released a joint report titled "principal stewardship of the american west ." "principalled stewardship of the american west." this new report has details about specific things that we should be doing right here in congress specific things that washington should led the people in the west do for themselves. the whole report is available on my web site barrasso .senate.gov. i want to talk about principles we talk about in this very report. these principles are based on the idea that the people who live on the land are the best stewards of the land. our main goal is to empower the residents, the workers and the local leaders in the west and local leaders throughout the country to make the decisions that best serve their families and their communities.

these principles stand in stark contrast to the failed approach that washington has taken far too long. the first principle in our report has to do with energy. the members of the western caucus are united. we will promote access to our nation's abundant, affordable, secure diverse and reliable energy and mineral resources. that means increasing energy security for the united states. now, we can do that by producing more energy responsibly right here at home. it also means opening up access to international markets so we can help the energy security of our allies as well. the second principle we talk about in principled stewardship of the american west, that second principle in the report focuses on environmental stewardship in the west. we try very seriously and we take very seriously our

commitment to ensuring the health of the land, of the wildlife and of the environment. thousands of people are working across the west to protect our communities. these are people who live in the west not bureaucrats in washington d.c. nobody is better qualified than the people who actually walk the land and breathe the air that they're trying to protect. our report encourages locally led conservation partnerships, partnerships to build on the work being done by people who rely on the health and the safety of the land. this means making sure that regulators base their decisions on science not on personal ideology and that their work is done out in the open. on this front i'll be introducing legislation to stop the environmental protection agency's take diswroafer of the the -- takeover of the waters of

the united states. the third principle in this very report focuses on agriculture and forestry. the western caucus believes that the states are better equipped than is washington to develop good farm policies. the crops the breeds of livestock, the soil types and the growing seasons vary greatly across this country. these factors come together in the west very differently from what you might see in the northeast or in the south. a bureaucrat in washington simply cannot write regulations that cover every part of the country with any hope of success. western states must be allowed to make these decisions for themselves. to help the farming and ranching way of life continue and to thrive in america. one thing we can do at the national level is to promote active management of our forests to make sure that our forests

remain healthy. as many as 82 million acres of our national forest system need treatment, treatment to deal with the threats of fire, insects and invasive species. when forests deteriorate they're more vulnerable to wildfire. fires cause erosion. they threaten water quality. when forests get overgrown and unhealthy they stifle the habitats critical for deer, elk wild turkeys and other animals. the members of the western caucus know, they just know how important it is to responsibly manage our national forests and we will push for legislation to make sure that continues to happen. finally, the report focuses on a western approach to judicial and regulatory reforms. this includes stopping the lawsuit abuse that special interest groups have used to set public policy without the public actually being involved. it includes protecting private

property owners from excessive washington regulations. agencies like the environmental protection agency and the u.s. forest service have a history of interfering with the use of private property. these agencies have fined and bullied landowners throughout the west. too often the goal of the bureaucrats is to protect their own turf, not to protect the land or serve the people. honest hardworking taxpayers get crushed beneath the unlimited resources of a federal legal system that operates without oversight. the western caucus favors conservation through local cooperation and partnership not through intimidation and an attitude that washington knows best. this report, its core principles and the ideas it discusses are based upon what members of the western caucus hear back home. these are the things i hear from people as i travel around

wyoming. these principles promote responsible energy, food, and timber production while preserving what makes the west a unique place in america. last year more than ten million people from around the world visited wyoming. they're drawn by its beauty, its natural splendor, the people of wyoming and all western states know they have a responsibility to manage and protect the land and waters in a way that allows all of us to enjoy them. the goal of the senate and congressional western caucus is to preserve and protect everything that is special about the west so that families who have lived there for generations can continue to live there for generations in the future. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the assistant democratic leader. mr. durbin: mr. president today marks the 25th anniversary of a law that has affected millions of americans. it was a law that would came about because of a dare.

it happened at an airport in phoenix, arizona. i was catching a flight from phoenix to st. louis. i think chicago come to think of t. and i was late. and i ran up to the united airlines counter and the ticket agent started processing my ticket to get on the flight, and she said to me here's your boarding pass, and i looked at it and i noticed that she had put me into the smoking section on the airplane. and i said to her, i don't want to sit in the smoking section. isn't there something you can do about this? she says you came here too late, and incidentally, congressman there's something you can do about it. i got on that airplane, got stuck in the middle seat in the smoking section at the back of the plane surrounded by smokers wedged in there and looked around the plane and thought this makes no sense at all. there is an older person who may have a pulmonary problem. there is a mother with a baby.

they're sitting in the nonsmoking section two rows away from me. and i thought to myself i'm going to do something to change this. i went back to the house of representatives -- i was a relatively new member of congress -- and i introduced a bill to ban smoking on airplanes. my staff thought i was crazy. nobody had ever beaten the tobacco lobby at anything, and to take them on and most of the airline industry was a fool's errand. but i did it anyway and i got a lot of help along the way from some amazing colleagues. and i finally got a chance to bring it to the floor for a vote and to the shock and surprise of the tobacco lobby we won. we banned smoking on airplane flights of two hours or less. i called my friend frank lautenberg, who was the senator from new jersey, and i asked him if he was take up the cause here in the united states senate. he agreed to, and he passed the same measure. so this day marks the 25th

anniversary of the signing into law of banning smoking on airplanes. it's obvious why it passed. members of congress are part of the largest frequent flier club in the world and they hated it as much as i did on that flight from phoenix to chicago. but it did something that i never imagined. malcom gladwell wrote a book called "the tipping points." turns out that moment was a tipping point because people across america 25 years ago started asking a question: if secondhand smoke is dangerous in an airplane, isn't it dangerous on a train? on a bus in an office in a hospital, in a restaurant, in a tavern, in a bingo hall? and the list went on and on. and all across the united states states started changing laws banning smoking. today if you walked into the doors of the capitol here smoking a cigarette someone

would stop you and say wait a minute we don't do there here. in the old days nobody would have thought twice and there were ashtrays all over. when i first came to the senate, there were no rules when it came to smoking. none. we developed them after i made a few points to those in charge. but that was the culture and that was the situation 25 years ago. i think that effort to take smoking off airplanes has led to a lot of other dramatic efforts to protect americans from secondhand smoke and from dangerous situations. i think lives have been saved. there are so many of us who can tell family stories about losses related to lung cancer and pulmonary disease. i can tell my story. i was 14 years old when my father died of lung cancer. he was 53 years old. he smoked two packs of camels a day and died an early death. i didn't stand by his bed at the

hospital and say i'll get even with that tobacco lobby. but i remembered him as i started this battle. so i just wanted to make a note in the record today in the senate to salute the memory of my friend, frank lautenberg, who was my partner in passing this important legislation and to remind us there are other things we can do to make this world a little better and a little safer. one of those things relate to e-cigarettes this new product the tobacco industry is jumping up and down to market to children in america. we've seen the electronic cigarettes double. it has nicotine that is addictive. tobacco companies know if they can lure children into cigarettes or ecigarettes they're going to create an addiction by these young people that will be tough to break and won't be healthy at all. i hope the food and drug administration will step up and

do their job regulate these products these ecigarette products protect the children across america. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to add another statement in the record at a separate place. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you. mr. president, this week we are deciding whether or not we're going to shut down the government of the united states of america again. again. it was about a year and a half ago that the senator from texas on the other side of the aisle took to the floor and called for shutting down the government of the united states of america protesting president obama's affordable care act. he did it. and the hardship that that created for people all across the united states who relied on essential government services is well documented. the impact it had on the men and women who work for our government also well documented. and it cost our economy. it was a bad thing to do. it was a political strategy

which on reflection was the absolute worst to shut down our government. this week we face another shutdown and this time it's the department of homeland security. this department is the one department that is charged with keeping america safe from the threat of terrorism. and it was created after 9/11 because we wanted to make sure we put together 22 agencies that worked together to protect us. you see them in so many different places. this agency runs the coast guard. their cutters are patrolling lake michigan and our coastline atlantic and pacific and the gulf of mexico as well. we see them when we go to the airport, t.s.a., that is under the supervision of the department of homeland security. you may not know it but your local fire department is depending on grants from this same agency so they can buy equipment and train people who are responding to fires in your

community. over and over again the department of homeland security invests in the safety of america, so why why in god's name would we have a political strategy to stop funding the department of homeland security? that's exactly what we're faced with. exactly. and come the end of this week this department will basically lose its funding and be on emergency status. why would we ever do that? at a time when we're warned about terrorist groups attacking malls across america, we are going to shut down the agency, stop funding the agency that protects us against terrorism on the streets of america. at a time when isis is kidnapping people from all over the world beheading them, burning them to death killing them by execution we're going to drop our guard and say we're not going to fund the department of homeland security. why in the world would any

politicians in either house of congress think this is a wise tactical move? it turns out that it was sent to us by the house of representatives, this funding bill, on the condition that we take up the debate over immigration policy in america. i think we need to debate that policy. i have no objection to it. i feel very strongly about some aspects of it. but why would we make the department of homeland security play the role of hostage over this debate on immigration? the right thing to do to protect america and the people who live here is to fund the department of homeland security. i offered a unanimous consent on the floor here two weeks ago asking the republicans to join the democrats in funding this department. senator mcconnell the majority leader, objected. i think that was a mistake. now i think we understand, as we reach this deadline of shutting down this valuable agency of our

government that we can't let this happen. what is it about this immigration debate that has driven some politicians in congress to the point where they're threatening to shut down this department to cut off its funding? it turns out that they object to some of the executive orders issued by the president on immigration. remember, it was the senate that passed a comprehensive immigration bill two years ago. i was part of the group that wrote it. we passed it on the floor with 68 votes and the republican house of representatives refused to even call the bill or any bill on the subject. and when they failed to do anything to fix our broken immigration system, the president said i'm going to issue some executive orders to deal with this problem if congress refuses to act and he did. the republicans hate those executive orders by president obama like the devil hates holy water. they hate them so much that they would shut down the department of homeland security in protest over the president's action. one of the things that troubles

them the most is something called daca. daca is a shorthand description of the president's executive order which allows those who would qualify under the dream act to stay in the united states and not be deported. the dream act is a bill i introduced 14 years ago. i introduced it because i learned there were children brought to america by their undocumented parents who grew up in this country who went to school in this country who were good citizens in america who had no future because they had no home. my dream act said if you were one of those children brought here by your parents we're not going to hold you responsible for your parents' decision. we will give you a chance to become legal in america. that's what the dream act said. that's all it said. and the president's executive order said we're not going to deport these young children now growing up in america. we're going to give them a chance to stay here, to study here to work here.

