amendment would not undo the 2012 deferred action program that allowed dreamers young people brought to the united states by their parents years ago to receive legal status as long as they meet certain requirements. the house bill includes a controversial amendment which i do not support, that would

invalidate this 2012 program retroactively. my substitute accomplishes my third goal of protecting these children, who have grown up here who speak english have clean criminal records and often know no other country. they did not make the choice to come to america. that decision was made by their parent or pairptses. -- parent or parents. my substitute amendment therefore, is straightforward. first, the amendment mirrors the underlying bill with respect to the funding levels provided to the department of homeland security so that it can carry out its functions. ironically, there is not dispute over those funding levels. second it strikes the house

provision restricting the expenditure of funds to implement the dreamers program that i just described and that senator durbin just commented on. and third it retains the house prohibition on expenditures to fund the president's unauthorized action on immigration announced in november of last year. now let me make clear that congress should consider comprehensive immigration reform. the fact that there are now an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the united states is irrefutable evidence that our immigration and border security systems are broken badly. that is why i supported the bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the senate in

2013. while i was disappointed that immigration reform legislation of some sort did not become law i reject the notion that its failure can serve as a justification for the action taken by the president last november. he cannot do by executive fiat what congress refused to pass, regardless of the wisdom of congress's decision. such iewn lats ral -- such unilateral action is contrary to how our constitutional system is supposed to work and it risks undermining the separation of powers doctrine that is central to our constitutional framework. our constitution vests the power to make law in the legislative branch with congress, not with the president.

to the president it assigns the obligation to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. that was the rule used by the supreme court in 1952 in the famous youngs town sheet and tubing case that overturned president truman's executive order nationalizing the steel industry to prevent a strike during the korean war. as the court explained the president's power to faithfully execute the laws does not make him the lawmaker. the court said -- and i quote -- "the constitution limits his functions in the law-making process to the recommending of laws that he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad." in other words the president is not free to pick and choose

among laws, enforcing the ones that he likes and ignoring the ones that he doesn't. the president is fully aware of this fact. he has often made the point that he could go no farther than to protect the dreamers. here's what he said. congress has said here is the law when it comes to those who are undocumented. what we can do is to carve out the dream act saying young people who are basically grown up here are americans that we should welcome. but if we start broadening that, then essentially i would be ignoring the law in a way that i think would be very difficult to defend legally. so that's not an option.

those are the president's own words. the action taken by the president in november is a direct contradiction to his own statements. by acting unilaterally, ironically the president is making it less likely that congress will act to pass comprehensive reforms. he is undermining the efforts of those of us who favor immigration reform by diverting energy and attention away from that goal. i urge my colleagues to give consideration to the proposed compromise that i filed as a substitute yesterday. it will ensure that the men and women on the front lines of the department of homeland security can do their vitally important

jobs. it will overturn the president's misuse of his executive authority last november. and it will protect the legal status of children brought to this country by their parents years ago. mr. president, i believe i have put forth a reasonable, constructive compromise that could get us out of this impasse that is such a disservice to so many. i hope my colleagues will join together and support the substitute i have proposed. thank you mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: thank you. first, i want to once again compliment my colleague the

senior senator from maine. she is always looking for a compromise. she is always looking to try to work in a constructive way and i appreciate -- i don't appreciate the results she's asked for which i'll talk about in a second, but i'll always appreciate her efforts. mr. president, we have a very simple position here. it's a position that's logical. it's a position even republicans, as leader reid has mentioned, have talked about. pass a clean homeland security bill and then go to the foor and debate amendments. debate senator collins' amendment. debate senator cruz's amendment. debate any immigration amendments you want. but to repeat, we will not be held hostage. the american people don't want a gun to their head, particularly when it involves security, to debate immigration. we know that. we know what the junior senator from texas is doing.

everyone on the other side knows it. and of course we're not going to go along. so my dear friend from maine comes up with a new solution. all it is, it's still hostage taking because it's attached to funding the homeland security bill. we're now only debating the size of the ransom. and we will not do it. we are not going to be pressured, be bullied that we have to do this or that immigration reform as a price to fund homeland security. it's too vital to america. it's too vital to our country. it's not the way legislating should work. and my dear colleagues from the other side should have learned a lesson a year and a half ago. when they threatened to shut down the government unless they get their feel, no matter how deeply they feel of the

substance, they lose. the junior senator from texas is leading his republican colleagues at best, into a cul-de-sac and at worst over a cliff. and i don't think they want to follow but the house is in a box and says show us, show us that the senate won't pass the bill. well we won't. we are not into hostage taking. we are not into being bullied. we are not into legislating with a gun to our heads. and my guess is the white house would not support anything like this either. so to my dear republican friends, go back to the drawing board. you control the senate. you're in charge. it's your responsibility to find a way out of this. and our way is simple, as leader reid outlined. first, pass clean homeland security. protect our security. then place on the floor

immigration. we welcome the debate. we welcome the debate on mr. cruz's amendment. we welcome debate on senator collins' amendment. but not as a hostage taker. again, all senator collins is doing is saying what is the size of the ransom, but we're still doing hostage taking. i yield the floor. mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: how much time is left on this side? the presiding officer: there's 10 1/2 minutes left. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would ask to be notified after 7 minutes. the presiding officer: the chair will so notify you. mr. sessions: mr. president the key part of the president's unlawful executive amnesty the overwhelming majority of it, actually that's involved in the house bill deals with adults,

providing them work permits. it's not about the young people as been discussed. it involves four million-plus people. so we've talked at length about the president's executive action and how he is unlawfully, unconstitutionally making law. senator collins laid that out. only congress can make law. we have shown that the law he has created is law that he proposed and that congress specifically rejected. we've shown that the president himself has at least 20 times said he does not have the power to take this action, rightly declaring he's not an emperor -- that's his words -- and that congress makes laws. and that is so true. so now senator mcconnell has moved to bring up the house-passed legislation that fully funds all lawful aspects of the homeland security

department and all its lawful actions to protect the homeland. but the legislation has one thing in it. it simply bars the president from spending any money to execute his unlawful executive directions. you can fund the department, but you can't do that. it stops the department of homeland security from outlaw activity. this is a matter of great constitutional importance. it is an additional matter of great importance to working americans, and we've got to get clear about this. what the president is doing is giving lawful status to over four million adults, persons who entered our country against the law, or came in and overstayed their time. these persons under current law cannot be hired by any business

or employer. but the president wants them to work anyway. congress considered and rejected this plan. the result is that the president's plan will be a further kick in the teeth to down and struggling american workers. the facts are clear on this. i'm not seeing them disputed. median family income since the recession 2007-2009 declined by almost $5,000. this is a catastrophic event. this is unbelievable damage to american middle-class workers. this is median income. such a decline is unprecedented since the great depression 80 years ago. while some say jobs and wages are recovering, we can stop, and we can stop worrying about that, the facts show otherwise. in addition to depressed

incomes, america has the lowest percentage of persons in the working years that are actually working in 40 years. so consider this, there were huge worker layoffs during the 2009 recession and many more had hours reduced as a result of obamacare and other events. there are other factors that combined to reveal that job and wage conditions are much worse than the unemployment rate would indicate. gallup has done some numbers showing under that employment statistic, if you work part time just a few hours you're counted as employed. if you are an engineer and work at mcdonald's because you have nothing else you're counted as employed. despite these problems -- a slow economy, job-killing automation and low wages -- the president is carrying out his unlawful plan rejected by congress that would give five million person

unlawfully here legal status, a social security number, a photo i.d. and the right to take any job that may be available in america. his policies are in perfect accord with his nominee for attorney general, loretta lynch. when i asked her this simple question last week i got a surprising answer. question: who has more right to a job in this country? a lawful immigrant who's here or a citizen, or a person who entered the country unlawfully? answer -- quote -- "i believe that the right and the obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came here. and certainly if someone is here regardless of status, i would prefer that they would be participating in the workplace than not participating in the

workplace." close quote. so that's the testimony just last week by the chief law enforcement officer in the land who is supposed to be enforcing the laws of the country. that's her view of who should be at work, regardless of how you came here, you're entitled to work and apparently take any job in america. i think it was a moment of candor that may have been inadder have tent. she tried to modify that later i acknowledge. but essentially all she said was, well, i don't think anybody should work except those the president says should work -- and that would include the 5 million who are here unlawfully. so let's be clear. these 5 million americans with that new government-issued documents will be able to apply for and take any of the few jobs now available in the economy. sadly, the problem in america is not too few workers but too few jobs. last year the administration celebrated the creation of over

2 million jobs. the president's actions would create from unlawful immigration over twice that many workers in one single executive act. millions more americans who lost jobs during the recession still haven't found work today. so is this the right thing to do? i don't think so, and neither do the american people by a wide margin. but arrogantly, the president refuses to listen to the legitimate concerns of hurting americans. he dismisses them and supported by his palace guard in the united states senate who block legislation -- the presiding officer: the senator from alabama has used seven minutes. the. mr. sessions: i thank the chair and will wrap up and save some time for senator hoeven.. so he pushes on to those lusting

lusting after votes for the next election. businesses who have become so transnational that their interests no longer can be seen as combatable oftentimes with american workers. the president supports them. he represents the interests -- but i ask who represents the interests of dutiful american citizens. who is speaking out for their interests? they're the ones that are forgotten. so i am going to make a prediction. their voices will going to be heard. no longer in secret will the legitimate wishes of good and decent americans be denied. the people's voices will be heard. the day of the special interest operatives tone-deaf politicians and those with the loudest voices will end. this time the american people will get what they rightly demand: the protection of the laws already on the books. they will force the political

class to end the massive lawlessness and to produce an immigration system that serves the national interests not the special interests. they will force these self-interested forces out of the seats of power and demand policies that protect their wages, their jobs, their national security, and their government budgets. mr. president, i thank the chair. i appreciate the opportunity to speak on this, and i hope when we vote soon that our colleagues will recognize that it's time to maybe consider the opportunity senator collins has said will be provided them, to have amendments and we'll go forth and do the right thing for the american people. i would yield the floor. mr. hoeven: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator north dakota. mr. hoeven: i would like to thank my colleagues, both from alabama and from maine for coming down to the floor and saying, let's do the work of the senate. let's advance to this department of homeland security bill. let's offer amendments. let's have the debate.

let's fund the department, but let's make sure that we do it in the right way and where we protect the checks and balances built into this government by our forefathers. mr. president, for the last few days i have come to the floor to call ateption to the importance -- attention to the importance of voting "yes" on the motion to proceed to the department of homeland security appropriations bill for 2015, h.r. 240. i wish that weren't the case. i'd hoped that by now we'll be much closer to passing a funding bill for the department that the senate would have proceed to the d.h.s. appropriations bill and that we could begin the process of debate, of considering amendments, and of developing consensus of getting our work done. yet here we are on the third day just trying to proceed to funding the department of homeland security, a department that fen agrees is vital. and that's -- that everyone agrees is vital.

and that's what this bill does. it funds the department fully and completely,ances and it does it in the right way by enforcing the law. mr. president, i don't have to tell my colleagues that the defining attributes of the senate come from the senators' ability to debate and to amend legislation. debate an amendment -- the presiding officer: time has expired. mr. hoeven: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent for another three minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? seeing none -- the senator from new hampshire. hurricane katrina hoon i certainly want-- mrs. shaheen: i certainly want to give my colleague time to finish his remarks. i want to make certain there will be an opportunity for me to also speak before the vote. the presiding officer: the senator will be advised that there are nine minutes and 54 seconds remaining. mrs. shaheen: that's fine. mr. hoeven: if my colleague from new hampshire prefers to go and i can follow -- either way. okay i'd luke to like to thank the

gentlelady from the great state of new hampshire. debate an amendment. debate an amendment. that's what we're talking about going to this bill that funds the department of homeland security and having the debate and offering amendments. that's what i'm asking for. and that's what we need in order to address the issues like the one that my good friend and colleague from new hampshire raised on tuesday. she's the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee on the department of homeland security and she asked -- made a request in terms of a parliamentary point of order a budget point of order and she made the inquiry. and it's a valid point of order one that can and should be debated and we should have the opportunity to vet on it. but you can't vote on it unless you proceed to the bill. and so let's proceed to the bill. let's have that debate. bring up the point of order and let's have a vote. and let's have amendments. that's how we do our work in the senate.

but despite the best efforts of republicans to provide that opportunity for debate by proceeding to this bill, to move forward, we're met with "no"'s from the other side of the aisle. in essence we're being filibustered a tactic that was decried as obstructionist in the previous congress. in case my friends on the other side think this is going unnoticed, they could check the headlines. look no further than an article from ann. "democrats block funding for d.h.s. to protect obama immigration orders." or "the washington times," "democrats filibuster d.h.s. funding bill. block g.o.p. amnesty debate." mr. president, these headlines speak to a central flaw in the arguments of those who say we need a d.h.s. bill but then vote against this senate proceeding to that very bill.

so on the one hand they're saying, we need a bill, but they won't go to the funding bill that is here before us and that's exactly what we're voting and trying to do is to proceed to the d.h.s. funding bill, with an amendment process with open debate. just yesterday one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle stated that the senate takes up h.r. 240, the homeland security appropriations bill it would simple simply be a delaying tactic. how can moving to the bill that directly addresses the d.h.s. funding issue constitute delay? in order to pass a d.h.s. funding bill, we have to be allowed to proceed to the bill. the truth, of course, is the delay is in fact coming from those who won't allow us to take up the bill, debate it and consider amendments and pass it. the presiding officer: the senator's three minutes have expired. mr. hoeven: with that, mr. president, at this point i would yield to my colleague. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you very much mr. president.