the republicans hate this, many of them. many of them just hate this idea of giving these young people a chance, and sadly what they're doing is turning down an opportunity for america to benefit from some of these extraordinary young people. time and again, i have come to the floor of the senate to tell the stories of these dreamers, and i'd like to tell another one today. this lovely young woman is mittie del rosario. her parents graduate mittie to the united states from the philippines when she was 5 years old. there was no question about whether she was going to come or not. she was part of the family. she grew up in california. she was an excellent student. her lifetime goal was to be a medical doctor. in high school, she was on the principal's honor roll, an a.p. scholar, received the golden state seal merit diploma and a governor's scholar award. quite the student.

mittie was admitted to the university of california at los angeles, one of the nation's top universities. at ucla, she volunteered as a research assistant. she wanted to get into a lab that studied the risk, high risk of infants to develop autism. mittie also volunteered while a student at ucla as a crisis counselor for their peer help line advising students who were the victims of rape, child abuse and sex abuse. she eventually became a trainer for new counselors. she also volunteered as a mentor and tutor for at-risk middle school children in the city of los angeles. she graduated from ucla with a degree in psychology. her options were limited in terms of medical school because she is undocumented. she was unable to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. then in 2012, president obama issued the executive order establishing the daca program

allowing students like her a chance to stay in america and not be deported. her whole world changed. she began working as a research assistant at the ucla school of medicine, and she has applied from there to attend medical school. she still volunteers at the autism research lab where she started a research career seven years ago. her ambition is to be part of the treatment and research effort on children with autism. she has also served as a peer mentor to ten undergraduate students at ucla. she wrote me a letter and she asked me to relay a message to members of congress who are engaged in this debate on whether or not to shut down the daca program which gives her a chance to stay in the united states. in her words she said please, please listen to our stories. this is my home, and the only country i know daca gives us greater opportunities to give back to the country we love.

this young lady and millions like her grew up in the classrooms of america pledging allegiance to that flag. it's the only flag they have ever known. they can only sing one national anthem the national anthem that's closest to their heart for the united states of america. but now there is an effort under way by some politicians in congress to deport her to send her back to the philippines to say that despite all that you've done with your young life, despite all the talents which you bring to los angeles and california, despite your promise to enter into the medical profession and to serve in a cause that all of us realize is so important autism research, despite all that, leave america. that's the message that comes through in this bill sent to us by the house republicans. they want to deport mittie del

rosario, deport her send her out of this country cost her away despite all the investment that we have made and she has made in her life. mittie and other dreamers like her have so much to contribute. the republican bill that's before us would deport hundreds of thousands of young people just like her and it would stop the president's effort to give the parents of citizens, american citizen children a chance to work temporarily legally in the united states. it's hard to imagine that so many on the other side of the aisle have lost sight of who we are as a nation. we're a nation of immigrants, and that immigrant spirit has made us different in this world we live in. the people who risked everything to come to the united states to a country where they may not even have spoken the language, who gave up everything and came

here are a special brand of risk takers, and we have a little bit of their d.n.a. in our blood. my mother was an immigrant brought here at the age of 2. her son now serves the united states senate. as i have said so many times on the floor that's my story it's my family's story and it's america's story. i cannot believe that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have forgotten america's history forgotten america's story are willing to turn their backs on a young woman like this and say we don't need you you can leave. in fact, we're going to make you leave. we're going to force you out of this country. america won't be a stronger country if we deport mittie and others like her. we're not going to be a better country if we tear apart american families. we're not going to be safer when we should be deporting criminals, not those who aspire to be medical researchers. instead of trying to deport dreamers and mothers and

fathers, congressional republicans should support a clean appropriation bill. let's do that. let's pass a bill to fund the department of homeland security. let's get that done. so once again we don't have a republican shutdown of any branch of our federal government. let's get that part done. and then if we're going to engage in a debate or real debate on immigration let's do it. the majority is controlled by the republicans in the house and senate. they can do that any time they want. let's engage in that debate. let's do it in an honest fashion. let's do it in a hopeful and positive view of what america's future will be when people yiek mittie del rosario have their chance to become part of an america that embraces talent and skill and thanks young people for the sacrifice they have made to make a better life for all of us who live in this nation. mr. president, i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

a senator: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. is there objection?

the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the senate stands in recess subject to the call of the chair. recess:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate resumes -- i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: mr. president i ask unanimous consent that when the senate resumes the motion to proceed to h.r. 240 following morning business today that senators be permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: mr. president i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

6 quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be suspended and i address the senate as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mr. president -- the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order senators are permitted to speak for up to ten minutes. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i be allowed such time as i may consume as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mr. president a lot of us are deeply concerned about the situation in the middle east, in ukraine in china, which we have paid very little attention to as they expand their territory.

mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i be engaged in a colloquy with the senator from south carolina. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mr. president there is a huge credibility gap and this morning's "washington post" probably said it better than -- than i probably could. it's entitled "a credibility gap,"" the washington post "by fred hyatt editorial page editor february 22. it says if the negotiators strike an agreement next month we already know it will be far from ideal talking about the iranian nuclear deal. it goes on, the partisanship needs no explanation but the record of foreign policy assurances is worth recalling. this is really interesting and i think deserves the geangs of all americans. in 2011, when he decided to pull all u.s. troops out of iraq, obama -- i'm quoting from the

article -- obama worries that instability might result. iraq and the united states would maintain a -- quote -- strong and enduring partnership obama said. iraq would be -- quote -- stable secure and self-reliant, and iraqis would build a future -- quote -- worthy of their history as a cradle of civilization. today as we know, iraq is in deep trouble with a murderous califate occupying most of its territory, with a militia rome throughout much of the west. the same year, obama touted his bombing campaign in libya as a model of u.s. intervention and promised that's not to say our work is complete. in addition to our nato responsibilities, we will work with the international community to provide assistance to the people of libya. my friends we all know what's happened in libya and the reason is because despite what senator graham and then former colleague senator lieberman said that we had to do things in libya to make sure that there was some stability they walked

away. obama also said then some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. the united states of america is different, and as president i refuse to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action. that my dear colleagues, was before syrian dictator bashar assad barrel bombs systemic and well documented prison torture and other depredations of civil war killed 200,000 of his patriots and made many flee their homes. in 2011, obama declared that assad must -- quote -- step aside. in a background briefing, a senior white house official added -- quote -- we are certain assad is on the way out. in august of 2013 came obama's statement that the worst chemical attack of the 21st century must be confronted. i have decided that the united states should take military action against syrian regime targets. as a personal aside, the senator from south carolina came over to the white house, the president of the united states assured us

that he was going to take military action and we were going to degrade bashar assad and upgrade the free syrian army and obviously no military action was taken and assad remains in power. in september, the president said his strategy for defeating the islamic state is -- quote -- one that we have successfully pursued in yemen and somalia for years. successful in yemen and somalia that we have pursued for years. just last month, in the state of the union address, president obama presented his ukraine policy as a -- quote -- triumph of american strength and diplomacy. i quote from his speech we are upholding the principle that bigger nations can't bully the small by opposing russian aggression and supporting ukraine's democracy, he said. we all know, we all know. we have watched ukrainians slaughtered, slaughtered with the most modern equipment that vladimir putin had and an

national bloodletting is going on and we are watching thanks to the assistance of the chancellor of germany and the president of france in the finest traditions of neville chamberlain are standing by and watching that country be dismembered. what the senator from south carolina and i are trying to say is that what general keane said the other day al qaeda and its affiliates succeeds van in beginning to dominate multiple countries. al qaeda has grown fourfold in the last five years. radical islam is on the rise. i think our policy of disengaging from the middle east is contributing to that rise. so there is no policy in iraq, there is no policy in syria there is no combating or assisting even the ukrainians as they attempt to defend themselves against the wholesale slaughter of their countrymen by

vladimir putin. my friends, we have had ample testimony before the armed services committee people who served with distinction in this country for many years. republican and democrat administrations, all of them have said they have never seen the world in more turmoil and these things don't happen by accident. it's not like hurricanes or earthquakes. it's a matter of a failed, feckless foreign policy that began in 2009, and the chickens are coming home to roost. mr. graham: thank you. mr. mccain: could i just mention, my friend from south carolina here's where we are islamic state. we are hearing from the administration, i believe that we are gaining. look at where the islamic state january 10 here in red is the islamic state and contested places and look at august 31. obviously, significant gains. one more chart please.

and this is the areas of all of that part of the world that is now controlled or under attack by isis, including by the way not in there we now see isis gaining a foothold in libya. mr. graham: i thank the senator from arizona. what i'd like the body to recognize is that our presiding officer, who just left, senator cotton was an infantry officer in iraq. and i can only imagine how he must feel. our current presiding officer is a reservist in the marine corps who has served in harm's way in battlefield areas and he's a commander in the marine corps. so it's great to have people in the senate who have worn the uniform and understand what's at stake here. senator mccain and i have tried to be consistent, if

nothing else, about this situation. here's the first question america has to answer. is this someone else's war? i've had very -- i've heard very prominent commentators on cable television say i'm tired of fighting other people's war. does isil represent a threat to our homeland? i think it does. and, more importantly they indicate that they mean to hit us here. the head of isil the islamic state and the levant, what i like to call it, served time in a military prison, camp bucca where i did some reserve duty in iraq and when he was released from the camp and turned over to the iraqis, he told the colonel in charge of his release "i will see you in new york." they are recruiting foreign fighters coming in by the thousands. they hold passports that will allow them to go to europe, come back to our country.