mr. president, in a few minutes the senate is going to cast yet another procedural vote on the department of homeland security's funding bill. the bill that's before us, the house-passed version of the funding bill, can't become law. we've already heard the president reaffirm yesterday that he's going to veto the house-passed bill that's before us. and that means that we could face a shutdown of the department of homeland security and, at this point given the threats from terrorism given the work that's done by the department of homeland security, that's just not a tenable position to be in. p and let me just say i very much appreciate the efforts of my clerks my neighbor -- my colleague from my neighboring state of maine, the senior senator from maine senator collins. but the amendment that she is put forward still raises some serious concerns about the impact on our security because

it includes language that would defund all of the department of homeland security directives from november 20 2014, which would direct -- so it would defund those provisions that direct law enforcement officers to place top priority on national security threats convicted felons, gang members illegal entrants aplea entrants apprehended at the border. it also defunds the southern border and approaches campaign which establishes three joint task forces to reduce the terrorism risk to the nation. and, as she has indicated it defunds the deferred action programs. while she is suggested that it would allow the 2012 executive action that reefs to the dreamers to -- that refers to the dreamers to stay in place

it raises serious questions about whether uscis could effectively process renewals of those dreamers, like the young man that senator durbin spoke so eloquently about so that -- who knows what the court action could be on that? while i appreciate the effort, i don't think it adequately addresses the kerps concerns that we have in the democratic caucus that we need to pass a clean bill. we need to have a separate debate about immigration. the presiding officer worked very hard two years ago to help us get a comprehensive immigration reform bill that most of us didn't agree with everything in it, but most of us supported. and we're happy to have that debate but what we need now is a clean bill, one that allows the funding for the department

of homeland security to go forward. and i noticed on the news this morning, one of the issues that is at risk in this debate over whether we're going to support funding for the department and the security of this nation versus an ideological objection to the president -- this morning one of the lead items on the news had to do with the cybersecurity breech at anthem the second-largest health insurance company in the country. i happen to have my health insurance through anthem, so i paid particular ateption attention to this. but one of the things that's in this clean bill that was agreed to last december by senator mikulski and congressman rogers was funding for the cybersecurity center within the department of homeland security to address the next-generation

threat to our cyber networks. that's critical funding that we need if we're going to intercept the kinds of breaches that we saw with anthem and heard about this morning. and yet that funding is at risk because there's not agreement to get a clean bill done to fund the department of homeland security. now, what we've heard from almost everybody who has spoken is that we agree that we should fund the department of homeland security that we agree to the dollar levels that are in that bill we agree to making sure that the safety and security of this country should be paramount. so -- and we've heard a number of our colleagues from the other side of the aisle and from the house who have said, ultimately this is about getting a clean bill. so we should do that now. we should provide certainty. we should get this done, and we should stop having an

ideological debate about whether we're going to support immigration and the president or whether we're going to support the safety and security of this nation. i think we should all be able to agree that the safety and security of america comes first and we should get this clean bill done and then we can go on and debate immigration reform. so can you tell me, mr. president, how much time i have left? the presiding officer: there is one minute and 20 seconds. mrs. shaheen: well, thank you. i think it's worth noting some of the great work that's done by the department of homeland security which interfaces more with the american people than any other department. every day customs and border protection processes nearly a million travelers entering the united states and seizes 19,000 pounds of illegal drugs between the ports of entry. the transportation security administration the people who work at our airports, screen 2 million people and their

baggage. the coast guard poo trolls 3.4 million miles of borders. every day fema provides 3.7 million in federal disaster grants to individuals and households and provides 22 million to states and local communities for disaster response and recovery. every day the federal law enforcement training center trains 8,000 officers from across the country. this work is just too important for our security to be delayed or disrupted because of ideological reasons concerning immigration reform. mr. president, and my colleagues, we need to pass a clean full-year homeland security funding bill. we need to pass it without controversial riders. i hope we will do that, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: all time is expired. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion. we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions

of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to h.r. 240 making appropriations for the department of homeland security for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2015. signed by 16 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the motion to proceed to h.r. 240 an act making appropriations for the department of homeland security for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2015, and for other purposes shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 52, the nays are 47. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative the motion is not agreed to. mr. mcconnell: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i enter a

motion to reconsider the vote. the presiding officer: the motion is entered. the senator from utah. mr. lee: madam president republicans in the senate are ready to begin debating the bill to fund the department of homeland security. but in order to do that, we must first vote to proceed to the bill and democrats have blocked us from doing that. they've done that yet again today. now, this is simply a procedural vote, but it's a very important procedural vote. it's a threshold vote without which other votes cannot and will not occur. voting yes on a motion to proceed to this bill doesn't mean that you support the bill. so regardless of which way you vote it it doesn't suggest malnatural which way you lean on the underlying merits of this bill. it doesn't mean you support this or that amendment it simply means you're willing to engage in an open, transparent and

public debate about the future of homeland security. and about making sure that the department charged with this task is funded. now, why would our friends across the aisle be a be afraid of that? some may say because they support funding homeland security. why do my friends on the other side of the aisle vote against proceeding to this bill? well the ditches might be fobbed in the fact that many of them also support the president's incredibly unpopular and controversial action to grant amnesty to 5 million illegals here inside the united states individuals who will now be eligible for work permits and in some cases entitlement benefits. but the american people don't support that. they certainly don't support the action the president took and the way he did it.

they oppose the way president obama went around congress. they oppose the fact that president obama ignored the law. they oppose the damage this policy will do to american workers who are already struggling to find work and to remain employed. they oppose the crisis that this kind of action is creating and will continue to create at the border. as we saw last summer with so many children making that dangerous trip to get into this country and to do it the wrong way to get here illegally. and now that the american people have put republicans in charge in the majority in the senate, we're trying to keep our promise to them, to do what they sent us here to do, and to hold a vote on president obama's action in this regard. but the democrats seem to be reluctant to take that vote. they seem to not want to take it. perhaps they are a frayed of it. -- perhaps they're afraid of it. why know. maybe that's why they refuse to

even begin consideration of this bill plain and simple. this effort to try to hide from the american people is embarrassing and i.t. wrong. -- and it's wrong. now, my friends across the aisle may say they have an alternative bill and that we should pass their alternative bill immediately. there are at least two problems with this approach. first, that may have been the way the senate functioned under the previous majority, writing bills in back rooms waiting until the last minute to make the bills public, then filling the tree, which means making it impossible for anyone to amend the bill once it gets to the floor, having virtually no debate and then ramming the bill through without any input from the american people, without adequate debate here, and adequate virtually any debate here. that's just not the way the senate is supposed to work. and that's not the way the senate does work and will continue to work under the

republican majority. and, second, traditionally appropriations bills don't start in the senate. in fact, the house has not considered a senate-originated appropriations bill for over 100 years, since at least 1901, the period for which these kinds of records are readily available. and, unfortunately for them, the bill the democrats want is not supported in the house. why? well precisely because it's not supported by the american people people. madam president it's time to stop delaying democracy. it's time to stop hiding from the american people. it is time to fund the department of homeland security, and it's time to have this debate and discussion about the president's actions actions that many people regard as unlawful actions that people have different feelings about as

far as the underlying policy, but that the overwhelming majority of the american people look at and say look ... even if i like the underlying policy here, i don't like the way the president did it. the way you change the law under our constitutional system is to go to congress and get something passed through congress. sours not a government of -- ours is not a government of one madam president. ours is a government in that we have two entities charged with making the law. the president cannot act alone. so my plea to my colleagues, particularly those across the aisle is let's have a vote and then let's have a debate. when we have the vote and we have the debate, we'll get to the point where we can fund the department of homeland security and keep our nation funded. in the meantime, we shouldn't be keeping these important programs. we shouldn't be holding them back simply out of a desire to protect the president in his actions that are outside the law. thank you, madam president.

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: madam president i ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. hirono: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: i rise to ask my colleagues to pass a clean appropriations bill that funds the department of homeland security or d.h.s. listening to my friend, the senator from utah, it is very clear that the republican position on this bill that is before us today is totally dependent on their assertion that the president's recent actions on immigration is illegal. democrats do not concur with that. in fact, i thought illegality of any actions should be determined by courts of law.

what the president did recently is no different than like presidential actions taken by presidents reagan and bush, i might add. so we must fund d.h.s. and resist the temptation to govern through manufactured crises and political games. our national security is at stake. surely my colleagues remember when d.h.s. was created in a direct response to the terrorist attacks on september 11, 2001. just 11 days after 9/11, d.h.s. started to take shape. president yogi george w. bush created an office to coordinate a comprehensive and national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism and respond to any future attacks.

d.h.s.'s mission is to protect our homeland, as their name makes perfectly clear. d.h.s. is responsible for border security and immigration enforcement. it is tasked with keeping our airports safe through t.s.a., for emergency management response through fema, and protecting our coasts through the coast guard. as a member on the senate armed services committee and senate select committee on intelligence i know how important the work that d.h.s. does in keeping our nation safe. let's take a step back and remember why d.h.s. was created in the first place and what their mission is. why should we play politics with a department that exists to protect americans? d.h.s. funding runs out at the end of this month and the clock is ticking.

the nearly 200,000 who work for d.h.s. do not want us spending valuable time scoring political points. they want the certainty that their important work will be funded by congress. if the department is not funded by the end of the month we probably will once again resort to passing a continuing resolution to keep the department going. a continuing resolution is only stopgap. it is a waste of time and money. as the d.h.s. secretary johnson said operating in a stop-and-go cycle of continuing resolutions is like trying to drive a car across the country on no more than five gallons of gas at a time and without knowing the distance to the next gas station. of the nearly 200,000 d.h.s. employees across the country country,2,000 are based in i had

i had. nobody will get paid if d.h.s. gets shut down. some will be furloughed while many others will be forced to -- forced as essential employees to continue showing up for work without pay. we count on the coast guard the t.s.a. our customs and u.s. citizenship and immigration services, which are all part of d.h.s., to be on the job every day. some of my republican colleagues insist that before we fund the critical work of homeland security we must first undo the president's commonsense immigration actions that help millions of families across the country. the house bill before us holds d.h.s. funding hostage to make political points against the president. this is a manufactured standoff. the house bill attacks the undocumented persons who have american-born children. these are u.s. citizen children.

the president's actions enable these families to step out of the shadows pass background checks pay their taxes and work in the open without the daily threat of deportation. the house bill attacks dreamers, the students who have been helped through the daca program for nearly three years. just yesterday president obama met with six dreamers in the oval office who represent some of the very best that our country has to offer. the house bill says to these dreamers you too like the parentsparents of u.s.-born children, should live under the daily threat of deportation. and there are 600,000 dreamers in the daca program throughout the country. the house bill reverses long-standing enforcement priorities and directives that d.h.s. has implemented. these directives tell immigration enforcement officers to focus on the bad guys rather

than on the moms, the dads, and other contributing members of our communities. the house bill, in removing all administrative discretion on who should be deported, in effect says all 12 million undocumented persons in our country can be deported. this is totally unrealistic and unnecessary. i stand with my colleagues who are ready and willing to come together to pass bipartisan immigration reform. we did just that last congress with 68 bipartisan votes. and, as republican senator heller said recently, the house bill that is before us -- quote -- "only includes language that contemplates -- that complicates the process of finding a solution." end quote. when it comes to immigration reform. this house bill embraces a policy of mass deportation that

would harm our economy costing trillions in economic loss, not to mention the devastating impact on the people targeted. economists have told us that comprehensive immigration reform will provide an enormous boost to our economy helping all workers across the country. so the house bill does not reform our system, the house bill does not help millions of students and families come out of the shadows it does not provide more resources to our hardworking border patrol agents it does not help those who have been stuck in our visa backlog for decades. rather than debating comprehensive immigration reform the house has once again ducked the issue this time holding d.h.s. hostage so that a small minority of their colleagues can have their way. this is like groundhog day.

a repeat scenario that brings us continuing resolutions to keep government going in a stop- stop-and-go fashion and indeed a scenario that brought us the government shutdown in 20136789 we do not have to keep repeating failed scenarios. let's bring a clean d.h.s. funding bill to the floor. let's get that done, then move on to the debate on comprehensive immigration reform that is long overdue. i yield back. mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: first, i would have a unanimous consent request for the leader. i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they've been approved by both the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. grassley: madam president two days ago abc ran a story on their "nightline" program that brought to light issues with the immigrant investor program. this program is also known as eb-5. this immigration program was created by congress in 1990. it was created to stimulate the u.s. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. in 1992, congress further added the regional center component that allows participants to pool dollars for foreign investors. the story on "nightline" detailed how visas and green cards are for sale for a mere

half million dollars. it also highlighted how spies and terrorists can use the program to enter the country risking our national security and undermining the real intent of the program. for the past few years whistle-blowers have come to me about the fraud abuse and national security problems with that program. a december, 2013 audit of the eb-5 program conducted by the department of homeland security office of inspector general substantiated several of these concerns. the o.i.g. report concluded that the u.s. customs immigration service is unable to demonstrate

the benefits of foreign investment into the u.s. economy, in other words questioning whether the original intent of the program were being accomplished. specifically the office of inspector general found that the united states customs and immigration service could not validate whether the e everyone 5 program actually -- eb-5 program actually created 49,000 jobs. in addition a 2013 internal memorandum from customs enforcement homeland security investigations noteed that's -- quote -- "the nature of indirect job growth is problematic" -- end of quote. now, allow me, please, to discuss the fraud issues related to the program. the eb-5 program requires a

foreign national to invest $1 million in order to obtain a visa. however,s there's a lower threshold for projects that are in high unemployment or rural areas. investors have exploited this loophole. as noteed in press reports some metropolitan areas are drawing their own maps or jerry manneddering fond to -- jerry mannedderring in order to meet this low thrilled. the customs service ignores the problem and doesn't question it. additionally, there are serious concerns that the u.s. customs and immigration service does not adequately verify the documentation and the source of funds from investors. adjudicators do not thoroughly check how an investor has

received $500,000 and whether the funds are even legitimate. finally, let me elaborate what's probably more important the national security concerns, and remember, the federal government's number-one responsibility is the national security of this country. so in regard to those national security concerns in 2012 several agencies came together to draft a forensic assessment of financial flows relating to the eb-5 regional center program, and the department of homeland security office of intelligence and analysis produced an intelligence report of the program's vulnerabilities. the same i.c.e. memorandum that highlighted issues with regional

centers also identified its seven main areas of vulnerability within the eb-5 program. i won't go to all seven of them but i want to use four as an example. number one export-sensitive technology educate economic espionage. two, use by foreign government agencies in espionage. use by terrorists. and four, illicit financing and money laundering. now, let me make it very clear that this i.c.e. memorandum identified seven areas of vulnerability, and i just gave you four dealing with sensitive technology economic espionage, the use by foreign government agencies of -- and

etch yawning use by terrorists and -- and espionage, use by terrorists. i know i repeated that but the eb-5 program is being undercut by people who don't mind hurting the national security of our country. so to be repetitive on an important point, there are numerous national security concerns and that is why in my september 2014 dear colleague letter i invited my colleagues, all of them, to review classified information on this program. today, then, i want to renew this invitation and urge senators and those staff who have clearances to view these

documents to do so in the office of senate security. i will be sending another hope of the dear colleague letter which contains the document numbers to access the material at the office of senate security. so kind of summing up, we have whistle-blower allegations supported by documentation. we have findings by the inspector general. we have classified information about attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities of the program. and finally we have numerous press reports that highlight the fraud and the abuse. so i think it's time that congress ask whether this program is worth the national security risk posed and whether or not this program can be fixed

to accomplish the goals that were set out in 1990. the eb-5 program will require reauthorization by the end of fiscal year 2015, and i want my colleagues to know that i will be demanding reform before this is done or in conjunction with any renewal. i do believe if changes are made the eb-5 program could benefit the u.s. economy as originally intended by congress in 1990. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: i rise to speak on the homeland security funding bill. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mrs. feinstein: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you madam president. i ask to speak on the bill for such time as i may use. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much. madam president, i come here today to support legislation to fully fund the department of homeland security, to say why and without any extraneous or politically controversial policy

riders. so let me be clear -- the immigration provisions that were approved in the house are bill killers. we have now had three votes on cloture. the votes have held steady. it is clear that the votes are not here to pass a bill out of the senate with the riders attached to it. i just want to say the importance of homeland security because i was in the senate when the department was developed and it's a combination of 22 departments. it has over 200,000 employees. and over the years it has become more and more vital to efforts to prevent terrorist attacks on this country. so how you might say? t.s.a. a member of that department funded by that department screens airline passengers within the united states while customs and border

protections screens passenger data of travelers entering the country. so it's irresponsible to endanger these missions in the wake of terrorist attacks in paris, ottawa, sidney and elsewhere. secondly d.h.s. plays a critical role in responding to natural disasters. resources and personnel from fema, which is funded there are vital in times of flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. third, d.h.s. also guards against cyber warfare through network security, electronic crimes investigations and state and local cyber crime training. so it's hard to fathom delaying an $861 million for cybersecurity the same day we learn about the massive cyber attack against anthem blue

cross. a number of key national security programs unrelated to immigration would also be endangered. these include the federal air marshal service the secret service, the transportation security administration and d.h.s. intelligence activities. ironically blocking this bill over immigration riders would also delay increased funding for border patrols and more manpower to combat human smuggling and trafficking, which so many members of this house want. holding up this bill will also delay or reduce more than $2.5 billion in grants for state and local law enforcement agencies and emergency responders. this puts our country in jeopardy. these grants helped with transit and port security, firefighter assistance state homeland stiewrt security.