and their goal is not only to purify their religion kill or convert every christian they find but also to attack us. so to those who say this is not our fight, i think you're making a huge mistake as we did before 9/11. regional forces have to be part of the mix. the goal to degrade and destroy isil is the right goal. the strategy will fail as currently being considered. let's revisit this issue. as senator mccain said, what you see on this map is not an accident. it's a predictable outcome of three things. the president's decision in 2011 not to leave a residual force behind in iraq to secure our gains has come back to haunt us. the military command infrastructure of this country advised a minimum of 10,000

troops to be left behind as a residual force. i visited baghdad along with senator mccain and lieberman to try to persuade the iraqi political leadership to enter into an agreement to allow us to have a residual force. prime minister maliki said, i'm not to do it if the other groups in iraq are willing to do it. they were all willing to do it. and he asked me, how many troops are you talking about? i turned to our ambassador and our commander at the time and they tell him and me we're still working on that. press reports simultaneously were suggesting that the white house, led by the vice president, by the way was driving the residual force to below 3,000. a number incapable of making a difference. so when the president of the united states tells you that he was willing to leave a residual force behind, that's not

accurate. in a debate with governor romney, governor romney suggested he would support a residual of 10,000 -- a force of 10,000 like president obama was contemplating and president obama interrupted him and said, no i'm not contemplating that. he held our departure in iraq as a fulfillment of a campaign promise. he said that we can leave with our heads held up high. we have accomplished our task. here's what i said on april 3 2011. "if we're not smart enough to work with the iraqis to have 10,000 to 15,000 american troops in iraq in 2012 iraq could go to hell. i'm urging the obama administration to work with the maliki administration in iraq to make sure that we have enough troops 10,000 to 15,000 beginning in 2012 to secure the gains that we have achieved. this is a defining moment in the future of iraq and in my view,

they are going down the wrong road in iraq," the obama administration." no voice was louder than anyone else than senator mccain. it was senator mccain advocated above all others the surge under the bush administration. it was senator mccain who told president bush his strategy was not working and president bush, to his great credit, adjusted his strategy. three years ago senator mccain was the leading voice in this country to advocate a no-fly zone in syria to take the assad regime down. the president ignored the advice not only of senator mccain and myself but his entire national security team. so he got the answer he wanted in iraq. he pulled the plug on troops. and what we hoped wouldn't happen, did happen. and when he said no to a no-fly zone and training the free syrian army, the vacuum that has been created in syria was filled by isil. isil is a direct result of al

qaeda in iraq, which was on its knees in 2010 being able to come back because we withdrew troops and we allowed a safe haven to be formed in syria. so president obama this map is the result of bad policy choices on your part. and you're doubling down on bad policy choices. the third thing that was a huge mistake is drawing a red line when assad used chemical weapons against his own people and virtually doing nothing about it. i'm glad the chemical weapons have been taken out of syria. at least that's what we think they've been -- all of them have been taken out. but 220,000 syrians have been killed with conventional forces by assad. assad is stronger than ever. he is nowhere near going or leaving. between assad and isil, they represent the dominant military force inside of syria. syria is truly hell on earth and all of this is going to come back to haunt us here at home.

so the reason we're here on the floor today is to learn from the past. i have made mistakes. everybody's made mistakes. but the key is to adjust when you make mistakes. the strategy president obama is employing to degrade and destroy isil will fail and let me tell you why. if you could liberate mosul with the iraqi security forces and the kurds we're going to need more than 3,000 u.s. forces to accomplish that task because they don't have the capabilities that our military possesses to ensure victory. once you liberate mosul you've got to hold and build mosul. anbar province is yet to be liberated. we have to convince the sunni tribal leaders in anbar to disassociate with isil, join us. they're not going to do that unless we're a part of the team on the ground. they don't trust the iraqi security forces that are mainly shia. so unless we get more capacity on the ground to ensure success we will fail in iraq.

but syria is the weak link in the chain. mr. mccain: before my colleague leaves iraq. isn't it true now that the only real fighting that's being done is the park pashmirga kurds but also shia militia who are inflicting human rights on the sunni and the same people we fought against during the surge that you talked about before, which is iranian backed and iranian trained? mr. graham: right, it is iraqi security forces have -- the iraqi security forces have crumbled. and it's now the shia and the kurds in the north. by the way the aid we're providing the kurds that goes through baghdad never gets up to irbil and we need to fix that. iran has an inordinate influence in baghdad. to toto get the sunni tribes to peel off, they have to believe that it's going to be good for them in their political grievances

but they have to see americans on the ground to make sure this thing will work. they're not going to pull off isil unless we're there. they don't trust the iraqi forces. as to syria. syria is the biggest problem of all. that's where most of isil resides. that's where their leadership resides. that's where they had the largest number of fighters. there is no ground gain in syria. there is no kurdish presence that has the capability to dislodge isil. the free syrian army they're being killed as fast as we can train them. here's the flaw. the goal is to train free syrian army young men throughout the region and send them into syria to destroy isil. the problem with that is that the moment we send them in to syria to defeat isil assad will attack them because he knows one day they will turn on him. so we've asked the question -- under the authorization to use military force that's being sent over from the white house could we stop an air attack by assad's

forces so they will not kill the people we trained to fight isil? and he said no. so you're training people to go into syria to fight isil that will be slaughtered by assad and we do not have the ability under this authorization to protect the people that we train. senator mccain has said this over and over again. that's immoral and militarily unsound. there is no strategy to deal with syria that has any chance of success. and if you don't get syria right, you can't hold the gains you make in iraq. so the president after all these years 220,000 people being killed having the largest terrorist army in the history of terrorism occupying space the size of indiana with 30,000 to 50,000 fighters, depending on who you believe still hasn't come to grips with a strat strategy that will protect this nation and doesn't understand his mistakes he's been making for the last three or four years. he is not self-correcting. he is perpetuating what i think

is a military fraud. and the longer it takes to destroy isil the more exposed we are here. and at the end of the day the iranians are sizing us up and they see us as a paper tiger. the last thing i would say about the ukraine. russia has invaded the ukraine. when they say they have no weapons inside of the ukraine when they say they have no troops, they are liars. russia has dismembered their neighbor the ukraine. we and the western world have set on the sidelines and watched this happen. they have trampled all over the budapest memorandum where we persuaded the ukrainians to give up their nuclear weapons in the late 1990's and we guaranteed their sovereignty. and when they need us to provide defensive weapons we're absolutely absent at their time of dire need. and the iranians are watching our response to putin. and how could they feel that we're serious about stopping their nuclear program when we

seem not to be serious about anything else? and the reason we will not be more aggressive in syria is because of president obama -- because president obama doesn't want to deal with assad who's a puppet of iran. he doesn't want to jeopardize the negotiations we have ongoing with the iranians regarding their nuclear ambitions. and that desire to get a deal with iran suspect preventing us from degrading and destroying isil. and we will pay a heavy price for these mistakes. so senator mccain, how would you sum up where we're at? mr. mccain: could i just mention to my colleague -- and it's been made, perhaps, maybe larger than it should have been with all of the crises and the tragedies that are -- that are tran expiring, but the president -- sprans expiring, transpiring but the president refuses to refer to this as radical islam. why that is hard to understand is because it's clearly radical

islam. it is a perversion of an honorable religion but everything they're doing is -- is based on their perverted interpretation of the koran. they are islamic. and why we refuse to -- and we respect the religion and we respect the people. but we don't respect radical islam and we've got to recognize it for what it is. and just february 24, "scores of syrian christians kidnapped by islamic state. islamic state militants swept into several of syrian christian villages in northeastern syria in recent days, taking scores of hostages including civilians and fighters, according to numerous interviews. the attacks have displaced hundreds of families and sharpened middle eastern christians' fears of the islamic state," which the president of the united states refuses to recognize as radical islam. now, when you don't even recognize it or identify it for

what it is how in the world are you going to be able to combat it? and finally i'd say to my friend one more time, if he'd respond the ukrainians want to defend themselves. one of the richest and proudest aspect of american history is that we have helped people who are struggling for freedom. whether it be in afghanistan after the russian invasion or -- and others have helped us, going all the way back to our revolution when the french and polish and others came in and helped us. to rationalize our failure to give the weapons to defend themselves as saying that, well, they can't beat the russians anyway why don't we listen to their pleas for help? why don't we listen to their cries? why don't we listen to the fact that they've lost 5,000? that right now the most sophisticated weaponry the russians provided these --

quote -- "separatists" are being used to slaughter them? to me it's the most unbelievable view that somehow we don't want to provoke vladimir putin who has -- who has taken crimea -- they've written that off. shot down an airplane at least with russian equipment. moved and dislocated eastern ukraine. has caused an economic crisis. and we don't want to provoke vladimir putin? it's staggering. mr. graham: just in conclusion in 1998 i believe it was we were a signatoriy to the budapest memorandum that asked the ukranian people to give up over 2,000 nuclear weapons housed on their soil in return for a guarantee of their sovereignty. mr. mccain: including stated crimea as part of the territorial integrity of the ukraine. mr. graham: exactly. and the russians were a signa fore to that bowed attest

agreement memorandum. clearly the russians have stepped all over it and we're not doing anything. so in the future would you give you were your nuclear weapons relying on a promise by the united states? this is very important because you want to deter iran from trying to get a nuclear weapon, i think this emboldens them to get a nuclear weapon. as to radical islam it's hard to defeat an enemy if you don't understand what motivates the name. the nazis did not just want german-speaking regions surrounding germany. it wasn't about the suededdenland, the the rhi rhineland. he wrote a book telling people what he wanted to do. it was about creating an aryan race that would be the dominant race on the planet, some people not worthy of living, like the jews others would be slaves. when you listen to what isil is saying and what motivates them they want a master religion for

the world. not a master race. if you're a christian umbrella pay a tax convert or tie dye. if you're a muslim outside their belief, their view of the faith, you just die. if you're an agnostic, you die. if you're a libertarian you die. if you're an american republican they could care less, you die. democrat you die. they're taught by their interpretation of the koran to literally kill all that stands in their way of the caliphate. you could close gitmo tomorrow, could you flow the palestinians under the bus and give them -- give palestinians everything they want, throw israel under the bus it wouldn't matter. we didn't bring this war on ourselves. these people are motivated by a religious doctrine that's not widely accepted in the faith but that doctrine requires them to kill everything in their path and to turn the world into a religion where they dominate and there's no alternative to their

religion. that may sound crazy to you. sounds lieu a little crazy to me. -- sounds a little crazy to me. hitler is crazy to me. i can't explain why somebody wants to kill all the jews. i can't explain why somebody believes that one race should rule the world and everybody else be under their boot. i can't explain what makes these people tick. i can only tell you what they do and why they do it. and there is no appeasement with radical islam any more than there would be an appeasement with hit hithler. we tried that in the 1930's and 50 million people got killed. here's the choice -- face the enemy as it is, degrade and destroy in a way that will work or accept the fact that they're coming here. not to congressor america -- conquer america that's not going to happen but to hit us hard and break our will so they can have that part of the world

that they've been longing for for over 5,000 years. every time we've chosen to sit on the sidelines and did nothing about it, it wound up hurting us too. if you think you can live in a world where christians over there are being raped, tortured and crews aphid and it went -- crews aified and it won't affect christians here, you're kidding yourself. the if you think you can allow this evil to go unchecked because it's over there and won't affect us here, you're making a mids take of a lifetime. my biggest fear is that radical islam -- and that's exactly what it is -- will get a weapon of mass destruction one day and do a lot of harm to us here. every day that goes by over there that they get stronger, the more exposed we are here. finally on 9/11, 3,000 americans died only because --

they didn't have the ability to kill more. if they could have killed three million of us, they would. they're close to the technology. every day we let this problem grow grows unchecked to having the technology to kill millions of people, here and elsewhere. so the sooner we deal with this the safer we'll be. thank you. mr. mccain: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the title a credibility gap in "the washington post" and also the international "new york times" article, scores of syrian christians kidnapped by islamic state, be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mccain: i appreciate the patience of my friend and colleague from the state of texas. it's with a heavy heart that we see the events that are transpiring as according to this chart, with a heavy heart that we see our friends in ukraine who only want to be like us,

being slaughtered and we refusing to assist them. and i have assured them that i will never give up, ever, until we see a free, produces, democratic ukraine which is part of the community of nations which we would admire and include them in. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i have nine unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they've been approved by both the majority and the minority leader. 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. cornyn: when given the opportunity four times over the last few weeks to fully fund the

department of homeland security while at the same time rolling back the president 's unconstitutional executive action on immigration, four times our senate democratic friends have filibustered this funding. at the same time they've been pointing to this side of the aisle and saying if there's a shutdown of the department of homeland security, you're at fault. it's hypocrisy to say the least. but of all the democrats who voted to filibuster the funding of the department of homeland security which again expires at midnight on this friday night -- of all the democrats who voted to filibuster it, there are 11 of our senate colleagues, democrats, who come from states which were parties to a lawsuit in brownsville texas where

the federal judge issued a temporary injunction just last week saying that what the president did in his executive action was illegal. illegal. so how our colleagues on the other side of the aisle can filibuster the department of homeland security funding because they say it includes a disapproval of the president's executive action at the same time their states, the states they represent are parties to a lawsuit complaining about the illegality of the president's actions, how they can reconcile that is beyond me and perhaps they can come to the floor and talk about that, but i think they should be asked that question and i would be very interested in their answer. of course, as we all know, now the obama administration after the federal judge agreed with

what the president said 22 different times that he didn't have the authority to do what he did, and obviously he changed his mind, but after the federal judge agreed with what he said the first 22 times he said he didn't have the authority now they've asked for a stay of that temporary injunction and if the reports in the press are correct, the judge judge hainen in brownsville the southern district of texas has given the states the plaintiffs in the lawsuit until march 2 to respond to this request for emergency stay. but one by one the folks who criticize what the president was doing in one fashion or another came to the floor and have voted in effect to affirm what he did. as i said yesterday in justifying these votes we heard a common refrain from several of our democratic colleagues, including some of those 11 whose

states have joined the lawsuit against the president's executive action. they've said to us we don't necessarily agree with the president's executive action, but you shouldn't attach that to an appropriation bill to fund the department of homeland security. similarly from senate democratic leadership came the demands for a clean bill, a clean funding bill for the department of homeland security without these provisions address addressing the executive action attached. just two days ago here on the floor the democratic leader himself called for the senate to vote on such a bill. a press release that was issued from senator reid's office was unequivocal, and i quote it says "reid remarks calling on senate g.o.p. to avoid a shutdown by passing a clean d.h.s. funding bill" -- close quote. monday wasn't the first time we heard this from democratic

leadership. we heard it over and over and over and over, as the democrats in lockstep filibustered the d.h.s. the department of homeland security funding bill. so imagine my surprise when senator mcconnell the senate majority leader, offered to consider two bills one that would address the president's executive action from last november -- that's the collins bill -- and a separate one that would fully fund the department of homeland security. you would guess if logic per veiled in this place expect that the democratic leader would embrace that wholeheartedly instantaneously saying that's exactly what we've been demanding. now we've been offered it, we'll take it. well that didn't happen. this place is -- can be very

confusing sometimes and you'd be wrong if you thought that the democratic leader embraced what he'd been demanding for the last few weeks. so after spending weeks demanding a clean funding bill for the department of homeland security including as recently as monday, 24 hours have passed and the democratic leader has still refused to agree to hold a vote on a so-called clean department of homeland security funding bill. let me just repeat so i'm absolutely clear. the democratic leader has so far refused to agree to vote on a clean funding bill for the department even after he called on senate republicans to pass exactly that as recently as monday. so i don't know how to sugarcoat it mr. president. call it a flip-flop, call it a

disingenuous, i don't know what you'd want to call it, but when you are offered exactly what you'd been demanding and you don't accept it, it tells me that you're not particularly serious about wanting to solve the problem. and it's this kind of double talk which i think causes the united states senate to be held in low regard by the american people where they think that what you say doesn't necessarily translate into action, and it's becoming abundantly clear that our friends across the aisle haven't seemed to have gotten the message from the last election on november 4. i mentioned yesterday and i'll repeat with reference to some of the gamesmanship that appears to be going on here at a time when the clock is ticking and the department of homeland security funding runs out at midnight on friday recently the senior

senator from new york told "the huffington post" it's really fun to be in the minority. as if creating obstacles and slowing things down and impeding progress toward a goal that we all hold in common, funding the department of homeland security that somehow that's having fun. but filibustering critical funding for the men and women that protect us every day and protect the homeland, that's not what i call fun. at the end of the day the senate will make sure that those who protect our borders and our ports and our skies we're going to make sure they get paid. that's what the american people voted for last november. they were sick and tired, if i heard it once, i heard it a hundred times we're sick and tired of the dysfunction in washington, d.c. and that's why we're voting for a change. that's why we got nine new

colleagues in the united states senate to break that logjam of dysfunction. so i would implore the democratic leader to heed his own call for a clean department of homeland security funding bill and to quit playing games quit playing games with the lives of the people who work at the department of homeland security quit playing games with the american people whose security is on the line, if for some reason that the ability of the department to perform its important functions is disrupted because of a lack of funding funding. quit playing games with the funding that pays the salary of the men and women who protect our ports who protect our airports and protect our border from transnational drug cartels. 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:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: mr. president i ask for a vitiation of the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. markey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, everyone agrees that our immigration system is broken. the immigration system we have now hurts our economy and it hurts our national security. the senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill. the house of representatives chose not to act. again, the senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill. that's why i supported the executive action by president obama to address our immediate immigration crisis. we cannot wait for the house of representatives' republicans to act. and that's because immigration is one of our country's greatest

strengths. immigrants are a vital part of the fabric of massachusetts and of our country. they start businesses, they create jobs, and they contribute to our communities. the president's executive order recognizes the value of immigrants to our country. president obama's executive order will bring millions of law-abiding immigrants out of the shadows and help to keep those families together. the order allows law enforcement to focus its resources where they belong, reinforcing security at our borders and prosecuting and deporting dangerous criminals who pose threats to public safety. this executive action cannot and should not be viewed as the final word on the matter of immigration reform. it is the beginning of an effort to permanently fix our broken immigration system.