make no mistake, homeland security is very active in securing our borders and deporting dangerous individuals. it has a wonderful director. i think every member of this body appreciates jey johnson knows the role he played with a sudden influx of children into our country on the southern border and knows his effectiveness in bringing together what has been a very ungainly combination of 22 agencies into a smoothly run entity. so this must be very disappointing to him. in fiscal year 2014, immigration and customs enforcement deported 315,943 people, focusing its efforts on removing criminals and the agency was successful in that goal. 56% of those removed last year had been convicted of crimes.

that's 177,960 fewer criminals on our streets. i would say good job. rather than holding d.h.s. and our national security hostage i urge my colleagues to support the bill introduced by senators mikulski and shaheen to provide full funding for d.h.s. at levels necessary to do its job. now, we can't keep funding this agency with short-term continuing resolutions. it doesn't make sense and we certainly can't keep threatening to shut it down. you know, yesterday in our joint meeting, i had an opportunity to say what this body was like when i came to it. i think i could come, say with certainty this wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. we would have recognized the importance of the agency and told people come back on another

bill at another time, but the importance of getting some regular order in our appropriation bills are really important because we're not getting regular appropriation bills passed, and so this is so important that i think everyone thought it wouldn't be disturbed. instead, these policy riders are stuck on it. the people who put them on know that they are offensive to just about half of this body, and it's going to present a major challenge to get a bill passed. let me talk a little bit about the issue and that's the five riders that republicans want to add to the bill. the goal, i think -- and i think everyone would agree with this -- is to unravel temporary actions that president obama has taken in an effort to make sense of what is we all admit a broken

immigration system. these actions i would note, wouldn't have been necessary if the house had voted on the bipartisan senate immigration reform bill. that passed in 2013 by a vote of 68-32. 68-32. it was the product of months of intense negotiations and hearings. i remember it well. there were, i think eight members, bipartisan, who negotiated to put together a bill before the judiciary committee. i am a member of the judiciary committee. the judiciary committee debated the bill for weeks. a total of some 300 amendments were filed. some 212 amendments in committee were considered, half of which were republican, and 136

amendments were adopted. but the house refused to even debate this bill which in my view -- and i have been here a long time -- has been the result of the most profound bipartisan effort on a big bill in the last 20 years and the house even refused to recognize it by a debate let alone a vote, let alone passing something some part of the bill so that there could be a conference and differences reconciled. and so now the house comes to us by putting what they know are going to be highly problematic riders on what is an absolutely crucial appropriation bill. this is the kind of thing i tried to say yesterday that just doesn't make sense to me, madam president. it would not have happened some time ago. people would not have tried to force their will through on an

important bill when they knew they didn't have the votes and if three votes on cloture don't show that, i don't know what really will. let me just quickly -- and you know this as well as i do, but the root of the problem is that we've got more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants in our country, and congress only provides enough funding to deport around 4,000 people a year. so clearly we can't deport everybody, so choices have to be made. so do we focus limited enforcement resources on real threats like criminals and terrorists i say yes or do we spread our resources thin, treating murderers the same way we treat schoolchildren who have been in the country for years? i say no. i stand firmly with the president in the belief that we

must focus on actual threats and we must prioritize. one of the temporary programs that the other side seeks to eliminate is known as the deferred action for childhood arrivals. i hate acronyms but the acronym is daca. this program allows law-abiding individuals brought to the united states as children to remain here without fear of being deported from the only home they have ever known. they can stay for three-year increments as long as they don't break the law. republicans want to scrap this program and place these individuals into the same category as dangerous criminals. in california, my state, that would mean 450,000 young people who were brought to the united states as children who have lived nowhere else would immediately be eligible for deportation.

the house riders also seek to remove protections for parents of united states citizens and permanent residents including 1.1 million parents in california. that would have the effect of breaking up many families that have lived here for years. i personally saw it happen in san diego when in the middle of the night immigration officers came into a home and picked up the parents and deported them, leaving the children in the home. the parents had been here, they were working they had paid their taxes and now the children were left -- fortunately as i understand that incident, relatives were able to come because the children were born here and helped take care of them. but you can imagine the cases where there was no one to help. so this clear has an effect of breaking up many families that may have lived here for years.

so let me be clear. the political -- and i really believe they are political -- riders weighing down this appropriations bill are not designed to fix our immigration system but rather to weaken it and with the goal of embarrassing the president. we should not do that on any bill let alone a bill that's as important as this one. it's not just senate democrats who think these riders are bad policy. 62% of americans in last month's january poll supported -- and i quote -- "an executive order that would allow some illegal immigrants already in the united states to stay here temporarily and apply for a work permit if certain requirements are met" -- end quote. so 602% -- 62% of the people said yes to that question and

that's precisely what the president has done. a combined 69% of americans supported an immigration policy that lets unauthorized immigrants remain in the united states. 54% supported a path to citizenship and another 15% supported legal status but no path to citizenship. so to the extent we get our guidance from the american people rather than this or that political party, you can see what the view of americans on -- are on this and i think it's because we've had this issue debated in this forum several times. this isn't the first big immigration bill. it's the second in about the last -- i don't remember, six or eight years that has come out of committee come to the floor with an agreement and

fallen apart, been negotiated bipartisan. so to have then this bill that we passed go to the house, the house would have a legitimate chance to make any amendments they might want to make, rather than put this rider on this bill and pass over to us a bill which could then go to conference and we could work out around the table the way business should be done to come together to present what we can agree upon, both houses, to pass into law. that's the process here, and that's one of the really big changes in this body over recent history. we always tried to follow regular order. appropriations bills in regular order now are virtually nonexistent and it's really too bad because it weakens the committee structure it weakens the institution as a whole it makes it beholding to a few and

it doesn't do the people's business. and as i said yesterday it's one of the reasons why our favorability rating as a congress is something like 16% favorable. so i say please, let's take these policy riders off let's learn from the experience, let's pass this bill, let's encourage the presentation of our -- it's a new congress, i recognize the bill has to be reintroduced but an immigration bill can certainly be reintroduced. we've had a lot of experience in working it and we can do it once again and then perhaps the house would be willing to look at it, to debate it, and maybe even to give us the respect of voting on it. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: mr. president, i ask the quorum call be dispensed with please. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: thank you mr. president. i rise today to discuss the bipartisan sportsman's act. i'm pleased to join my colleagues in introducing this legislation. i am grateful for the

opportunity to work with my colleagues on legislation that will promote our country's hunting, fishing and conservation heritage. the bill does a lot of good things. it prevents antihunting groups from restricting sportsman's ammunition choices which would unnecessarily drive up hunting costs it would impede participation in shooting sports and consequently decrease conservation funding. the sportsman's act provides states with more flexibility to build and maintain public shooting ranges in order to provide americans with more opportunities to engage in recreational and competitive shooting activities. the legislation also expands and enhances hunting and fishing opportunities on federal lands by establishing a more open policy for access to recreational activities on our public lands.

i'm especially encouraged by the fact that this bill contains provisions that i have championed that would increase transparency regarding the judgment fund. it has the potential to help our efforts to track taxpayer-funded litigation that impacts our public land policies. as my colleagues may or may not know the judgment fund is administered by the treasury department and is used to pay certain court judgments and settlements against the federal government. essentially, this fund acts as an unlimited amount of money that is set aside to pay for federal government liability. it is not subject to an annual appropriation, and even more remarkably the treasury department has no reporting requirements so these funds are paid out with very little oversight or scrutiny.

this is no small matter, as the judgment fund disburses billions of dollars in payments every year. because the treasury department has no binding reporting requirements few public details exist about where these funds are going and why. the public lands council has decried the lack of oversight of this judgment fund by stating -- quote -- "certain groups continually sue the federal government and the treasury simply writes a check to foot the bill without providing members of congress and the american taxpayers basic mftion about the payment." close quote. this kind of litigation can have a big impact on sportsmen and others who enjoy multiple uses on our federal lands. this is because the government is permitted to blindly fund

lawsuits by activist groups who use the court as a back door to policy making. a recent report from the g.a.o. found that cases filed against the e.p.a. have shown a pattern of these groups working in unison with big law firms to sue under the same statutes in order to push their political agenda through the courts. the legislation that i introduced this week with senator gardner known as the judgment fund transparency act will bring these cases to light. the bill has been included as a provision to the sportsman's act and it will provide even greater transparency and accountability. i'm proud to be a vice chair of the sportsman's caucus, and i look forward to continuing our work to advance these important legislative measures. thank you mr. president.

i yield the floor. i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president i request proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president

i'm here on the floor today with my friend and colleague from the state of idaho to speak in support of legislation that we have just dropped today. this is the bipartisan sportsmen's act of 2015. i have introduced it today along with senator heinrich from new mexico. i think it is important to recognize that this bipartisan bill is supported with original cosponsors, the senator from idaho, senator risch senator manchin, senator fischer as well as myself and senator heinrich. i want to acknowledge senator heinrich's staff in working with us to revise this important bill. i want to acknowledge the great work the bipartisan sportman's caucus has done.

i think it is important to recognize the groundwork, the leg work that went into development of this bill and the work that the caucus did in doing so. so, thank you for all of the good hard work. but we're here today not only to announce this reintroduction, because this is now the third congress that we have tried to advance a bipartisan supportsman's act -- sportsmen's act, but to re-up the conversation about the importance and really to urge the senate to come together to pass legislation such as we're talking about today. we've got sportsmen all over the country. i come from a big state that's wide open and people come to alaska to hunt and to fish, and they never want to leave, and that's fine. that's how my husband came to alaska was the lure of sport fishing on the kenai river. so many of our military are on

assignment in alaska and they end up staying because of the hunting and fishing and these recreational opportunities that we have. but it's not just in places like alaska and idaho that have great outdoors. it's all over the country from big cities, small towns north and south. and for so many of us, hunting is a tradition that's passed down from generation to generation. certainly my family is evidence of that. but i think it is important to recognize that while we talk about hunting and fishing as being these best-known recreation opportunities what we also include with this legislation acknowledges enthusiasts who go outside to go boating, so many of the other outdoor activities. we talk a lot on this floor about jobs and economic opportunities and what that brings to our nation, the

important role that they play. sportsmen and sportswomen really are economic contributors when you think about their role. back in 2013 there were approximately 37 million people who hunted or fished in america. that's roughly equal to the entire population of the state of california. those numbers are always on the rise. and again when you have strong numbers, you also have strong economic impacts. sportsmen and women spent roughly $90 billion in 2013. those numbers have probably risen since then. they go not only into gear and equipment, which is what you would expect, but also to the travel industry, to the hospitality industry and to so many other sectors of the economy. spending by sportsmen and women also aids our conservation efforts. excise taxes on fishing and

hunting and motor boat fuels fiewl as well as fees for licenses these are dedicated to wildlife management and conservation. and these folks care deeply about the environment and for conservation. that's why these excise taxes are in place to take care of our natural resources. since their establishment the wildlife sport and fish restoration programs have contributed over $14.5 billion to conservation. i mentioned alaska and its role as kind of a magnet for those who like to hunt and fish. in my state alone we've got over 125,000 individuals who engage in hunting every year. it's created more than $439 million in retail sales $195 million in salaries and wages. in alaska we bring in over $53 million to the state and local governments each year. we had a big holiday a year or

is a so ago when cabella's opened its doors. it was like we finally arrived on the scene. all of our sports hunters and fishermen were loving t. fishing side again, you think about the economic impact in my state. it's even more impressive. last year over 460,000 people bought fishing licenses to take part in some of the best fishing in the world. it brought about $1.4 billion to alaska's economy. these are huge contributors to our tax base, to our economy and just key to who we are as a state. so what we are introducing today, this bipartisan sportsmen's act of 2015, it builds on the efforts of last year. and last year's bill saw 46 members of this comaim ber coming together to support -- of

this chamber coming together to support it. we've taken all the provisions from the previous bill except for two that were enacted in other legislation and then we've added some additional bipartisan provisions. we have senator heinrich's revised hunt act. we have a couple of others that are new to the bill. all told, what these do is increase access, provide greater opportunities for sportsmen and women to enjoy our public lands. so there's a lot of different components in it. i know that my colleague from idaho will speak to several of them. i want to just highlight a couple that i think are important in this discussion. first is a bill that i've championed for several years now. it's called the recreational fishing and hunting heritage and opportunities act. what it does is protects recreational hunting and fishing on our b.l.m. and our forest, national forest lands while reaffirming that other prior congressional actions enacted to protect hunting and wildlife

conservation. the bill that we've introduced -- and again, this is the same one that we've had previously but it requires b.l.m. and forest service lands to be open to hunting to recreational fishing or recreational shooting as a matter of law unless the managing agency acts to close lands to such activities. so it's open unless otherwise closed. so leaving lands open unless closed means that agencies need not take action then to open them up to hunting and fishing. agencies are still permitted to close or put restrictions on land for a number of purposes, such as resource conservation and public safety. but on the whole what this is is it's really an affirmation that sportsmen sportswomen they're welcome on our public lands. isn't that what our public lands are supposed to be all about is being able to access them? there's another provision in the

bill, the hunting fishing and recreational shooting protection act which again, has been included. this was introduced previously by senator thune and klobuchar as a stand-alone bill. it's language that's very, very important to many of us and to nearly all the sportsmen's groups we've heard from. we've also got provisions in there that deal with some of the efforts to limit ammunition and fishing tackle by some organizations. i think we know that if you can't access, if you can't afford traditional ammunition and fishing tackle, it makes it pretty tough to go out and enjoy these opportunities. we've got good pieces in here relating to conservation priorities including the north american wetlands conservation act and the national fish and wildlife foundation. again, i want to thank the sportsmen's caucus. i want to thank senator heinrich

as the prime democrat lead on this. again, my hope is that we're able to build this coalition here on the floor get even beyond the number 46, which was what we had last go round with this legislation. i think we're going to have good discussion within the committee and here on the senate floor. but my hope, mr. president, is that the third time is going to be the charm for this sportsmen's legislation. it's important to us. it's important to our economy. and it's something that i'm certainly willing to take to the mat. with that, i would yield to my friend from idaho. mr. heinrich: thank you mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. heinrich: thank you mr. president -- mr. risch: i rise in support of the sportsmen's act of 2015.