what unites us in massachusetts and all across america is the unshakable belief that no matter where you come from, no matter what your circumstances, you can achieve the american dream. the immigration system we have now doesn't reflect those values. unfortunately, instead of working to fix the problems with our immigration system, the majority of the senate has been manufacturing a government shutdown of the department of homeland security, even as our nation faces real threats to our safety and our national security if we don't fully fund the department of homeland security. the majority seems more interested in undermining president obama's border policy than funding actual border protection in our country. let's look at what could happen if homeland security funding lapses. number one fema efforts -- fema

is a part of the department of homeland security. fema efforts in massachusetts to develop a preliminary damage assessment for disaster relief funding may be interrupted. the people in my home state of massachusetts are suffering from the second-snowiest winter in our history. we have endured more than eight feet of snow. those snowpiles are climbing even higher. sea walls to protect our shores are crumbling. roofs are collapsing. homes are being destroyed. small businesses are shuttered while owners struggle to make ends meet. cities and towns across the commonwealth have overspent their budgets by tens of millions of dollars responding to one snowstorm after another. but instead of the relief that should come with the assurance that assistance is on the way, the people of massachusetts have to worry that this

republican-manufactured government shutdown threat is jeopardizing this critical assistance. the last thing the people of massachusetts should have to worry about is whether their disaster assistance will be delayed by the politics of immigration reform. this is absolutely outrageous. massachusetts needs the disaster relief today. number two an estimated 30,000 homeland security employees would have to be furloughed including those who process federal grants for local police, fire and other first responders. firefighters might not get the best oxygen masks. bomb squads might not get the right equipment they need. these are hardworking people who help to protect our nation and help our first responders do their jobs. and number three a department of homeland security shutdown would compromise our national

security by stopping command-and-control activities at department of homeland security headquarters, disrupting important programs like detecting weapons of mass destruction. homeland security employees remaining on the job will not get paid, and those who are furloughed will be left to wonder whether they will ever be paid for the work which they have missed. this uncertainty hurts morale and can put families in financial jeopardy. it's time for republicans to end this brinksmanship and help pass a clean homeland security budget free of unrelated policy riders, and then we should get to work on comprehensive immigration reform. the immigration system we have now doesn't reflect our time-honored values as a melting pot of diverse thank you and cultural innovation. it hurts our economy and it

hurts our national security. in short our immigration system is broken. but for millions of immigrants who are living in the shadows who are working every day to support their families, who have been brought up here from a young age, who are serving our country in the military, are pursuing the dream of higher education, these people deserve a path that allows them to earn citizenship. that why we need to work together on comprehensive immigration reform. it will give more families and individuals a real shot at the american dream. it will encourage immigrants who are educated here to innovate here. this is an important debate, and we should have it, and we should not have it at the expense of the safety and the security of our nation. i caller call on my republican colleagues to bring forward a clean department of homeland security funding bill, free of unrelated policy riders dealing with immigration.

let's give the people of our country the confidence that the department of homeland security is going to protect against al-shabaab launching a successful attack against the mall of america that a terrorist group cannot now be put together thinking -- perhaps erroneously -- that the department of homeland security has taken its eye off the ball while worrying about the funding levels that are necessary in order to secure our country. i lived through this in boston. mohamed atta and the other nine who hijacked two planes on september 11 of 2001, they thought they could find an opening -- and they did -- in our airline security. in 2013, the tsarnaev brothers thought they could find a hole in our security, and they attacked again in boston.

we should not have any question raised about the department of homeland security being on the job, of them protecting our citizens of providing the needed security which our country needs. that is where we are right now and the republicans are hold being--are holding up the funding of this vital agency under the misguided notion that they're going to be able to right the entire comprehensive immigration bill inside of a department of homeland security security budget. it is not going to happen. everyone in this country knows it's not going to happen. it's a dangerous game with the security of our country which the republicans are playing with. so i ask -- i ask all who make the decisions in the republican party to please tell their most radical members that the

department of homeland security must be funded. it must be funded this week. we must not only pay those who work for us, but we should thank them every day for the security which they provide for our country. i yield back the balance of my time. mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, i would say to the senator from massachusetts, amen -- amen. we can't play around with our national security by holding somebody's legislative ideal as a means of holing holding up the national security and holding the national security of this country hostage. mr. president, i came to talk about another issue. in the first part of the week, the "washington post" had an

article that followed a series of articles in other newspapers, such as "the wall street journal," "new york times" about a device that was given certification by the federal communication commission called a stingray. this device, when used properly by law enforcement -- specifically the f.b.i. -- not only can locate and absorb the content of communications over a cell phone but can also locate the specific location of that cell phone. and it does so by making the

cell phone think that it, the device is the cell phone tower. so instead of the cell phone radio waves going to the normal cell phone tower, they would come to this device called a stingray. now, if used properly to go after bad guys, terrorists, criminals, of course, that's one of the reasons that this device was created and certified by the federal communication commission commission. and part of the protections as used by the f.b.i., in fact is if you are going to find -- if you're going to get content, of

course that's like if the f.b.i. is going to -- or local law enforcement is going to break into somebody's home to get evidence. and, of course, our constitutional protections of the right of privacy requires that law enforcement agency to go to a judge an impartial part of the judicial branch, in order to get a court order that says there is probable cause that that crime has been committed and, therefore the right to privacy -- the constitutional right of privacy -- is trumped by this court order for the law enforcement to go in and get the evidence. well as technology continues to evolve and to explode of course

these questions of the constitutional right of privacy get a lot more difficult. and so now law enforcement wants to pinpoint the location of a cell phone so they can go in and grab that person. again, it would seem that the constitutional right of privacy needs to have the protections of a judge's order and it is this senator's belief that the f.b.i. when employing this kind of device would in fact use those constitutional protections. the question is raised, however by the news articles that we have seen when this device is

turned over to local law enforcement are they being adequately trained on the judicial protections? indeed are they employing those and the news articles, as evidenced by "the washington post" this past monday, would indicate that those judicial protections are not being employed. so this senator as one of the coleaders with my chairman, john thune, on the commerce committee, this senator has written to the f.c.c. and has asked them what information the f.c.c. had about the rationale had behind the restrictions

placed on the certification of the sting ray the device that were certified by the f.c.c., and whether those similar restrictions have been put in place for other devices because as technology continues to improve, we're going to see a lot of these kind of devices. and whether the f.c.c. inquired about what oversight may be in place to ensure the use of the devices to make sure that the use of the devices complied with the manufacturers representations to the f.c.c. at the time of the protection, and we are asking for a status report of the task force that was previously formed to look at

these questions surrounding the use of the sting way. now, this is not the last time, mr. president, that we're going to be asking these questions not necessarily about this device the sting ray but there is a multiplicity of devices coming out onto the market, and the question is what about our price? of course, we're reminded every day because we read in the newspaper every day about another data breach. senator thune and i have filed legislation with regard to a data breach that at least the company has the obligation, and if passed into law they would have to notify the poor customers that their data has

suddenly been given out there in the internet ether because of that data breach, but a lot of these questions are going to continue to be asked. what about the device called the pineapple? this is one i had no idea. here's what this device does. if i go into starbucks and i use the wireless in starbucks to go into my internet someone can be sitting outside of starbucks in their car at one of the outside tables with this device called a pineapple, and suddenly my device is going on the wireless not in starbucks but on that

pineapple device so that suddenly all of my communications are going directly to that person who has become a major theft of all of my privacy that i'm communicating on my little device. this is scary and yet that device has been around for several years. so we have major privacy questions. the presiding officer a member of the commerce committee we're going to be grappling with these issues as well as other committees such as judiciary on the right to privacy but in the meantime, we have raised this -- these issues with the f.c.c. on this most recent detailed expose

about this device called the sting ray. employed for our national security for our personal safety, which is the job of government then it's a good thing. employed however for other reasons of invading our constitutional right of privacy is another thing and it's time for us to stand up for the individual citizen of this country and their right to privacy. mr. president, i yield the floor and i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president will we suspend the quorum call? the presiding officer: is noter from missouri. without objection. bluntmr. blunt: madam president last week i was pleased to see that a judge in texas issued an

order against the president's executive order. this reaffirms that president obama was right when he said at least 22 times that he didn't have the authority to take the action that he now has taken on immigration. in december of last year were i joined an amicus brief with senator cruz and senator cornyn, and i believe the toarption attorney generals from 26 states -- not the state of missouri, but 26 states. p i amstates i'm glad that my joining allowed missouri to be represented in this case brought in the state of texas against president obama's illegal decision to allow amnesty to be established. the brief states that the obama administration exceeded their constitutional authority and disrupted the delicate balance of power between the congress, whose job it is to pass the law and the president whose job it is to carry out the law. executive means just that.

the job of the executive is to execute the law. it's not to pass the law. there is no constitutional provision that anyone has been able to show me or that i've ever been able to find that says if the congress doesn't do something, the president can decide it needed to be done and the president just do it on their own. there's certainly no thraw suggests that the -- no law that suggests that the president can just willfully ignore the law. the brief that we joined asserted that the obama administration exceeded the bounds of their show of called prosecutorial discretion, the idea that they can have some discretion about how vigorously they enforce certain laws is really both in this case and in the court ruling held up to the standard that it really should be allowed to meet. i mean the idea that the president can say really there's just too much law here to enforce and we can't afford to enforce the law but then by not

enforcing the law creates staptionly more -- discretes substantially more economic burden on the states and federal government than enforcing the law would have created. by any standard, that makes no sense. this is not a determination that at some level they there are just too many violations of some law that's not very significant that you could have some prosecutorial discretion. this is the law that impacts whether people can come into the country or not and whether they can stay in the country not being lollly here. -- legally here. the bill that leader mcconnell introduced this week will put every senator on record on this topic. i look forward to a chance to vote on that bill and see my colleagues vote on this bill. who will stand with the president's clear power grab on immigration and who will stand by the rule of law? at least half a dozen democrats and perhaps more have said they disagree with what the president did with this november action.

a vote on senator mcconnell's bill will give them a chance to show whether they really disagree or not. it's specific to the november action. it's specific to the action that the federal judge in texas said put undue burdens on the state and exceeded the president's authority. as i have said a number of times, i'd like to see our friends on the other side of the aisle be willing to debate this issue. now, i've also admitted that number of times if i was then and if the the president of the united states has sid 22 times he -- has said 22 times he couldn't do something i'd have some reluctance, as they clearly do to come to the floor an defend why now those 22 statements don't matter. if the democrats how debate on the bill, members on both sides of the aisle could offer amendments and we could be doing the job that we're expected to do as legislators.

unfortunately, they've decided to repeatedly say "no," we don't want to debate this bill. "no," we're not going to go forward, "no," we're not going to let the normal process works "no," we're not going to deal were the bill sent over by the coequal branch of the congress orkthe house of representatives and hopefully we'll see what happens as this debate moves forward and the president's activities are held not only now to a standard of law but also his own standard. and, madam president i'd like to submit for the record the list 2692 times that -- the list of the 29 22 times the president said he does not have the authority to do what he has done. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: as early as march of 2008, the president said, i take the constitution very seriously. the biggest problem we're facing now is things that don't go through congress at all.

on november of 2010, the president said, "i'm the president, not a king. i can't do these things just by myself. i've got have partners do it." in january of 2013, the president again still believes he's not a king, because he says "i'm not a king." he sthais two different events on that day -- he says, "we can't simply ignore the law." now, the truth is in november of 2014 the president does decide we can sumly simply ignore the law enforcement the 22 times the president said we couldn't ignore the larks i agree with him. d. -- the law, i agree with him. for those who say i don't find enough times to agree with the president. here are 22 times that i agree with the president that he cannot do these kind of things on his own and by himself. a year ago february 14, 2013,

two years ago the president said "the problem is i'm the president of the united states." now, i could tooley just quit right -- i could actually just quit right there. but of course he said, "the problem is, i'm the president of the united states. i'm not the emperor of the united states. we have certain obligations to enforce the laws that are in place. we --" it goes on. and i get to that point and i'm just -- i don't know quite how to explain as the president i'm sure the president doesn't know how to explain what he said and what he has now done. in september of 2013, my job in the executive branch is supposed to be to carry out the laws that are passed. still in full agreement with what the president said his job is. as late as -- as late as august

of this last year the president says "there are some things we can't do. congress has the power of the purse, for example. congress has to pass a budget and authorize spending. so i don't have a green light" he goes on to suggest to do just whatever the president might like to do. that's basically what this debate is about right now. it's not about whether the department of homeland security would continue to function. in fact, what i'd like to see here is the president engaged as the principal officer responsible for the administration of the government. i think something like that is what president kennedy said after the bay of pigs when he said i'm responsible here because i'm the principal officer responsible for the administration of the government. the president created this problem. he created this funding problem for states. he created this funding problem for the federal government. he created this problem of

exceeding his authority as president of the united states. but the president once again is missing from the discussion of how to solve the problem. it could very well be, as is often the case, the person who would know how to solve the problem is the person who created it, but we're not hearing anything from that person that person because clearly people at the white house believe it is their temporary political advantage to act like that people in the congress don't want the government to function rather than to act like people in the congress believe the president was right the 22 times he said he couldn't do what he's now done. i've heard several of my colleagues in the last few days, in fact one or two even this morning on early news shows this morning say we really need a way for the congress to settle these kinds of disputes outside of the appropriations process. one way to do that, madam president, would be to pass the law that i filed in the last congress that the house of representatives passed in a

bipartisan way in the last congress the senate not allowed to vote for -- or to vote on. i'd like to see us vote on in this congress the enforce the law act which simply does allow the congress if a majority of the members of the house or senate believe that the president is not enforcing the law as written, to go to a judge and seek an early determination on that rather than wait for some aggrieved citizen who disagrees with a rule or regulation to have to hire their own lawyer after the rule is in effect and in the two years or so it might take to get that case to the supreme court other individuals impacted by the rule or regulation or trying to comply with it only to find out later as the court ruled a handful of times during this, during the recent years of this presidency the court ruled a handful of times no, you don't have the authority to do that, they said to the president. they said no you don't have the

authority to appoint people to the national labor relations board when the senate is in session just because you've decided somehow the senate is not in serks you don't get -- not in session you don't get to decide whether the senate is not in session mr. president if they have met the requirements to be in session. you don't get to decide whether the senate is in session if that same session of the senate approved some things that you thought needed to be done, and that was good enough for you. then they said, mr. president by the way when you appoint these people illegally whatever rules and regulations they put forward aren't legal either. so the couple of years of businesses trying to comply with the national labor relation act rules and regulations all that's to the wayside. those rules are all gone. but that doesn't restore the time effort, money needless compliance that happens when the president exceeds his authority or when the president's agencies

like the environmental protection agency decides that they can do something that they'd like to do without ever arguing before the congress we'd like the authority to do this. and so passing the enforce the law act would be a way to seek an earlier and quicker remedy. it does appear to me that the federal judges are likely to decide pretty quickly federal judges at the court of appeals level and then the circuit level that no, mr. president you've gone beyond where you were. in fact, you were right the first 22 times not the november 2014 time that you decided if you don't like the law you don't have to enforce the law. so madam president, i think we should move forward with that ability that the congress currently doesn't have but also i think we should continue to express our desire for this process to work the way it's supposed to work. the house of representatives

that's supposed to initiate spending bills has done that. it's the job of the senate to debate those spending bills. it's the job of senators to offer amendments if they don't like them. and so far our friends on the other side have insisted that they don't want to do that part of this job. and maybe we all should understand why they don't want to defend what the president's done because of all the times he said he couldn't do it. madam president, i'd ask unanimous consent that the senate now stand in recess until 2:00 p.m. today. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate stands in recess until 2:00 p.m. recess:

a >> the c-span cities to it takes booktv in american history tv on the road traveling to use cities to learn about their history and literary life. next week and we partner with comcast for a visit to galveston, texas,. >> the opening of the suez canal in 1869 ships were really almost dealt a death blow. without opening of the canal coal-fired ships had a shorter route to the far east, india all of those markers. sailing ships needed to find a

way to make their own living. instead of high-value cargo they started caring lower value cargo, coal, oil cotton, et cetera. she found her niche in carrying any kind of cargo that did not require getting to market at a very fast-paced. >> watch all of our events from galveston saturday march 7 at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv and sunday march 8 at 2 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. >> no is a look at gender equity 50 years after the passage of the civil rights act of 1964 with usb coal employment opportunity commission member a boston university law school conference in november includes a discussion on gender stereotyping, pay equity sexual harassment and the rights of pregnant women in the workplace.

>> my privilege this afternoon to introduce commissioner chai feldblum and also uncomfortably thank her for coming to the conference. not only coming by being here the whole time and participating actively. i think we can all agree that she substantially enhanced the conference for doing that company think it reflects the fact that at heart she is still a law professor but we can also admire her career has been successful in connecting the realm of ideas to the operative world, something she has done i think pretty much since graduating from law school. a couple years clothing on the first circuit in the supreme court and then at georgetown, she founded the law center a

federal legislative and administrative clinic which she had a number of clients that led to her being instrumental in the drafting and negotiation of americans with disabilities act and the 2008 a name and is to that act as well. these are both negotiated statutes. so it wasn't just the drafting. and she played a role in drafting the employment non-description nation act which is not yet enacted. but more connected to the top of her talk and without wasting any more of her time i'm going to hand the podium over to her. [applause] >> so it really has been a fool

and amazing day and a half conference. i did, in fact, tell my chief of staff that it wanted to clear the day and a half so that i could be here. partly because i knew that i would learn as i have. partly because as a law professor for 18 years i actually do believe in the importance of theory to the affecting practice. so i definitely want to thank the law school for supporting this conference, for supporting linda and all of her work, as you heard. and also to thank the members of her committee, t. eric jack, michael. because even if you're just go into meetings or are responding to e-mails, you were engaged in helping to craft this event. finally, i have a true confession. i am an out, completely un-closeted c-span junkie.

[laughter] there it is. every office that i've had since 1991 i have required a tv in the office. i come in i turned onto c-span and that's where it states the whole day. often on mute, but going on. a little disconcerting to some of my visitors sometimes, but on a serious note as you will see from my comments i want to talk about how we can achieve real social change. and an important aspect to real social change is an engaged citizenry, and an engaged citizenry needs to have unfiltered information that comes to them. and that is i think c-span is absolutely an important component of that in our democracy. okay. so the civil rights act of 1964. obviously, as you've heard and

as you know definitely a historic piece of legislation. it is as you heard yesterday if you heard professor wilson, today as you heard from kiara it is not a fully transformational piece of legislation because it cannot by its own yes to fall racial equality, equality funding number of other fronts because and to engage with the economic issues of this country that won't happen. nevertheless, it also plays its part of people can actually now get jobs people of color get jobs, get promoted in their jobs, that will definitely make a difference in their economic status. it is also i think a dynamic law, particularly as implemented by the eoc, the equal employment opportunity commission, the commission on which i serve as

one of five commissioners, and the commission that congress specifically chose to set up as a bipartisan commission when they passed the civil rights act of 1964. they could've had the department of justice implement the law. they could have the department of labor implement the law. and it said they created this bipartisan commission. and they think we have taken our job seriously in terms of being responsible for implementing the law. so, for example in areas of race, i believe we've done really important work in terms of reinvigorating our guidance about requiring any criminal background screen to actually match up to the job, for which this screen is being used. you heard from kiara that the law would not protect her in terms of her cornrows. that's exactly what what the courts have decided that the

eeoc filed a claim alleging that a draft code that said professional appearance means no dreadlocks no cornrows is the form of race discrimination. not only because it might be a marker of race but because for a non-african-american we don't have to do anything to our hair to have it be straight. and for many african-americans their hair will normally locked. that's what they are does. so having a code, a dressing code that says you must do something unnatural to your her in order to come work here is we say a form of race discrimination. also done work in terms of english only, contesting english only rules something that is often gotten the reaction from congress, as well as in terms of religion, the issues have changed since 1964.

not so much that they say no jews, no muslims. it's about issues of dress code. and again we've been very active in that area. but for this talk i want to focus on gender equity. simply because one can't do everything, i'm going to focus on gender equity. and talk about the chances that have been made over the past decade and how far we have to go. idb leave that anniversaries like the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act is a particularly useful moment in which to reflect on what happened that's been positive, what else needs to be done. so here's the framework i want to use in talking about this. and it's a framework that i started using a number of years ago, but it particularly resonates for me now because many of the presentations that you have heard have actually

used this framework. so the framework is that to achieve teeny social justice goal, any social justice outcome, one needs three variables to converge. law, policies and practice, and social norms. what i mean by law is the law that a legislation may have passed, congress or state legislatures, local ordinances the law that a the legislature has passed. the way in which that law has been applied and interpreted by an agency charged with implementing the law if there is one. regulations and guidance from the agency. and courts that have been applied that law, those regulations and guidance to particular cases in front of them. in other words lots of words. all part of law.