i'm honored to be here with senator murkowski. idahoans and alaskans have a lot in common when it comes to sporting activities. senator crapo and i were honored to host senator murkowski. we don't have the acres but have the diverse environment for hunting and fishing in many different areas of the state that support and will continue to support both fish and game. this bill is cosponsored by a bipartisan team of senators that are committed to advancing the agenda of sportsmen and sportswomen. senators murkowski and heinrich along with the leaders of the congressional sportsmen's caucus myself and senator manchin as the cochairmen and senator fischer and senator heitkamp as the co-vice chairmen and this is the largest bipartisan caucus in congress, have diligently labored to craft

this bipartisan legislation that is supported by a broad coalition of sportsmen's groups. indeed we've worked on it subsubstantially more than since the first of the year. last year we labored over it at great length and were not able to get it across the finish line but we are cautiously optimistic this year that we have hit that right spot where we actually can get this across the finish line this year. one provision of this package will encourage states to create and maintain public shooting ranges. this will promote gun safety by providing a venue to teesm young adults -- to teach young adults about firearms. these ranges can serve as a place to hold hunter education classes and be used as a facility to train police forces. this bill will allow any legal gun owner to carry a firearm on land administered by the u.s. army corps of engineers. this provision will require the army corps to conform their

regulations to align with local laws related to firearms. i would like to thank my colleague from idaho senator mike crapo for his hard work and leadership on this particular issue. i know the sportsmen of idaho and across the country are pleased to know that this legislation will allow firearms on army corps land that it is included in this bipartisan sportsmen's package. this bill will also reauthorize the federal land transaction facilitation act a program that enables the bureau of land management to sell public land for community development in other projects. this land-for-land approach creates jobs and generates funding for the b.l.m. to acquire critical in-holdings from willing sellers. i'm also proud to include a provision supported by my colleague from wyoming senator mike enzi, to allow archery equipment to be transported and possessed in national parks.

archery is one of the fastest-growing sports in america. it should not be illegal to carry a bow in a national park. i'm happy to work with my colleagues to include this important provision in this sportsmen's act. whether you hunt or fish to put food on the table or for sport or to pass down a tradition to your family or for game management purposes, there is something in this bill for you. with more than half a million sportsmen and women in the state of idaho this legislation will ensure they continue to access their favorite hunting or fishing sport. in fact, the number of people who hunt each year in idaho will -- would fill boise state stadium. it is the only stadium with blue turf. most everyone has seen that. for those of us who hunt and fish, it is difficult to put into words why this is so important. i asked everyone i talked to

about these issues and encourage and teach youngsters about hunting and fishing. in idaho this last year 14,000 kids purchased a junior fishing license and approximately 14,000 purchased a junior hunting license. these numbers could be higher, and they should be higher. it is important to teach and mentor these future generations those coming behind us, about hunting and fishing and to hand down this culture for them. hunting and fishing give us a great reason to be in the great outdoors a great reason to hand down traditions, and a great reason to support the bipartisan sports's act of 2014. i ucialg all urge all of my colleagues to work with this bipartisan coalition we've put together to cosponsor and to work with us to pass this legislation. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor and i would note the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mandela i rise to discuss our dorks the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mandelamr. manchin: i ask to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. manchin: i think the time has come. we have u.s. senators, lisa murkowski from alaska, martin heinrich from new mexico, jim risch from idaho myself from west virginia, heidi heitkamp from north dakota, deb fischer from nebraska -- it's balanced, and i think you'll find total support hopefully on both sides.

let me talk about the bill and what is it does. it is good for hunters and outdoorsmen. the bill should be a model for how we can make things work here in washington and we hope the country will be watching. west virginia has more than 1.6 million acres of public land open to hunting. in a state that's our size -- if they flattened the state out we'd be bigger than texas. but with all the mountains and hills, it is just an absolutely wonderful, beautiful place to grow up and live and to enjoy the outdoors. we have a year-round hunting and fishing season. in 020 is 1 west virginia saw more than 400,000 hunters and sportsmensportsmen supporting more than 12,000 jobs. these sportsmen spent $7870 million on hunting and fishing in west virginia and generated

$81 million in state and local tavment's taxes. that's an industry within itself. in a small state such as ours, we're very appreciative of every job and dollar that helps us provide a better quality of life. let me tell but growing up in west virginia. it was funny, i had a conversation on the floor of the senate with some of my colleagues and we were talking of many issues, and we started talking about how we grew up and this and that and he said, you know joe i grew up in a community where i never knew anybody that own add gun. no one ever taught him how to shoot and be safe -- the safety things we should learn. i kept thinking about that and i thought to myself, i told him you know something? i grew up in a town that i didn't know anybody that didn't have a gun. it's just the cultures we have. so if this bill helps introduce people to the love of the outdoors to the sporting, whether it is just shooting from

the standpoint of targets or sports shooting or actually hunting and basically the game. it's very nutritional and very healthy. venison is a big staple of the diet in west virginia. it is very low as far as in diet, very high in protein and fiber. it is great. but you start learning about gun safety. my father was not a hunter. he never got into it. my grandfather was not. my uncles were very much involved. but my dad made sure that we had a sporting club in the little coal mining town, and the people that were very astute in this basically took all of us under their wing. they would teach us how to shoot, they would teach us the safety, they would teach us to respect where we should -- if you're going to shoot something you should be able to harvest that game or know somebody that would use that for nutritional values. don't waste a thing but also to

go out in the woods and enjoy the beauty that god gave us. i look back on those days. then i took my grandson the first time hunting. first of all you couldn't believe how good his eyesight is and how good he could shoot. and i.t. just something it's just something that now he's fixated with and does a great job. my son loves fishing and i take him with me all the time. it is a family tradition we do once a year. we do a family trip where everybody goes. this bill does so many things all over america and it really helps us promote and continue to promote the love of the outdoors the love of hunting the love of fishing basically of sports shooting, competitive sports shooting, pleasurable sports shooting, learning the safety of the gun what we should and should not do, to respect others aren't us to

make sure that safety is the first and foremost thing that we did. so i would hope that this bill gets very quick action, very favorable action. i think i.t. something that we can really kind of start out this new year, if you will, on something that's truly overwhelming in a bipartisan bill. i am sure there will be people that have something in any piece of lels that they legislation that they'll object to. they'll have to work hard to find something in this bill that they'll object to. i think it is put together in a bipartisan way that's good for america. i thank you. i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum quorumquorum call:

mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: i would ask that the quorum call be vittered. the presiding officer: without objection. sandsand sand imr. sanders: i would ask unanimous consent to address the senate up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sanders: mr. president as the ranking member of the budget committee, i want to discuss this afternoon an issue of very serious concern to tens of millions of americans and that is the republican effort to cut social security disability insurance benefits and perhaps benefits for social security retirees. in my view and in the view of

seniors throughout the state of vermont, this is a very, very bad idea. as you know, on the very first day of the new congress, house republicans passed a rule later adopted by the full house which would prevent the common practice of rebalancing funds from the social security retirement program for the social security disability program. this rule adopted by the republicans in the house would lay the groundwork for a 19% cut in disability benefits next year year. president obama in his budget did exactly what has been done on 11 separate occasions in the past. always -- and here's the point i want to make time and time again

and why this is a manufactured crisis. this has been done 11 times in the past, always in a noncontroversial way. and that is to rebalance the funds between the two programs. this is not a big deal. mr. president, the republicans are manufacturing a crisis where none exists. time and time again democratic presidents and republican presidents with absolutely no controversy, have done what president obama has proposed to do. this was done in 1968 under president johnson 19 0e under president nixon -- 1970 under president nixon under president carter 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1987 under president ronald reagan 1996, 1997 and 2000 and

beyond under president bill clinton. in other words, this is a totally noncontroversial process done time and time again under republican presidents and democratic presidents. now, what the president is suggesting today is that we reallocate funds from the senior retirement fund to the disability fund, but interestingly enough, of the 11 times that funds were real estate allocated it turns out that on five occasions, it was money going from the disability fund to temporarily help out the retirement fund. mr. president, there are some people who sadly are trying to divide the senior population from the disability population. and what they are saying, in a way that is untruthful and unfair is that by reallocating

money into the disability fund, we are taking funding away from seniors and the retirement fund. and this is absolutely untrue. because, as i've indicated on 11 owe indications we've seen this reallocation and sometimes in fact it comes from the disability funded to help the retirement fund. mr. president, i am very happy to tell you that virtually every senior organization in america organizations representing tens of millions of senior citizens, have made it clear that we must reallocate funds that we must prevent a cut in disability benefits and we must do what has been done time and time again. mr. president, let me briefly read a letter from the aarp. the and, as you know, the aarp

is the largest senior organization in america. and this letter was written on july 22, 2014, and it went to chairman ron wyden and ranking member orrin hatch of the finance committee. and what the letter says -- and i quote -- "as the largest nonprofit/nonpartisan organization representing the interests of americans aged 50 and older and their families, we write in advance of the committee's legislative hearing on the social security disability insurance program to express our support for social security including its disability insurance functions and our support of rebalancing payroll taxes to ensure the earned benefits of 11 million disabled americans and their families are not reduced or put at risk." once again aarp "we support

the rebalancing payroll taxes to ensure the earned benefits of 11 million disabled americans and their families are not reduced or put at risk." and, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that that letter be entered into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sanders: thank you mr. president. but, mr. president it is not just the aarp who holds that view. it is dozens and dozens of senior organizations all across the country. and let me read you very briefly from a letter written by the leadership council of aging organizations dated october 9 2014 and it is a letter that goes to the president to president obama. and what it says is -- quote --

"we urge you to include a noncontroversial commonsense legislative adjustment in your 2016 budget for congress to temporarily reallocate the social security payroll contributions to address the anticipated shortfall in the social security disability insurance program. we also strongly urge you to reject proposals to cut social security benefits coverage or eligibility." that is the leadership council of aging organizations. mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that that letter also be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sanders: thank you mr. president. mr. president, let me be very clear and tell you that despite what some of us see on our tv screens and what we hear from some politicians the simple truth is that social security is not going broke.

social security is not going broke. today, social security has a $2.8 trillion surplus in its trust fund and can pay out all benefits to all beneficiaries the elderly and the disabled for the next 18 years. this is not the opinion of senator bernie sanders. this is the opinion of the social security administration in their latest report. there is and can be no debate about these simple facts. mr. president, if we rebalance funds as president obama and many others have proposed all benefits retiree benefits for our older americans and disability benefits for disabled americans would be paid out for the next 18 years. next 18 years. so people who come before you and say, "social security is going broke," they are simply

not telling the truth. and while this 18-year period makes it clear that we do not have an imminent crisis with regard to social security i do agree with those who want to make sure that social security is solvent for a lot longer than 18 years for our kids and for our grandchildren. and, frankly mr. president when we talk about the long-term solvency of social security and that, of course, includes disability insurance as well there are two basic approaches that we can take. for those who want to extend social security for many, many decades. one approach is what many of my republican colleagues are talking about and what they are saying in essence is that in

order to save social security we have got to cut social security. and some are talking about a so-called chain c.p.i. which would mean a cut in cost-of-living adjustments. some are talking about raising the retirement age at which point seniors will be able to get the benefits and some, in fact, are talking about privatizing social security and giving that program over to wall street. and that is one approach that is one way that we could deal with social security and the future of the program. needless to say that is an approach that i very very strongly disagree with. the other approach, an approach which is widely supported in poll after poll by the american people extend social security

and protect social security in a very different way than many republicans are proposing. and that is, it addresses the issue that right now as most americans know, there is a on the income that is subjected to the social security payroll tax. that cap is now at $118,500. in other words one individual makes $11.8 million a year but only pays 6.2% on the first $118,000 he earns. the second individual makes $118,000 and pays social security taxes on all of that income and that i think most americans believe is patently unfair. mr. president, i have introduced legislation in the past and i am

now working with other senators who have introduced similar type legislation which eliminates the cap on income subject to the social security payroll tax. my own view is that we should apply the social security payroll tax to income above $250,000. if we do that, mr. president if we go down that very simple and fair route of asking very, very wealthy individuals the top 1% top 1.5% to contribute more into the social security trust fund the fact is that we could extend social security for decades disability benefits for decades and, in fact, we would have enough money to expand benefits not cut them.

mr. president, in march of -- march 19, 2013 in response to a letter that i wrote to the social security chief actuary he wrote back and he told us that taking the approach that my legislation lays out -- raising the cap on taxable income starting at $250,000 -- that would extend the life of social security past the year 2060. so for anybody to come on this floor and say, in order to save social security we've got to cut benefits at a time when millions of senior citizens in this country are struggling to pay for the medicine they need to keep warm in the winter, to buy the food they need, people out there living on $13,000 $14,000 a year and there are some who

say we've got to cut social security, let me go on record as saying i strongly disagree. and the far better and far fairer approach is to lift the cap on taxable income and start at $250,000. so if we're serious about extending the life of social security if we are serious about not cutting disabled benefits, there is a path forward. yes, it does ask the people on top to contribute a little bit more and i know that with all the lobbyists and all the campaign contributions coming in here that sometimes becomes tough. but it is the right thing to do. let us stand with millions of seniors who are struggling to stay alive economically in these tough times rather than wealthy campaign contributors. and with that mr. president, i would yield the floor. mr. president, oh, i'm sorry. i would ask unanimous consent to

put into the record the letter i received from the chief actuary of the social security administration. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. a senator: mr. president? mr. sanders: thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr: mr. president i rise today to tell my colleagues that shortly i intend to ask unanimous consent to call up senate bill 338 but prior to that mr. president i'd like to say a few things about it. mr. president, senate bill 338 was introduced by myself senator bennet, senator ayotte, and what it would do is permanently authorize the land and water conservation fund. it would also guarantee that a small portion of any appropriated money goes towards maintaining access for those who use our public lands -- the american people. the land and water conservation fund is essential in making public lands public by securing

recreational areas particularly where opportunities for sportsmen and others to access existing public lands are limited or precluded. as i'm sure the president's aware, this program expires on september the 30th and we can no longer wait to reauthorize what i believe is dollar-for-dollar one of the most effective government programs we have. this is an investment that rivals any wall street honey of a deal that i've ever heard of. every dollar spent has roughly $4 rates of return in either matching funds or money contributed back into our economy. mr. president, this is an economic driver. the bait in the tackle shop, the apparel -- the outdoor apparel the equipment store the guide service, the mom-and-pop lodge lodge -- these are all local jobs.