by policies in practice, i mean how and whether the words of the law, regulations case decisions have actually been absorbed into this scene use of an organization that is regulated by the law. are the requirements of the law truly reflected in the daily ordinary practices of that organization? or are they just primarily words? and by social norms i mean what the majority of people feel and think about the social justice outcome being pursued. because until one gets to the tipping point of where more than a majority of the people a significant majority of the people, belief in their hearts and minds that the social justice outcome in pursued is

actually a good social outcome it will never be achieved. and these three elements of synergistic, they are interrelated it's always a dynamic dance going on between them. so, for example, i assume the social justice outcome being sought is the equity in the workplace. we often need a law in order to get employers to put policies and practice in their workplaces to stop the discrimination. both the signaling, the social message of the law as well as those policies and practice might themselves foster changes in social norms. that is what workers believe in the hearts and minds about how they should act. and then at social norms change, that can make both the laws of the policies and practice work more effectively because suddenly employers are going to be able to understand a lot

better, comply with it more effectively. and coworkers will begin to accept those social norms and even as the appropriate norms to follow. you know i was just a few days ago speaking at a keynote panel at the federalist society so we spoke right after justice scalia spoke, the justice scalia spoke, apparently for us, professor richard epstein was on the panel, and i was making this point in terms of these variables are kept in his comments he said, you know if you want to change a social norm, the worst thing to do is to pass a law. and i was like okay that's not exactly what i said. what i said was if you want to achieve a social justice outcome, you need certain variables. social norms are one of those variables, but it's not that law will legislate social norms.

often you need some change in social norms to even get a law enacted as a political matter, but law is one component of achieving the social norm, and it can actually be an interactive synergistic component to hoping that social norm be adapted. so let's think about that framework in the context of the anti-discrimination provision based on sex that is included in the civil rights act of 1964. as many of you may know, the civil rights act when it was introduced do not include a sex discrimination prohibition. it only prohibited employment on the basis of race, color national origin and religion. the myth come as those of you who heard serena's presentation yesterday, and it had arisen that congress had never dealt with, never even thought about this issue of sex discrimination, and it was added to title vii on the house floor by congressman i would submit to some who wanted to kill the

bill. now, there are some elements of truth in this story, but mostly it is completely wrong. as serena alluded to yesterday. and by the way when i try to track down the first time this came up i found it i think this is where it came from a paragraph in the harvard law review in a symposium where there was one paragraph that simply said this, and then referenced the one woman member of congress edith green who was opposing it as the basis for their analysis. so any of you working in law but you think what you write doesn't matter, not true. so the reality is that congress had been having a debate about sex discrimination for over 40 years at that point. it had not been in the context of a debate, not been a debate in the context of an employment

law that would govern private employers. it had been a debate in the context of whether to enact unequal rights commitment to the federal constitution. and the national women's party had been pushing for the era since the 1920s. by the 1940s the language of the proposed amendment read as follows, quote, equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the united states or by any state on account of sex. okay, so that amendment if adopted would admit that there could be no federal law and no state law that denied or abridged equality of rights on account of sex. now, as you all know the era was not passed by congress until many years later and was ultimately not ratified by the states. now, the reason for non-passage of the era was that in 1950, various women's groups and unions prevailed on congress to

add a second sense to the amendment. the second sentence said quote the provisions of this article shall not be construed to impair any right, benefit or exemption transferred by law upon persons of the female sex. okay so the first part of the nimitz said no law may take sex into account, and that the second sentence said yes laws can take sex into account if they can for rights, benefits or exemptions just to women. what was going on here? a combination of practical politics in social norms. as a matter of social norms the assumption was that women were really different than men because their true job was to be wives and mothers. not to be workers in the labor market. and as a practical political matter, unions and women's groups have successfully gotten labor laws enacted in a number

of states. and very importantly, upheld against constitutional challenges by having those laws protect only women on the grounds that women were different than men. so, for example, they have laws that put a limit on the maximum number of hours that women could work, or that required premium overtime pay just for women because women were different from men. the real jobs or to be wives and mothers, if these laws would help them do that. limiting their hours. so these groups did not want an era that would invalidate those laws. the national women's party and of interest in the era if it included that second sentence, so invest. 13 years later, 1963, title vii is introduced, no sex discrimination provision. national women's party saw this as an opportunity come here's a bill moving through let's get a

sex discrimination provision added, and to ask congressman howard smith, congressman who opposed the civil rights act generally, voted against it, to offer the amendment partly because he was the congressman who have been introducing the era into the house for the past number of years. now, as a political matter, they assumed he might bring along those of other members of congress who like you oppose this bill and hope this would be a poison pill. at least a number of other members voted to add sex because they felt it was the right thing to do. 11 out of the 12 then women members of congress there were only 12 members of congress, 11 out of the 12 voted to add a sex discrimination prohibition in. and he didn't serena not only yesterday but in her book representing reasoning from race is a really excellent job of

unpacking, build on the work of other scholars, the totally racist rationale that was often used oh, my god, you have this without gender. white women will have less protection than black men and women and how portable would be? but the reason it's taken on the senate side is because of the work of, explaining that it was essential to keep gender, except into actually help african-american women. here's the interesting thing. the words became part of the law but because social norms were not yet at a place where men and women were actually considered to be the same at least for employment policy purposes the eoc, the agency charged with enforcing the law, and subsequent the court found it hard to accept title vii prohibition on sex

discrimination at face value. so here's an example. september 1965, just a few months after the eoc opened its doors in july 1965, a year after the law passed, the commission announced its position that sex segregated advertisement would not, was not in violation of title vii to a general practice at the time was to have male and female columns in the help wanted section of the newspapers. it was a thing called newspapers. they were in print. there was a list of jobs under men wanted women wanted headings to the eoc decided that this practice did not violate title vii because the personal inclination of men and women with such that many job categories were primarily of interest only to men and women. so re-segregating adds by sex is not discrimination to it was simply helping applicants find a

job they were looking for anyway. now, eoc explained if a woman applied for a job under the men wanted colin or indent applied for a job under the women wanted colin, the law prohibited an employer from not hiring that person based on sex. the ads themselves were fine. one of the first articles i read that really laid this out was by terry franklin from texas, and i remain totally indebted to her for that. against i then went back and read catherine frankie and mary ann cases article also had explicated some of us. said the decision by the eoc so outraged women's organizations that do actually founded the national organization for women as the reaction to this but again, go to now's website and look under history, they will explain that. so after this start, the eoc

emerged as a real leader in shaping the law of sex discrimination. the head -- how did the eoc do that? first, through commission decisions that it issued, okay, initially it did not have real strong enforcement authority but they did have the requirement of taking in charges, investigating, seeing if they've got, if the eoc thought it was reasonable cause. in the early years of the eoc, those decisions were all issued by the commission. actually they all came up to the commission, the facts of the investigation came up. the commission issued commission decisions explaining why there was cause for not cause to believe discrimination had occurred to all of these are confidential because under the statute you could not disclose the name of the charging party or the respondent. but the analysis was actually used by courts as their figure

out what title vii should mean. so we use commission decisions. we've issued guidance to explain our view of the law. as your to congress did not give us in title vii the authority to issue subsidy regulations, only procedural regulations. but obviously there was no prohibition on gathering all the things we had secondaries commission decisions and just putting that out in guidance which is what the commission has been doing since that time. and then finally once the eoc got litigation authority in 1972 eoc started putting forth its view of the law for the type of cases that it was bringing. so, for example, through these means but because he set forth proposition such as it's sex discrimination if an employer will not tire married women but we'll hire married men. radical. it is sex discrimination if an employer will not hire women

with young children, no school-age, but will hire men with below school age children. i gain these propositions might seem pretty obvious now that they were very contested at the time. so, for example, with regards to an employer's will that he would not hire women with children, phillips versus martin marietta case which was on the first to come before the supreme court, they wouldn't hire women with children below school age but would hire men. the fifth circuit held that this rule could not be sex discrimination. why? because the panel said they could not imagine that members of congress would be so irrational, we be so removed from common sense to believe that there was no difference between men with young children and women with young children. so whatever it was it was not sex discrimination. now, the supreme court reversed that ruling, but then the court

heard, then the court said as you all start in the panel well, it might be a bona fide occupational qualification not to have women with young children and left that to the courts to decide, thankfully paula because some of the litigation eoc brought that did not take. not all decisions on sex discrimination were positive. for example, in the 1970s transgender employees engage employees brought charges to the commission right question if someone has been living as a man and working as a man for 20 years, and she transitions, now a woman and she gets fired. so she thinks feels like a sex discrimination to me. comes to the commission. the commission says whatever that is, it's not sex discrimination to its discrimination based on an operation to that operation if something to do with sex but it is not sex discrimination. and the same thing when gay

charging parties came to eoc says that's sexual orientation discrimination, not sex discrimination. you know brings up the myth of congress wasn't really thinking about this so you can't cover it. the eoc was however, a real leader in arguing that sex stereotyping, that is, assumptions about how men or women would act on the job thereby making men better for some jobs and women better for other jobs or how men and women should act in a job could not be a legitimate basis for employment decisions. and in 1989 25 years after passage of title vii the supreme court finally endorsed the theory that acting on the basis of gender stereotyping is a form of sex discrimination. and in that case, price waterhouse versus hopkins the court concludes that if an up or

acted on the basis of a gender stereotype, right, mr. type that women should not be too much of, too aggressive, that meant that the employer was inappropriately taking sex into account. and as the supreme court said, quote, gender must be irrelevant to employment decisions. gender must be irrelevant for employment decisions. this may seem like a simple thing. if you read all the cases in one sitting as i did one afternoon and then read back the sentence you realize how momentous a sentence that was. because for two decades the courts have been twisting themselves into pretzels not to accept this plane meeting of the word. you can't take sex into account just like you can't take race into account or national origin or religion. so where are we now? is it all over? has sex and gender really become