they can't -- they can't be outsourced. mr. president, i realize this town doesn't take care of -- it really doesn't care much about budgets or responsible spending but the simple truth is this program is a trust fund codified by law. by law. every year no less than $900 million in royalties paid by energy companies drilling for oil and gas on the outer continental shelf are put into this fund. royalties off of energy exploration something congress when they infinitely set up this program said, it's a good thing. every year no less than $900 million in royalties paid go into this fund. the money is intended to, one protect areas around national parks rivers and lakes.

i note to my colleagues, not create national parks. to protect. two, to provide buffers for national forests national wildlife refuges from development. and, three to provide matching grants for state and local parks and recreation projects. in fiscal year 2013, the department of interior collected more than $9 billion from offshore production. how much of that went to lwcf? $306 million. it's barely one-third of the amount deposited at the treasury department for this purpose. talk about highway robbery. i can point to numerous years where this has been the case. over the life of the program more than $18 billion of land and water conservation funding has been diverted into the general fund to pay for programs

other than what they were intended to be there for. this is a covenant with the american people that we've broken time and time and time again. and it needs to stop. my colleagues, this is not a land grab. it's not a land grab program. some have suggested it is. i would suggest to you it's a land solution. it's a tool. lwcf goes towards the purchase of inholdings those pieces of property that are inside a protected piece that's valuable for the future and the only reason that they're inholdings is that they weren't available when that track was put together. it's used to buy property adjacent to existing boundaries and can help solve management

problems rather than aid to them. let me give my colleagues just one example. clarks river national wildlife refuge in the great state of kentucky. acquisition of the track there completed a connection between the refuge lands and the clark river. previously, access to the river required excessive hiking because there was no approved vehicle access. these access issues limited the ability to provide environmental education and interpretation programs. now the site provides access to the river for school groups and their transportation and allows refuge staff to provide hands-on environmental instruction to students. we went from a you can only walk to this land to an acquisition by a conservation component funded by royalties of oil and gas exploration and now vehicles can actually ride on it. schoolchildren can go there and

go through transitional education for the purposes of understanding why this is such a valuable thing to protect. most lands acquired with lwcf funds are within the existing boundaries of a federal park, refuge forest, or other recreational areas. much of the rest is used for conservation easements and state grants which do not add to federal management cost. let me state that again. when we allow this process to take place, we actually reduce the burden on federal agencies from a standpoint of their management responsibilities with federal dollars. these partnerships through lcwf easements are a win win. they keep ranchers and farmers on their land while maintaining wildlife habitat and open spaces

strategic lwcf purchases can reduce conflicts with landowners by securing access for sportsmen. with changing land use and ownership patterns areas that were once open and usable are now either blocked or cut off. public lands are oftentimes inherently sequestered from roads and towns by narrow pieces of private ownership land. lwcf funds bring together sportsmen and willing sellers with the intent of open access for everyone. the land and water conservation is a down payment. it's a down payment on an investment that sustains the american way of life. and the best part, i say to my colleagues it's paid for.

now, i'm not here to suggest that i want to tackle the pittance that the fund receives and how much it was promised. i'm only here today along with my colleague from colorado to call up the bill to permanently authorize this program. so that we don't go through this exercise every time that reauthorization is needed. in a country that continues to explore for energy -- and i hope we continue and become self-sufficient -- let's use the portion of the resources that we can to fuel the nursery to rebuild the dunes to buy those inholdings to get buffer zones around those treasures we try to protect and as we do that let's open it up to american sportsmen to hunt, to fish to use.

that's what lwcf is about. so mr. president let's start acting like the agreement we made with the american people 50 years ago actually means something. let's authorize permanently the land and water conservation fund and, mr. president, at this time i would ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the democrat leader, the senate proceed to consideration of s. 338 that there be up to one hour equally divided in the usual form, that following the use or yielding back all of the time that the bill be read a third time and the senate vote on passage of the bill with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president reserving the right to object,

the land and water conservation fund is used for a number of purposes although the primary purpose involves the acquisition of new federal land. funding the acquisition of new federal land at a time when federal agencies can barely take care of the land they already have does raise some rather significant questions that need to be addressed. the department of interior faces a combined maintenance backlog of over $20 billion. $13 billion in our national park service alone. we struggle with ways to fund the payment in lieu of taxes program, the intent of which was to mitigate the burden of federal land to local communities where there is an abundance of federal land that can't be taxed. and coming from a date state that's dominated by federal landownership, two-thirds of utah two-thirds of the land in utah is controlled by federal

agencies. any new federal landownership must be examined with a healthy degree of skepticism. there are many issues that need to be considered and debated before we reauthorize any program that would potentially expand the federal government's land oldings. i certainly support opening up our public lands for recreation including for purposes related to hunting and fishing and i believe that land and water conservation fund could be used to applying the negative impact of federal regulations regulations on private property such as listings under the endangered species act. but reform isn't -- as likely to happen. reform may well be impossible if we allow this bill to pass as is without going through the proper procedures. this bill should be subject to debate and amendment first at the committee level and then on the floor of the united states senate. that's what needs to happen and on that basis, i object. the presiding officer: objection

is heard. the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i wanted to come to the floor to thank my friend from north carolina or his -- for his efforts and to echo a lot of points that he already made so well especially about how, you know as we stand here today having this very reasonable unanimous consent request that the senator from north carolina has asked for especially standing here today when attention essentially what we're talking about is a promise that has been broken by this congress to the american people for 50 years. and i want to thank through the chair my colleague from north carolina for trying to rectify that. i'm disappointed that our consent request was objected to but i know this measure has plenty of support. as mentioned we led an amendment on the floor last week with the exact same text as the bill we're talking about today but that amendment received 59

votes but i have a hunch it would comforteddably clear the 60-vote thrilled were it to be -- threshold were it to be considered again and it should be considered again. the measure is simple. it reauthorizes the land and water conservation fund and ensures that a dedicated portion of lwcf funds go to provide access for our nation's sportsmen and women. it is one of the best conservation programs, it provides $900 million annually to preserve our public lands and increase access to them, not only do we need to pass this bill to reauthorize the program mr. president, but we need to ensure that we dedicate full and mandatory funding to the initiative as congress intended when we created the program in 1964. historically lwcf resources have been used for all types of projects ranging from building city parks to purchasing

small -- purchases all the way to preserving our nation's historic battlefields. in colorado we've used lwcf for a variety of projects beyond traditional conservation. for example, lwcf was of critical importance to our state following a major natural disaster in 1976. that year an intense rain storm caused massive flooding around the big thompson river. the flood claimed the lives of 145 coloradans and caused more than $35 million in damages. once the horrible tragedy passed, the community had to rebuild. rather than construct -- re -- or constructing houses back in the floodplain, the county turned to lwcf to acquire the affect he land and compensate the families whose homes were destroyed. those floodplains are now home for point parks popular destinations for birdwatchers

and picnickers. when another flood the rivers run black and surged over their banks. mr. president, as you can see from that photo. luckily, the floodplains protected by lwcf and the creativity of our local folks saw much less damage this time. the floodwaters inundated the open undeveloped spaces of stead of destroying homes and businesses and the county avoided about $16 million in estimated property damages. it's incredible to think that an l wcf investment of just over a million dollars saved 15 times that amount in 2013. beyond that example communities across colorado used lwcf to preserve landscapes and help their local economies chest. this summer we completed a huge project on the san juan national

forest near the town of beaufort. i spoke briefly about this project last week and i'll mentioned it again today because the work of the town, the people of ofer, the trust for public land was truly remarkable. it's a project that took 12 years from start to finish, had to be done in phases. lwcf funds were used to acquire mining claims above town, ensuring that the area will remain undeveloped forever. if you ignore these people you can see how beautiful how beautiful it is. here's a picture of the newly preserved landscape in ofer. a group gathered to celebrate the accomplishment this summer. most of these mountain communities get huge portions of their businesses through recreation and tourism and for some of these reasons the town felt the land and water

conservation fund helped secure their economic future. mr. president, this is a small, rural community in my home state. it's far away from this floor. lwcf has made a huge difference for ofer. these are two stories from colorado but i know that they've been replicated thousands of times across the country in all 50 states. no stories and accomplishments alone make this bill worth supporting. as i mentioned earlier congress wrote and passed lwcf in 1964 and it is beyond time to reauthorize it. senator burr has shown leadership in crafting a dill bill to do that. crops conservation policies to wilderness to national parks are important to the american people the american people support this work protecting our land and water is part of our everyday lives in colorado and our state is not the only one.

conserved lands and wide-open spaces are a huge economic driver across the country a huge part of our culture they are who we are in the west. we should do right by the american people and reauthorize this program as soon as possible. then we ought to work together taupe ensure that lwcf gets the pull and mandatory funding going forward that was promised 50 years ago by the united states congress. with that, mr. president before i yield the floor i'd ask unanimous consent that laura sherman, a fellow in my office be given floor privileges for the remainder of the session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you mr. president. i'd suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. leahy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president on january 13 of this year, our country lost one of its most

courageous diplomats ambassador robert e. white. ambassador white was 88 years old. i knew bob white. he graduated from my alma mater st. michaels college in vermont in 1952, just nine years before i did. i admired him greatly no matter what college he went to, because he had the qualities that every american diplomat should possess possess -- outstanding and extraordinary intellect unimpeachable integrity great courage, the devotion to the ideals and values of this country. in the 1980's during the civil war in el salvador the united states in what most historians now know was a bad mistake

steadfastly supported the salvadoran army despite evidence that some of its elite units were functioning as death squads arbitrarily arresting torturing and murdering civilians that were even suspected in support of the f.l.m. rebels. unlike some u.s. officials that turned blind eyes to the heinous crimes that were being committed in the name of fighting communism, ambassador white refused to remain silent. he publicly condemned the salvadoran military and the right wing backers who were implicated in atrocities like the assassination of archbishop oscar romero within the past few days was put on the first steps toward sainthood by pope francis, but also those implicated in atrocities like the massacre of four american church women.

and for speaking out on behalf of archbishop romero and the american church women and those who are being murdered, he paid dearly. he was ridiculed by some here in congress. he was summarily removed from his job by then-secretary of state alexander haig. now, a january 15 obituary in "the washington post" describes bob's life and career. as i was reading it, i could not help but wonder how things might have turned out differently if the powers to be during the 1980's had listened to him. my wife marcel and i talked about that. we asked ourselves how many lives might have been saved if the reagan administration instead of firing bob in 1981

had recognized the truth of what he was saying and instead supported negotiations to end the war in el salvador. so many, so many in this country wish they had but instead the war dragged on for another decade. it cost the lives of tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians. the tide only started to turn in 1989 after the cold-blooded murder of the six jesuit priests, their housekeeper and a daughter at the university of central america. this is a crime that top-ranking army officers tried very much to cover up. it was thanks to the late congressman joe moakley and his then-staff aide who is now congressman jim mcgovern and bob woodward and salvadoran investigators lee yonl gomez who

i -- lionel gomez who i also came to know and respect. the plot was uncovered the killers identified. during this time i talked often with bob and i learned even more about those who were involved, and after talking with him i went to el salvador. i was asked by the salvadorans to come down. they said we'll show you what's going on. we're really trying to investigate this. they knew i had been a prosecutor and prosecuted murder cases. and so they arranged for me to meet with the country's chief investigator. as he described their so-called investigation. he just confirmed ambassador white's suspicions, and i told the salvadoran investigators and i told the press when they were there they were conducting an obvious cover-up. anybody who saw what they were calling an investigation would realize it was nothing more than

a cover-up. as i left he will value, it was so obvious that rather than shamelessly removing ambassador white from his post, how much better things might have been if the state department had recognized him for the true patriot that he was and treated him as an example of what other u.s. diplomats should emulate. but he didn't stop when he left the foreign service. he went on to head the center for international policy. he continues advocacy for human rates. he defended the idea of championing the causes he believed in right up to his death. i like to think that all of our foreign service officers aspire to follow in the footsteps of ambassador robert white. i hope that they will learn from his example. they learn from the example of bob white, they will make the

united states a country that will be better served and the world a better place. so i ask unanimous consent that "the washington post" obituary, in an article about ambassador white by margaret o'brien be printed in the record at the conclusion of my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president i i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president for the second time in two days our friends across the aisle have killed important funding for the department of homeland security, a bill about $40 billion worth that was passed by the house of representatives and sent over here for the senate to consider. and i continue to be amazed at whawchg member after member across the aisle come down here and vote to block this important piece of legislation. and then in the same breath accuse the majority for threatening to shut down the government. it strikes me as surreal. they are the ones filibustering the funding for the department

of homeland security, and they're threatening or they're claiming that we are trying to shut down the government. i know sometimes it's hard to, hard to explain what happens here in the halls of congress in washington d.c., but my folks back home can't understand how you can block something and then claim that you're really for it. and then claim the people who are actually advocating for the passage of this funding somehow want to shut down the government. it just doesn't make any sense. and it's the kind of double-talk that i think people have come to despise and associate with washington d.c. and congress. and that's one reason why voters so overwhelmingly repudiated the status quo on november 4 and said we want, we want now management and we don't want business as usual in washington

d.c. saying one thing and doing another, on this side of the aisle, we pointed out some of the tough talk from some of our friends on the other side of the aisle, senate democrats last fall when the president made clear he intended to follow through on a series of unilateral immigration actions that he himself on 22 different occasions had said he did not have the authority to take. indeed it's my view that this is unconstitutional. you can't pass a new law or make a new law without following the constitutional pathway which requires congress to consider it vote on it, both houses and then send it to the president for signature. for the president simply to make it up out of whole cloth is really dangerous to say the least. i guess if the president doesn't like any other aspect of our

laws this president or any future president might claim the sole authority to change it without following the procedures laid out in the united states constitution. i know that what the president did last fall in this executive action on immigration makes a number of our colleagues across the aisle uncomfortable because they're quoted in the newspaper as saying so. but now somehow in this mind meld going on on the minority side they now have walked, walking in lock step voting against proceeding to consider this homeland security appropriations bill, even though by my count, at least seven democrats expressed deep concern with the president's unconstitutional action. here's what the senator from west virginia said.

he said, i wish he wouldn't do it talking about the president. the junior senator from minnesota said i have concerns about executive action. the same kind of concerns i just expressed. the senior senator from missouri felt the same way saying the president's unilateral action about it, she said how this is coming about makes me uncomfortable, and i think it probably makes most missourians uncomfortable. well it made the president of the united states uncomfortable so uncomfortable on 22 occasions, he said he couldn't do it. and then he did it. well it makes me extremely uncomfortable too mr. president, and it certainly makes the vast majority of the people i represent back in texas uncomfortable as well. we are a nation of laws. i know we say that all the time. but it is really one of the

things that distinguishes us from so much of the rest of the world. where no matter who you are whether you're the president of the united states or you're the most humble person in the country, the rules apply to you equally. that's what it says over the top of the supreme court building, if you look at the front of the building it says "equal justice under law." and this idea that the president can after 22 times saying he didn't have the authority become a law unto himself and try to get away with it is just really unprecedented and it's dangerous. well despite the fact that many of our colleagues on the democratic side have said what the president did made them feel uncomfortable, they apparently lost their sense of discomfort when they voted in lock step to block this funding bill. in order to justify their filibuster a number of senate democrats have said, you know, i

don't like the bill that the house sent over because it's got some things in it that i don't really like. i like the funding but i don't like the spending restrictions. but, you know, and i know the presiding officer understands as well you can't change a piece of legislation in the senate unless you vote to get on the bill. it's the same thing as saying you can't finish a journey until you start it. and our friends across the aisle are unwilling to even start that journey. well to state the obvious our friends in the minority would like to change the department of homeland security funding bill, they ought to stop blocking it from being debated and amend it. if they've got ideas let's bring them to the floor. one of the things that's distinguished this 114th

congress from the way things ran last year is we've actually had an open amendment process and indeed we found out in the first month of this year and this new congress, we had more votes than all of last year combined. so there's going to be a an opportunity for anybody with a better idea to come down here and gept a vote. but this whole idea of saying i'm not even going to participate in the process and worse than that, i'm going to block a funding bill for the department of homeland security because i don't like what's in it is just, well, it's just impossible to explain. well we know our, some of our colleagues on the other side are using this to play games because they basically have admitted it. yesterday in the huffington post the senior senator from new york, a member of the leadership of his own party said

-- quote -- "it is really fun to be in the minority." close quote. well that strikes me as extraordinarily cynical because we were not sent here to play games, and particularly with matters as important as homeland security. that's not what the american people sent us hire to do, and that's certainly not what they ratified or what they voted for on november 4. they rejected business as usual in washington, d.c., and they said let's do something different. and we may not necessarily endorse everything that republicans stand for but boy we're sure going to give them a chance to show that they can do better than the management in the 113th congress. and i think we began to make some positive steps in the right direction, particularly with passing important legislation. we passed three important pieces of legislation in the 114th

congress: the veterans suicide bill that we voted on earlier this week. we passed the terrorism risk insurance bill. and we passed, as the presiding officer knows a very important piece of legislation to our economy and job creation and energy security known as the keystone x.l. pipeline. that's not bad. that's not bad. and now we'd like to do what really i think falls in the category of governance 101 something that's pretty basic. we've got to pay to keep the government functioning and particularly the department of homeland security. and i know our friends on the other side of the aisle say we don't like the bill the way it is and we don't like the tools that are being used by the majority party to rein in the president's executive action.

well, i'm not going to make any apology for that because what the president did was unconstitutional. it was illegal. he has no authority to do that on his own. and again it's not just me saying that. it's not just my opinion. it's his opinion. how cynical. how cynical. so i guess he figures he's going to get away with it, and our friends on the other side of the aisle are going to be the enablers to enable the president to get away with something he said he didn't have the authority to do on 22 times. i sure wouldn't want the folks back home to see me in that same light. i'd have a hard time explaining that to my constituents back home saying i'm helping the president do something that he said was illegal and he didn't have the authority to do, and we're going to play games by blocking important funding for the department of homeland security in order to facilitate him getting away with it.

that's a cynical cynical game. and it's dangerous particularly in a threat environment that we're living in. so mr. president i came to the floor for the third time this week to ask our colleagues on the other side of the aisle especially those who boldly stood up to their own president a member of their own party the leader of their own party a few short months ago to ask them to stand up again and to tell the president and to tell their own leadership that we want to have a senate that actually works where the minority and the majority get to participate through an open amendment process. but we're going to respect the constitution. we're going to respect this institution. and, yes we're going to respect the role of the presidency under

our constitution enough to rein in this president's overreach. and we're not going to jeopardize funding for the department of homeland security and allow that to be held hostage to the president's unconstitutional act. mr. president, i yield the floor. and i'd suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:?" quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: mr. president i also ask unanimous consent that susan corbin, jill mueller paul abiars and paul car utters be granted the privileges of the floor for the remainder of the first session of the 114th congress. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: mr. president earlier this week we learned about the young jordanian pilot who was hockeyally burned alive

in a cage at the hands of the islamic state of the levant, called i've. it enslatches women into servitude, the same group that said it's determined to -- quote -- "reach america" -- close quote. my friends we live in a world that is scary and it's not just i've. it's the lone wolves who carefully draft plans to attack us where we work, like the attack we saw last year in ottawa and last month in paris as well as the individual from ohio who was planning to attack the u.s. capitol right here in washington, d.c. it's pandemics like ebola the criminals trying to traffic illegal drugs and human beings across our borders and through our ports of entry. it's individuals trying to sabotage our airplanes and our trains.

it's people trying to attack our computer networks and critical infrastructure. thanks in large part to the work of the department of homeland security and its employees americans are safe, at least a lot safer than we otherwise would be. our airplanes and our airports are protected 24/7, our borders and our ports throughout our country are secure. trafficking of illegal drugs and human beings is better controlled and our critical infrastructure networks are better protected. for anybody to think that it makes sense to put the department of homeland security out of business, put it on the sidelines at this point in time in this world in which we live, i ask have we lost our minds? i hope not. i hope not. yet today here in the united states congress we're locked in a political debate about whether or not we fund that very agency charged with keeping us, americans, those who live here

with us, from the islamic state and any other number of additional threats. that's irresponsible and shameful behavior. in order for the department of homeland security to efficiently and effectively carry out its critical role in devastate combating the multiple and ever-changing threats that our country faces it needs the department needs fiscal certainty and the full support of this congress. throughout this week i joined nearly half of my senate colleagues to reject the house funding bill for the department of homeland security, h.r. 240 which contains riders that block the president's recent immigration actions. many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have significant concerns with these amendments and the president had has promised he would veto this bill if these amendments are not stripped from it. my colleagues' insistence we accept these house amendments is jeopardizing timely enactment of a vital homeland security

funding bill and threatens to prolong the budget uncertainty that the department of homeland security has been operating under since last year. on top of that, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, the house bill would with its amendments would increase defendants over ten years by a total of $7.5 billion. so instead of helping our nation move forward with economic recovery and construction deficit-reduction, this will would move us backward. look i understand why some of our colleagues are upset about the president's immigration policies. we can and we should have a debate about those concerns. and we started that process just yesterday in the committee on homeland security and government affairs where i serve as its ranking member. let me remind my colleagues that we wouldn't even be here having this conversation today or that hearing yesterday if congress had fin beished the job that we began some two years ago in the united states senate right here on this floor. as most of my colleagues in this

chamber will railroad, two-thirds of the senate came together and we passed by a wide margin a comprehensive immigration reform bill. was it perfect? no. but we took significant steps to fix our badly broken and outdated immigration system and enhance the security of our borders. at the same time, the bill would have reduced our budget deficit by nearly $1 trillion, $1 trillion over the next 20 years according to the congressional budget office. let me repeat that. comprehensive immigration reform adopted here by a two-thirds vote would reduce our deficit by nearly $1 trillion over the next 20 years. so we demonstrated almost two years ago that we can debate our nation's immigration policies in a thoughtful way right here in the senate and i think over -- in the house. there's no reason we can't do it again.

we need to have this debate on the senate floor like we did last congress and have debate in the committees like we did last congress and have the debate in our towns and states across america like we did in the last congress. but we should not have this debate while we're deciding the fate of the budget of the nation 's most critical national security agency, the department of homeland security. and i'm not the only one who thinks so. all three former department of homeland security secretaries republican tom ridge michael chertoff and democrat janet napolitano wrote to the republican leadership last week and this is what they said. this is a quote from the three of them. we do not question your desire to have a larger debate about the nation's immigration laws. however, we cannot emphasize enough that the department of homeland security's responsibilities are much broader, much broader than its

responsibilities to oversee the federal immigration agency and protect our boards. and funding for the entire agency should not be put in jeopardy by the debate about immigration. "the washington post" editorial board weighed in, these what they wrote -- and i quote -- "if congressional republicans want to attack those -- those immigration actions responsibly with discrete legislation they're free to try. however, it's another thing to wield that frustration over immigration as a couragele holding -- cudgel, holding hostage a department that is critical to our nation's security. that is as irresponsible as it is politically ill advised. i could not agree more. we need to focus now on doing the job we were sent the did provide the funding to keep america safe in an ever more dangerous world. once we've done that we should

engage in a debate how to amend america's immigration policies for the 21st century. if we choose instead to continue down this irresponsible path toward a shutdown of the department of homeland security we will actually put america at greater risk. why would we do that? why would we do that? if we allow the department of homeland security to shut down here's what's going to happen just a few of the things that are going to happen. first of all over 50,000 t.s.a. security screeners keeping terrorists off of airplanes, they're going to go without pay. we want them to do our jobs, we're just not going to pay them for it. over 40,000 customs and border protection officers needed to keep our borders secure will go without pay too. we want them to do their jobs, we're not going to pay them, either. in addition over 13,000 immigration and customs

enforcement agents enforcing our immigration laws and combating human and drug trafficking they're going to go without pay too. we want them to do their jobs, we're not going to pay them, either. essentially a large part of our federal homeland security personnel would be working on an i.o.u. how is that fair? how is that fair? well it's not. he would have avoided a shutdown but continued to keep the department on a continuing resolution, we prevent the men and women who work there from doing their jobs as effectively and as efficiently as they can. for example we won't be able to replace obsolete surveillance technology along the high-risk areas of our border with mexico. our nation will have significantly fewer resources to respond to any future surges of unaccompanied minors along the southwest border. morale will continue to degrade in the department which already ranks dead last for morale among

other major federal agencies. this is not how we want to be treated. it's no way for us to treat the men and women who are working around the clock to keep us safe. it's also an egregious waste of money. as we have learned over the years, budget -- crisis budgeting costs taxpayers millions of dollars and this latest situation is no exception. employee hiring and research efforts at the department would come to a halt. contracts for a variety of security projects would be stalled and will need to be renegotiated in all likelihood at a higher cost to taxpayers. for example a continuing resolution would delay a 600 millions contract to build a national security cutter that the coast guard needs urgently needs to keith it from be -- keep it from being rewarded. this cutter is needed to stop illegal traffic off our ports including illegal immigration

and human trafficking. that's just one example. as any business owner would tell you and me, this is not the way to run a business, and it's certainly no way to run a vital national security agency of the united states of america. so how are we going to remedy this situation? fortunately, we have a solution sitting right in front of us. the bill that senators mikulski and shaheen have introduced is s. 272. it is a clean fiscal year 2015 appropriation bill, which both democrats and republicans agreed to just this past december, two months ago. this measure provides the stable full-year funding that the department of homeland security and our national security need without demanding a ransom. in closing i want to urge as strongly as i can to my colleagues in this chamber in this body to join me in doing the right thing. support passage of this clean

full-year appropriation legislation for the department of homeland security. reject the amendments approved by the house. and once we've done that, let's begin a fulsome and badly needed debate that will enable us to hammer out a thoughtful 21st century immigration policy for america, a policy that is fair, a policy that will significantly reduce our nation's budget deficit and a policy that will strengthen the economic recovery in this country that is now under way. mr. president, with that, i would make -- i would make note that we have an absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: will the senator withhold? mr. carper: i would be happy to withhold and yield to the senator from connecticut my friend senator chris murphy. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut.

mr. murphy: thank you very much, mr. president. thank you senator carper, for allowing me to speak for a few minutes on the floor today. mr. president, the affordable care act is working. it's working better, frankly than many of us who were there at its inception believed it would at this early stage in its implementation. the numbers are pretty hard to argue with. you have got now upwards of 10 million people who are on either private insurance with tax credits to help them get that coverage or are on medicaid through different state plans. that's a big deal because in just about a year, we have reduced the number of people without insurance by 25% in this country. in my state of connecticut which probably is the best-run exchange in the country, we have actually reduced the number of people without insurance by 50%. better news is the quality is

getting better. some of the measurements that we most closely watched to decide whether people are getting better care, things like hospital-acquired infections and readmission rates after surgery all going down. that's really good news. of course maybe the best news of all is the taxpayers are saving money. really extraordinary leveling off of health care inflation. health care spending never goes down from year to year, but we used to have 7% or 8% increases in spending on an annual basis. we're now seeing 2% or 3% increases. in fact, the lowest rate of increase since we started tracking health care spending happened in this last year. federal taxpayers are saving on average $1,000 per medicare beneficiary compared to what the congressional budget office thought we would be spending when we passed the affordable care act. that doesn't mean that we don't have a lot of work to do, but it does mean that the conversation we should be having today is about perfecting the affordable

care act making it work even better not repealing the affordable care act. and it's not just me. i have been down to the floor over and over again to make this case, that the numbers simply don't lie but the press universally perhaps reporting on this overwhelming avalanche of data telling us that the affordable care act is working. i just -- literally in the five minutes before i came to the floor, i did just a quick search to see what people were saying. new york magazine, quote four new studies. obamacare is working incredibly well. "forbes," more solid proof that obamacare is working. "washington post," despite the critics, obamacare works. "business insider," major new study says obamacare is working. "rolling stone" obamacare it's working. i could do a full ten minutes just on the headlines that tell you that the affordable care act is working but instead of talking about making it work

better today we're talking yet about repealing it. the house took -- i think their 56th vote to repeal all or part of the bill, and this morning several of our colleagues unveiled a proposal to replace the affordable care act. now, i give my colleagues credit. it's been five years and this is the first time we have seen even a memo on what would be this replacement that we have been hearing a lot about but it's still just a memo as far as i can tell. we don't have any legislative text or any c.b.o. score. but i wanted to come down to the floor and just talk for a minute about what this replacement would mean. the replacements memo that we looked at this morning offered up by two of our senate colleagues and one of our house colleagues all really thoughtful legislators on this issue. i want to give them credit for putting this on the table.

it would really mean the retraction of health care coverage for millions of americans. people who have finally been able to afford health care because of the affordable care act would go back on the rolls of the uninsured. why? for two major reasons. one, their plan reduces the number of people that would be eligible for subsidies by millions and greatly reduces the amount of the subsidy. they admit it's the best way to get coverage so we are not arguing over whether or not providing tax credits for people to bring private insurance is the right way to go about expanding coverage. they want to less money that we're providing in tax credits meaning a lot less people are going to get insured. so you would have millions and millions of people who would go back onto the rolls of the uninsured, people would would -- who would once again be at the mercy of the insurance companies, would lose everything their house savings, car just because their kid got sick. the second thing it does, it puts health insurance back in charge of our health care. it gets rid of the prohibition on gender rating, which is a

complicated way of saying that in the old system, insurance companies charge women more just because they were women. the affordable care act doesn't allow that any longer, but that's what we would go back to under this alternative. it used to be that insurance companies would say you're only going to get a certain amount of insurance per year and then we cut you off. well for a family that i know in simsbury, connecticut whose son has a fairly rare blood disorder that meant they had to pull out of their savings every year in order to afford his expensive drugs. that discriminatory treatment would come back. and, well, the bill tries to address the issue of preexisting conditions it seems to say that you would have a one-time chance to get on an affordable care if you had a preexisting condition but if you didn't sign up in that opening moment, in that special offer then you wouldn't be able to sign up later on. so if you got sick later on, it would be too late for you or if

you lost your coverage at any point, like on average 89 million americans have over the last three years you wouldn't get the chance to have insurance with a preexisting condition at the same rate as people without preexisting conditions. so what this bill really is about is people paying more and getting less. it's about going back to the day when people couldn't afford health care and they lost everything simply because they or a loved one a spouse or a child, got sick. never mind the facts that some of the pieces that i thought we all agreed on are repealed in this proposal. the idea that seniors who are trying to buy prescription drugs on medicare get a little bit of coverage then no coverage, then a lot of coverage. middle-class seniors can't

afford that gap in coverage. the affordable care act effectively eliminates the doughnut hole. that's saved seniors $11 billion since 2010. this memo that we've seen from the republican side would apparently get rid of those savings, putting the doughnut hole back, putting millions of seniors back on the hook for all of these costs when they lose coverage. so this effort to replace the affordable care act is a giant step backwards for millions of american families, and here's the conversation that we should be having. we should be talking about how to make this law work even better. it's a major concession, frankly, from the republicans that tax credits are the appropriate way to get people more insurance. it's a concession that we should be at least addressing the issue of discrimination against sick people but the protection

they're offering is minimal and the expense that would be passed on to seniors families, hardworking americans is immense. so i'm looking forward to seeing this introduced as a piece of legislation. i'm looking forward to seeing the c.b.o. score on it. clearly, the american people don't want us to have this debate over appeal any longer. they're sick and tired of it. they want us to be talking about creating jobs, protecting this country, making college more affordable and making small meaningful changes to the affordable care act to make it work even better. the data doesn't lie. the numbers don't lie. the increasing stories of people all across this country that are benefiting from the affordable care act don't lie. the affordable care act is working. we should stop having this tired debate over repealing it and replacing it with something that

is much lesser coverage for much more cost and invest in a conversation about how to make sure that the good news continues about the affordable care working for millions of americans. mr. president, i would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president i'm disappointed that earlier today once again democratic colleagues in lock step, like the palace guard protecting the white house have blocked filibustered moving to the homeland security bill that the house has passed, that would

fully fund every lawful program of homeland security. the house has passed a bill that funds homeland security. they sent it to the senate, and the democrats are refusing to let it come to the floor to even be debated. so the filibuster is on a motion to proceed to the bill, where amendments can be offered. senator mcconnell has said we will have amendments. senator collins has already reached out with amendments she thinks has bipartisan support. that's the way the process in the senate is supposed to work. that's what we should do. amazingly and incredibly, our democratic colleagues say that the republicans want to shut down homeland security and that the republicans are trying to keep this from happening. and they claim that the republicans put riders on the bill. but i would say i think if

there's any logic left in this body that the riders were put on homeland security unilaterally, unlawfully by the president of the united states when he said after congress refused to pass his amnesty bill that had the right for people to work illegally in the country legal status for people illegally in the country a photo status card for people illegally in the country, would allow them to participate in social security and medicare, and so that's what the president wants to do. that's all outside the law of homeland security and all the items and programs that are in that homeland security process. that's outside of it. and in fact, it's not

pro-homeland security, but it's anti-homeland security. it's antilaw. it rewards people who violated the law. it's going to create a mechanism by these people who will get these photo i.d.'s, the ability to take any job in america and nobody's going to check them in any effective way. in fact, it's quite clear they don't even intend to have personal interviews with them because they don't have the time or the people. but they are creating spending money out of the lawful part of homeland security to create an office across the river in crystal city, and they're hiring 1,000 people to process these individuals. so congress simply said, mr. president, we oppose that. we wouldn't approve that process. you said 20 times it's not lawful for you to do so, but you changed your mind, and you're going to do it anyway, so we're

going to fund all the programs of homeland security just like last year with some increase, i suppose, and then -- but we're not going to fund this office across the river to make people who are under law unlawful to law. and that's what the bill is. and so for our democratic colleagues to say that somehow this doesn't fund security and congress has no right to decide what it funds and what it doesn't fund. but it's a fundamental power of the people, the elected representatives to control the purse strings to decide what gets funded and what does not fund. and it can fund programs that it doesn't like as a matter of policy. it can fund -- or it can defund these programs. and it could defund the programs it believes are illegal.

as a matter of fact, i would say congress has an absolute duty to refuse to fund programs by the president of the united states that he would like to carry out if it believed those programs are unlawful. so that's where we are. it's just beyond my comprehension that our friends on the other side, at least seven of which have said in clear statements that they oppose the president's executive amnesty, and they are voting unanimously to not go to the bill and even allow it to be considered. one thing is being too little considered. this is more than prosecutorial discretion. the president of the united states is giving work authorizations to more than four million people, and for the most

part, they're adults. almost all of them are adults. even the so-called daca portions many of them in their 30's. so this is a it's an adult job legalization program. and we talked about why congress didn't approve and it didn't pass and the president shouldn't carry out on his own that which congress has rejected and for which he has no lawful basis. but let's go further. let's ask on behalf of the american people, american working people, is this a good idea? is it a good idea at this time of low wages a time when the percentage of americans in the working years har actually working -- that are actually working with jobs is the lowest it's been since the 1970's? is this the right time to advance another five million

people into the job market, at a time when we admit a million people a year lawfully, we have 770,000, i believe guest workers on top of that working in america from abroad. and we add another now five million that can take any job in the economy. and the problem frankly colleagues, is not that we have a shortage of workers in america, which we were booming like that. the problem is we have a shortage of jobs. we have the lowest participation of people at work we've had in a long time. and gallup recently noted that if you work just a few hours a week you're counted as employed. you used to work 40, overtime maybe, now 10 hours a week you're counted as employed. if you are an engineer and not

working, you're working at a fast-food restaurant, you're counted as employed. so there are a whole bunch of factors they note out there that are causing the american people to be very concerned about their future even though politicians in washington are saying things are so great. wages fell in december. i think the last full month we have the data. five cents an hour. it's not going so much better. we want wages to go up, not down. that's not disputable data. so i think this is all important for us, and it's time for congress to understand who we represent and who our focus should be on. we want to treat people who come to america well. we want to give them every lawful benefit when they emigrate to america properly. and people that enter unlawfully

need to be treated humanely and processed properly and the laws enforced. but we don't want to mistreat those people. but, what is it that's critical? what's critical is that we know who we represent. we represent lawful immigrants and citizens of the united states of america. that's who our duty is to. we should establish an immigration policy that serves their interest. years ago a witness before the judiciary committee told that committee -- i was a member -- that well, if you look, if your policy is to do what's best for poor people around the world it's almost always the right thing to let them come to america. they get in trouble health-wise, hospitals will take care of them.

their children get free education. if they get in trouble otherwise, this country helps them. and, but so what we've got to decide is what is a good policy for the united states of america, how to execute the national interest. not special interest. let me point this out. the numbers are stunning, colleagues and we're going to have to learn these numbers. and i'm going to insist that we know what we're doing as we go forward with the ever-expanding programs to bring in more workers from abroad. one of the more remarkable but least reported trends in our economy is the disproportionate share of jobs being filled by foreign workers. most people do not understand this. the following are new data from the bureau of labor statistics. not my opinion.

these numbers come straight from b.l.s. tables. i challenge my colleagues, if these numbers are wrong, tell us they're wrong. it comes right off the b.l.s. table. i don't think they're disputable. i don't think anybody is disputing them. the total number of persons employed in the united states has increased by one million since 2007. frankly, that's not many at all over that number of years. it sounds like a lot but it is not many. so we've had a total increase of 1 million since 2007 but during this same time, the number of u.s.-born workers citizens with jobs declined about 1 million. how is that possible? during this same time, the number of foreign workers with jobs -- foreign workers with jobs -- increased by 2 million. and so that's where the net gain

occurs. this means that all net employment gains since the recession have gone to workers brought in from abroad. so how many workers should we be bringing into america? shouldn't we ask how the economy is doing? we're having the kiloest -- we're having the slowest recovery since the great depression 80 years ago. how many people are on food stamps and welfare and all kinds of aid programs? how many people have claimed disability? so during this same time, get this colleagues, the population of americans 16 and older increased by 11 million. 16 million more american adults, but 1 million fewer americans employed. here's a chart that reflects

some of this data. this is natives -- people born in the country accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the working-age population. it is a myth that we're having declining birthrates to the extent that we have fewer people coming into the working ages. not so. since 2000, we've added increases of 16..8 million people in the working ages. but all the employment gains went to immigrants from 2000 to 2014. i was surprised at this. i knew we were having concerns about it and people have shared that with me, but i did not realize the numbers were this stark. all right. let's look at this. so this is a change in the working ages, these two charts

here these two parts of the chart. so we had immigrants increase from 2000 to 2014 by 8.8 million people while the native population in the working ages -- working-age population -- increased 16.8 million people. twice that, basically. but where did the jobs go, the few jobs that we've been creating since we recovered from the recession? we created 5.7 million jobs that went to the immigrant population this immigrant population. and the native population showed a decline of .1 million. so even we had a 16.8 million increase in that age group we had a decline of native-born workers working. so i would say those are

stunning numbers and it calls on us to reevaluate our policy. we're not against immigration. i'm not saying we should end immigration. i'm saying it's time for us to review our immigration policies, as any sensible, sane nation would do. and i.t. time to do that. the president's policy goes in the exact opposite direction. by overwhelming polling data, americans, including hispanics agree that amnesty is creating more illegal flow and this is one more amnesty -- 5 million being rewarded for what they do. well let's look at a little bit more of the reality of how this plays out in the world. here's an article -- dramatic

article in "computer world" about the big power company in california southern california edison. what have they done recently? information technology workers at southern california edison are being laid off and replaced by workers from india. some employees are training their h-1b visa-holding replacements and many have already lost their jobs. the employees are upset and they say they can't understand how h-1b guest workers can be used to replace them. they're doing the job now. apparently southern california edison a power company rooted in the united states of america they are converting, laying off terminating the employment of people who've been with them for a number of years and transition

transitioning those employees to foreign employees. many you come in under the h-1b visa program for the sole purpose of taking a job not coming here under the immigration policy where they would move to green card and to permanent residence and to citizenship. they come solely for a limited period of time to take a job and they work for less pay too often. this is what one said. quote -- "they are bringing in people with a couple of years' experience to replace us. the then we have to train them," said one longtime i.t. worker. it"de-moralizing and in a way i kind of felt betrayed by the company." southern california edison, a quasi almost government entity under the regulatory powers of the state has confirmed the

layoff and the hirings of info infosys based in bank lore, -- bangalor india in mum about mumba. these companies sign up workers in -- in this case, india and they call up the big power company and say look, we got all these young people that have got education and your salary is real generous to them. they like your salaries, and we'll just send them over on h-1b visas, they can stay three years and return to the country and you can get rid of all those american workers. maybe you won't have to pay such retirement or health care benefits. this goes on to say "computer world" interviewed separately four affected i.t. employees.

they agreed to talk on the condition their names not be used. the i.t. employees are -- quote -- "beyond furious" said one i.t. worker. the h-1b program was supposed to be for projects and jobs that american workers could not fill, this worker said. but we're doing our job. it's not like they're bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill -- close quote. ifit goes on to say "not one of these jobs is being filled by india was a job that an edison employee wasn't already performing." it goes on to talk about this. professor ron hira, who studied this in great depth and has written about this program for sometime made some comments on it too. the outsourcing is one more case

in a long line of them of injustice where american workers are being replaced by h-1b's, said ron hira, a public policy professor at howard university and a researcher on all offshore outsourcing." adding to the injustice american workers are being forced to do knowledge transfer, an ugly euphemism for being forced to train their foreign replacements. it goes on -- close quote. it goes on to say "americans should be outraged that most of our politicians have sat idly by while outsourcing firms have hijacked the guest worker program." so the guest worker program is supposed to help businesses if they have a failure to get people to work. then they can apply to this program that has some limits -- by the way the president proposes doubling the number of

people that come in with h-1b visas to work. he wants to double that number. and he's been demanding it. but mr. hira said the majority of the h-1b program is now being used to replace americans to replace americans who are holding the jobs, and to facilitate offshore shoring of shops. so this is a really thorough article in "computer world" and it is a growing problem in the high-tech industry. professor hal saltzman, a professor policy professor at the bluestein school of planning at the rutgers university, he wrote about this last september. this is not something new. this was -- this is beginning to be understood for sometime. this is what he says in "u.s.

news & world report." "all credible research finds the same evidence about stem workforce, ample supply, stagnant wages and by industry accounts thousands of applicants for any advertised job. the real concern should be about the dim employment prospects for our best stem graduates. the"close quote. science, technologies, engining and mathematics. students have borrowed money invested in the college savings plans, they've borrowed money them servings students, to get degrees in stem fields and now we find stem salaries are flat since 2000. that only 40% of stem graduates are actually working in stem jobs as professor saltzman and

five others said in an op-ed in the "usa today," condemning what we're doing in america today. this is what he says in this article. "average wages in the i.t. industry are the same as those that prevailed when bill clinton was president despite industry crisis of a shortage. overall, u.s. colleges produce twice the number of stem graduates that annually find jobs in those fields." we have got to think about how to get our people, our children, our constituents into good-paying jobs. i wish there were more of them. i wish there weren't enough jobs and we had to import workers. but it's not so. saltzman goes on, "the growth of stem shortage claims is driven by lobbying and think tanks.

their goal is government intervention in the market under the guise of solving national economic problems. the highly profitable i.t. descrirks for example is devoting millions to convince congress and the white house to provide its employees with more low-cost foreign guest workers instead of trying to attract and retain employees from an ample domestic labor pool of native and immigrant citizens and permanent residents. of guest workers currently make up two-thirds of all new i.t. hires, but employers are demanding further increases. if such lobbying efforts succeed, firms will have enough guest workers to last for at least 100% of their new hiring and can continuing to legally substitute these younger workers for current employees holding down wages for both them and new hires.

the census bureau reports request," he says, "that only about one in four stem bachelor degree holders has a stem job and microsoft plans to downsize by 18,000 workers over the next year." microsoft signed a letter to the president and congress just a few months ago demanding more foreign workers and the same week they announce laying off 18,000 workers. now -- and this is a pattern throughout the industry. they are lobbying for more and more and more while they're laying off workers. here's a statement that our office obtained from a union representative at i.b.m. they say on january 28 of this

year, just a few days ago i.b.m. embarked on another of its regular resource actions. resource actions are job cuts. job cuts at sites and divisions around the united states, although i.b.m. won't say how many employees were notified that their employment was being terminated the alliance at i.b.m. estimates the number to be around 5,000. i'm continuing to read their statement. "this has been almost a quarterly experience for i.b.m. employees, one of the biggest drivers of the job cuts is offshoring and bringing in guest workers from abroad." so they're laying off americans and bringing in people from abroad. the statement goes on to say "the terminating of regular

i.b.m. u.s. employees while keeping h-1b visa or l1 visa workers on the payroll has been ongoing for years. as one worker stated in an email to alliance just last week, received notice, terminating notice yesterday. i was told last october i was being replaced by an i.b.m. india-landed resource." that is a guest worker. another employee emailed i would estimate that of the 20 people in my i.b.m. department, at least 80% were immigrants on visas working on a so-called government contract. they're working the government contract. they're bringing foreign workers to do that. and it goes on more in detail on

that. here's an article in the engineering journal about i.b.m. "massive worldwide layoff underway at i.b.m." look i'm not saying a company can't lay off be more efficient, the business market changes and they're just not able to stay in business if they are paying people to do work that doesn't exist. i understand that. what i'm saying is, at the same time they're laying off people, they're demanding the right to bring in more foreign workers. further driving down wages. here's what this article says. "project chrome, a massive layoff at i.b.m., is pretending it is not a massive layoff. first reported by robert

cringling in "forbes" about 26% of the company's global work force is being shown the door, at more than 100,000 that makes it the largest layoff at any u.s. corporation in at least 20 years." so this group they've all come together in a lobbying group compete america the alliance for a competitive work force i.b.m. is one of them, hewlett packard, i think they laid off 12,000 not too long ago they're part of it. microsoft, laying off 18,000, they're part of it. demanding more guest workers. this could be -- cringling noted that notices have started

going out and most of the 100,000 plus will likely be gone by the end of february. the impact alliance i.b.m., the i.b.m. employees union says it has so far collected reports of 5,000 jobs eliminated including 250 in boulder colorado, 150 in columbia, missouri 202 in dubuque iowa layoffs in littleton massachusetts are reported to be massive. no significant numbers have been accomplished. here's a story the times union about governor cuomo in new york his program, i.t. work in new york is being outsourced by i.b.m. i.b.m. has brought hundreds of workers from india to fill the jobs in albany.

the article says which in theory plenty of americans are qualified for. walt disney world the information technology department laid off 500 workers while disney's profit margin has gone up and the stock market is rising. well i just would say mr. president, we're going to be talking about this for some time. we need to ask ourselves what is in the interest of the american worker at a time when we are laying off large numbers of workers, skilled and unskilled -- i've been talking about skilled -- do we really need massive increases in foreign workers and do we need to pass legislation that would double the number of guest workers that come into the country at this time? i think not and i appreciate the opportunity to share these thoughts. i see my colleagues and i would

yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i would ask consent that i be permitted to engage in a colloquy with the senator from maine, senator kilns and not -- orceins and not exceed 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: thank you. mr. president, i'm very pleased that senator collins and i are introducing, have introduced legislation known as the small brewers reinvestment and expanded work force act s. 375. the two of us have led the effort to try to help the craft brewery industry. the craft beer industry are small businesses that have used their ingenuity to create a brew that is becoming very very popular. it's interesting that when we developed the excise tax on beer, i don't think we thought about the craft beer industry at

the time. the craft beer are generally small businesses that are struggling to find capital in order to expand, and the current law imposes an excise tax of -- on the first two million barrels 60,000 barrels at $7, and an additional tax on the first -- up to the first two million barrels. the small brew act would modify that that $7 a barrel and that $18 a barrel and give them some relief. i just want to take a moment and then yield with -- to my colleague to explain the rationale as to why we've introduced this legislation. as i said when we imposed the excise tax on beer i think we thought about the big companies, and that we wanted to have taxes on disspilled spirits including beer as an excise tax. when you take a look at the

craft breweries they are really burdened by this tax. they are creating jobs, they are creating a different product and they are creating a market for the future of beer in this country. i just really want to share with you some of these numbers because i think they're pretty impressive. in 1989, there were 247 are breweries in the entire united states. today, there are over 3,200 small and independent breweries and brewpubs in the united states that employ over 110,000 americans. this has been a real growth industry. here are jobs you can't outsource. and they've created a better way, a better product of doing business but here's the challenge -- the challenge is that they are really strapped for capital. it's not easy for them to invest

in the type of investment necessary to expand their capacity. as the brewers association c.e.o.'s bob peace said in testimony submitted to the ways and means committee america's small brewers are the quintessential small manufacturers. they tip apply employ 10 to 100 workers and many began as home brewers before devoting themselves full time to the brewing industry. i would also want to point out that the number-one problem for their expansion is their capacity to have sufficient capital. there was an article in yesterday's "new york times" entitled betting on growth for the microbreweries and quoted the economist dr. bart watson as saying brewery after brewery is looking for ways to grow because

when you talk to these companies, the biggest constraint is capacity. they're selling beer as fast as they can make it. so let me just tell you about a recent visit i had in baltimore at heavy seas brewery. i know this brewery quite well because the owner and c.e.o., i helped him tap the very first keg that he produced in a micropub and when he was doing this basically as a be hobby. he now has expanded his operations and it wasn't easy to do this. he's invested a lot of money. and he's hired additional people creating more jobs in baltimore. hugh hired eight people in 2013 and expects to hire six more this year. these are good jobs but he needs the capital and the relief provided by this act would allow him to be able to do this.

so mr. president, i wanted to bring and senator collins wanted to bring to the attention this legislation that provides some very modest relief from the fees that i mentioned earlier. what it would do is reduce the $7 a barrel on the first 60,000 to $3.50 and for those up to two million from $18 a barrel to $16 a barrel. doesn't seem like much, but that would be the difference in making the investment to expand a microbrewery and hire another us six people or eight people or ten people or start another brewery, to create the excitement if a community that comes with these brewery pubs that i think all of us would agree should not be subject to a special tax that prevents them from expanding. this is big business in my community. it's a growing business in baltimore, it's -- it's a growing business throughout the

country and i would hope that we all would want to help these small businesses. in this congress i will be assuming a new role as the ranking democrat on the small business committee. we're going to be looking for ways in which we can help small businesses in our country. because we know that small businesses are the growth engine and the engine for innovation and change. so if we can help the microbreweries if we can pass this legislation we will help small businesses and we will help economic growth in our community. i'm pleased that senator collins and i are joined by 23 of our colleagues. this has the cosponsorship now the sponsorship of 25% of the senate and we hope that we'll be able to find a way to move this legislation early so that we can help economic growth. in maryland, we're currently home to 43 craft breweries up from 34 in 2013, and 24 more in

the planning stages. i have been to many of these craft breweries. i enjoy their product but more importantly, i enjoy their spirit their entrepreneurship spirit in which they've been able to show a growth industry in our country and which we all can be proud and with that, mr. president, i would like to yield the floor to senator collins. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you mr. president. maine and maryland have in common not only delicious seafood but also fine craft beers. i'm delighted to join my friend and colleague senator cardin, in support of the legislation that we've introduced, senate bill 375 the small brewer reinvestment and expanding work force or small brew act. the title is more than just a

clever acronym. it is a statement of what our bipartisan bill really is all about. this mr. president is a jobs bill and those covered by the bill are small businesses, entrepreneurs who are taking risks and creating jobs in communities around the country. we often talk in this chamber about what we could do to help create the environment that encourages job creation. well, our bill is one such practical means where we can spur the creation of new jobs as well as great products. in maine, we are proud to boast that our state is now home to

more than 60 breweries that produce more than 200 different brands. maine beer is shipped around the country and has developed a real following among connoisseurs who have come to appreciate its quality and craftsmanship. this in turn has led to new tourism opportunities as visitors are drawn to our state to sample our delicious maine craft beers. as the craft beer industry grows, so, too does demand for american-grown barley and hops and american-made brewing bottling canning and other equipment. beyond creating delicious beer, these breweries are creating jobs. that's the whole rationale behind the bill that we have

introduced. in maine alone our craft breweries employ more than 1,400 people. that is an extraordinary number of jobs. and as the senator from maryland has pointed out these are jobs that are going to stay right here in america. they're not going to be outsourced. these are small businesses in our communities that are hiring people and making a difference. nationally small and independent brewers employ more than 110,000 full and part-time employees, generating more than $3 billion in wages and benefits and paying more than $2.3 billion in business, personal and consumption taxes according to the brewers association. so what could we do to encourage

even more employment in this area? the answer is to reduce the federal excise tax on small craft brewers and that is exactly what our bill would do. it would free up capital so that these small business owners can reinvest in their companies and create more jobs. under the current law as senator cardin has pointed out these small businesses paid $7 per barrel in federal excise tax on the first 60,000 barrels they brew and $18 per barrel on every barrel thereafter. the small brew act would reduce these rates would $3.50 on the first 60,000 barrels and $16 for production between 60,000 and two million barrels. thereafter the rate would

remain at $18 per barrel. we know from economic analysis that has been done that such change would have a significant positive economic impact. a june, 2013, study prepared by a professor then at harvard's kennedy school of government estimated that our bill would increase economic activity by a billion dollars over five years create more than 5,000 new jobs in the first year to 18 months after passage and create approximately 400 new jobs annually thereafter. mr. president, again i want to repeat, this is a jobs bill, and i'm proud to sponsor it with my friend senator cardin. i'm also delighted that we have the support of such a large number of colleagues on both

sides of the aisle including my colleague from maine senator king. i urge all of our colleagues to take a look at this bill. if you want to do something that is concrete that we know will create more jobs for a growing industry, that is carving out a niche in so many states across this nation, then work with us to achieve passage of the small brew act. thank you mr. president. mr. cardin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president let me just thank senator collins for her leadership here, but also for pointing out the very obvious here, and this is this is a jobs bill. the passage of this bill will create more jobs. we know that because we know that the craft breweries are strapped for capital. every dollar they save here will be reinvested and create more

jobs, because they don't have the capacity to meet the current needs. they could -- they can produce more -- if they could produce more beer today they would sell more beer. they don't have the fiscal capacity to make the investments that they need to have the capacity to produce the beer. so senator collins is absolutely right when she says that this is a jobs bill that will create more jobs. it also creates a lot of indirect jobs. i was pleased senator collins pointed out that the ingredients on craft breweries come from the community, so they're helping local farmers they're helping local industries grow, which are generally small businesses also, so it helps other small businesses grow by the way that they grow. one -- one interesting fact is that we're now starting to see an increase in craft beer exports. there's a real desire for craft -- our craft brews outside of the united states. it's a relatively new phenomenon nom, but it grew and we're up to

now 283,000 barrels that are exported and i expect you will see those numbers increase greatly. i had this chart prepared of some of the maryland craft breweries. they're becoming well known outside my state of maryland. i already mentioned heavy seas and flying dog is one that i had a chance to visit. there are many others, including some that whose name i think are synonymous with my state such as raven beer, ellicott mills brewing company. these are companies and brand names that are now becoming better known because it's a great product and people really do like to encourage this type of industry. so mr. president i just want to thank senator collins and want to thank our 23 cosponsors. i know senator king is on the floor. i want to thank him for his help on this bill, and i hope that we will have an opportunity to show in a bipartisan bill that we can pass legislation to help job growth here in the united

states. and with that, mr. president i would -- i'll be glad to yield to my colleague from maine if he would like the floor or i will yield the floor. i will yield the floor. mr. king: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: mr. president first i'd like to associate myself with the comments of the senator from maryland and my senior colleague from maine. i know this industry in maine is growing. it's entrepreneurial. it's exciting, energetic and they are adding jobs and only want to continue to grow, and i think this bill makes total sense. it's a way that we can express support for the entrepreneurial and innovative growth of businesses in all of our states. so i'm delighted to be able to join and essentially add my encouragement and support to your work on this bill. i hope it's something since it is a bipartisan bill, that we

can move through this body in a reasonable and short period of time. mr. president, there are two items i want to touch on today. one is bad news and the other is good news. this week, we just learned of a data breach at anthem. 80 million people's records fortunately not credit card numbers, apparently, but things like social security numbers 300,000 in maine. this comes about a month after sony. what is it going to take, mr. president, for this body, for this congress, for this city to act to protect us against these threats? we keep getting warning shots and we keep ignoring them. i'm going to have to go home this weekend. 300,000 people in maine are going to say what have you done

to keep this from happening? am i really going to be able to say well, it's complicated. you know, we have got four committees of jurisdiction, and it's very difficult for us to make these decisions and it takes some time? that's not good enough. the intelligence committee reported out a bill last july. we had a bill on the floor here in the fall. it is time for us to act. we keep getting warned, and we keep not doing anything. i can't justify it. there is no excuse for us not taking steps concrete steps to protect this country against cyber attacks. they keep happening. my regional representatives in maine have surveyed most small businesses and health care facilities. all of them either have been attacked or are concerned about attacks, whether it's from a foreign country whether it's from garden-variety criminals. the point is this is a major

threat facing this country and it is one that we have it within our power. we can't control it, but we can at least work together to try to prevent it and to minimize the damage. mr. president, it is -- it is just beyond time, way beyond time for us to take action on this subject. so i hope, my colleagues, on all the relevant committees can come together in the next several months before the summer, to take action to deal with this problem. there is no excuse, particularly given the continuous warnings that we're having that we don't deal with the issue of the cyber threat to this country. this week, it's anthem. a few weeks ago, it was sony. what's going to happen when it's the gas pipeline system, when it's the financial system, when it's -- when it's the new york stock exchange?

when people's bank accounts disappear overnight? it is time for us to act and it is time for us to act promptly. mr. president, i also come to the floor today with some good news. it comes as no surprise that our debates here in the senate focus generally on challenges such as the one that i just outlined which face the united states. after all that's our task and it's our fundamental responsibility to identify our nation's problems and work together to find solutions. but too often -- and i'm sure everyone in this body realizes, the bad news gets more attention than the good. the old saying is bad news gets halfway around the world before good news gets its shoes tied. the problems we face should not i believe drown out the accomplishments of our citizens as we go about our work every day here in the united states,

and i think we should take a little time every now and then to reflect on the great things that are happening all over america, and in my case in maine. stories of perseverance, innovation individual accomplishment and community effort. so mr. president it's in that spirit that i rise today with good news for my home state of maine. i'd like to spend a few minutes talking about dr. ed bilske and the impressive work that he and a dedicated team of scientists, physicians and students have been doing at one of my favorite schools, the university of new england in bitaford, maine to better understand and treat chronic pain. dr. bislke was recently named a member of the dana alliance for brain initiatives a group of neuroscientists that work together to advance public education about the progress and benefits of brain research and to provide information on the brain in a way that is understandable and accessible

for those of us who don't have a ph.d. in neuroscience. his inclusion in this group is recognition of his terrific work to advance our understanding of chronic pain and is also a reflection of the prominent role that he and his colleagues are playing in a critical national effort to address this problem. chronic pain -- and that means pain that persists for days, weeks and months at a time -- can be absolutely debilitating for people in maine and around the country and is responsible for more than $500 billion a year half a trillion dollars a year in direct and indirect medical costs. mr. president, periodically in my life, i have experienced back pain and when it -- when it persists for a period of time, it changes everything. it changes your mood. it changes your attitude. it changes your ability to get anything done, to focus on the