irrelevant in the workplace? not -- newsflash. it's sort of mind blowing actually how much it is not over. so i want to highlight a few areas where we are not where we should be and offer some ideas for moving forward. first, sexual harassment. the amount of sexual harassment that is still going on in our workplaces is truly horrific. and it is something i did not truly understand and till i became a commissioner at the eoc. because i think in a lot of professional settings, settings in which we and our colleagues operate, yes there's some sexual harassment. that's still there but it is not at this almost horrific, almost endemic amount. and i've which ec case after case of sexual harassment often

in restaurants, other retail stores where these were young women where it was their first job and then they were subjected to the sexual harassment or women in nontraditional male-dominated jobs. immigrant and migrant workers. now, from my perspective we need a creative multipronged strategic campaign to stop the epidemic. law is a critical variable in the campaign, absolutely, they can make employers take notice, make employers put those processes in place, to take into complaints. but law on its own will never do this work. to eradicate sexual harassment government must work in partnership with businesses and advocacy groups to develop a proactive and creative strategy that will ultimately change the social norms. change what is truly experienced

and believed and acted upon in the workplace. change it so that a man knows it is not okay to sexually harass a woman in the workplace. women know it's not okay. that happens also to sexual harassment, but it's got to be a multipronged creative strategy. accommodations for pregnant workers. so early on the commission had concluded that if an employer discriminates against a pregnant employee because of the pregnancy, that's a form of sex discrimination. another radical concept. the supreme court disagreed, and in the dance that occurred congress disagreed with these print court and passed the pregnancy discrimination act. and that act amended title vii to say one just sex includes pregnancy, and, two, a pregnant

employee must be treated the same as other employees similar in their ability or inability to work. here's the reality today. they are pregnant workers across the country who need accommodations to stay on the job. we have tons of employers today he will give male or female employees who have been injured on the job who have a disability under the ada and accommodation of modified job duties. if they have lifting restriction, might change those duties on a temporary basis if it's a temporary disability. but those employers will not give the same accommodations to pregnant women despite the plain language. well, this past june as you heard the eeoc issued new guidance interpreting the pda as requiring equal accommodations in such situations. this legal approach that we took is different from the five other

circuit courts of appeal who have ruled on this. but we as the agency, advocacy group wringing a case in of those circuits would have to be dealing with that law, but as an agency we have both the responsibility and authority to say what we think the law requires, and that's what we put out inner guidance. azure in the case of young forces ups, the supreme court will now decide this legal issue. i certainly hope they agree with the eoc. and if they do that would have an effect in practical policies on the ground which will ultimately help primarily lower income women who are working in manual jobs. and as an interesting twist on how litigation can itself affect policy, ups announced in its brief to the supreme court that it had changed its policy, and

it was now going to accommodate pregnant women. they made it clear that they were not required to do so under the law, but didn't boot out the case. they still want to say they were not liable before, but look at the effect to a company that is feeling just as a reputational matter to make it clear they're not discriminating against pregnant women. third, pay equity. this is obviously a huge issue. some of the pay disparity comes from blatant discrimination. you've got similar identical jobs, women make less money than men. i've seen a bunch of these cases that the eoc is brought, and we just need to fight that straight on. a lot of the disparities is due to the significant gender job segregation that still exist in our workplaces. research shows female dominated occupations pay less than male-dominated occupations given the same skill.

you might have the same skill needed for a job male-dominated jobs will pay more than female. but do you know how much gender segregation job segregation still exists in this country? not so much in the professional field. law, medicine, accounting, you don't see it. but 40% of women in this country work in jobs that are female dominated, which means more than 70% of the people in that job occupation are women. and more than 40% of men work in jobs that are male-dominated. 70% of the men other people in that occupation our men. well, that will end up with wages being skewed, women making less. now again from my perspective, changing this type of occupational segregation, job segregation, requires an overall multipronged strategic plan. because a fair amount of the job segregation is the result of

choices that men and women make in deciding what jobs today. so one has to use more than law to address it. law, absolutely a critical component. we have wrought cases where women are clearly not even hired into jobs. we have brought cases where there's rampant sexual harassment in a male dominated profession but obviously law is a critical report. it has to be more than that. it has to be an overall educational campaign. it needs to be even things like the american job centers in this country that gets millions of dollars from the federal government, they get the same credit, the matter what job they find for people. so if they are moving women into retail jobs and men into welding jobs because that's actually easier they get the same credit. what about requiring that they actually think, can i get more

skills training to these women and open up for them the idea that maybe they want to do this other job? okay, so these are just a few of the issues we are working on now at the eoc. i want to conclude with a discussion of the final issue that does not require a multipronged strategic plan. and that's whether discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is sex discrimination. and, therefore, currently prohibited by title vii. now as you heard i was one of the original drafters of the employment nondiscrimination act in 1993. students in the room might be interesting know that the first draft was written off a law school exam because i've been hired as a consultant to work on this. there was a meeting the next day and i knew going to know if they had already developed the paper but i knew the best way to affect me is to come in with paper. and i had in my computer and send had written the previous

year was a bill that would based on sexual orientation. it's a legislation class, had a bunch of mistakes obviously so there will be questions but i went in to fix the mistakes, printed it out and that's what i brought. so here's the thing. it's what i call a funny thing happened on the way to non-passage of enda. i often say i don't have kids biological or adopted kids. i have lost the instead it's a boy or it's a program it is a law. laws have lots of parents and they often take more than nine months. but in a way what happened with enda is that we discovered there was this older sibling who had essentially been overlooked. not understood in terms of what is prohibited. so the first case that was

important in its default is the one you've heard about already price waterhouse saying you can't act on the basis of gender stereotypes to injustice clear writing unanimous, the course ensure the 19 safety for congress was sort -- i'm sorry. so that's the gender stereotyping. the next case about 10 years later did with same-sex sexual harassment, again justice scalia writing for a unanimous court said yes, you can show it because of sex, same-sex sexual harassment is covered. in the city for congress wasn't thinking of same-sex sexual harassment but we are governed by the words of the law not by the intent. so after price waterhouse transgender folk started bringing cases are going gender stereotyping. some court started to adopt of those, the sixth circuit and 11th circuit, in an april april 2012, the eoc issued an opinion in a case called macey versus department of justice in

which we held that discrimination based on being transgender is a form of sex discrimination. we no longer issue commission decisions in the private sector that we have adjudicatory authority in the federal sector that is applicants a federal jobs for employees, and this was a federal sector opinion. in one respect we were just catching up to the court, right, explaining hey, it's a form of gender stereotyping if you think that someone who has been designated as male at birth should not in transition and present as a woman that's a form of gender stereotyping. but the other thing we did which i think was quite important was to go back to the underlying point of ice water house which was that if an employer ask on the basis of a gender stereotype that's evidence that gender has been taken into account. it's not that gender stereotyping is some free

floating claim affection. it's evident that gender has been taken into account. and he didn't you show directly that gender has been taken into account, that astonishes the violation. so at the end, macey was the complaint, she could show that she didn't get this job when she had applied must was a man. she told them when she showed up should be showing up as a woman and suddenly the job disappeared. you can say that it was inherently because of a gender stereotype, or you could say gender have been taken into account. they were fine about hiring her when she was a man not okay about hiring her when she was a woman. i don't know does that sound like a gender has been taken into account? that's what we said. so the same analysis has been happening with regard to the coach of sex orientation discrimination under title vii. here the eoc has been even more

of a leader am a very much like i think the early years when eoc was setting forth its view of the law. post-price waterhouse, about gender stereotyping, a number of courts started protecting gay men and lesbians who fit some stereotype of what it meant to be gay, right? so a man who seemed to effeminate or a woman seemed too masculine, and the habitats that indicated that that's what it was based on. those folks would be covered under gender stereotyping. but if they couldn't prove that and it was just because they were gay, the courts would say no, that's not covered because sexual orientation isn't listed in title vii and this would just bootstrap okay people, and that can't be the case. well what the eoc started doing in cases issued in 2011 and hentges racing in 2014 a case that the full commission voted on, a lot of these cases we

delegated authority to the office of operations and they issued the opinion just had it's also a gender stereotype to think that a man should marry a woman as opposed to a mean. right, or a woman should be sexually involved with men not women. we had cases where people were harassed after a coworker found out that the man was marrying a man. and the agency said that's not a sex discrimination claim. came to us and said that is because you're acting on this gender stereotype, as to who a man should marry. so i used to say that that gender stereotyping theory would not have helped a lesbian like me. how many of you who don't already know me when i stood up here and oh, my gosh that but he the first open lesbian commission of the eoc? when i say this to audience, management attorneys, all of them laugh.

some of them nervously. that's because i don't violate some of his presentation gender stereotype but, of course, i divide the underlying gender stereotype. the courts have also now begun to pick up these theories. there was a motion to dismiss based on the fact that he was a gay man claiming sexual orientation discrimination motion to dismiss and, of course, said no, some so like this person is arguing gender stereotyping. the supervisor didn't think he was acting as a man should act. there's also just the plain language theory, right? which is, you know if i come in and i'm saying my partner, my partner, and i think i'm talking about a guy and i have a picture commute, i get married and have a picture of my spouse and she is a woman, and suddenly that's a problem that is because of

sex. and what's interesting in terms of the bootstrapping argument it's that courts have no trouble figuring this out in interracial couples. so if i was a woman and this is my boyfriend, my boyfriend and my supervisor is just imagining a white guy and suddenly a black guy walks in, that's my boyfriend and i get harassed or discriminated against on that basis, the courts haven't had a trouble saying that's raised this commission, that is taking race into account. the courts didn't say oh, my god, that would become the only category of people. instead of just men and just women, now it's women white women dating black men, a whole new category. that's the application of race. and so in a case that just came out a few months or so ago, hall versus bnsf, there was a guy who got married to his husband asked for health insurance, didn't get it. filed suit saying if i were married to a woman i would get

health insurance. the employer put in its brief a classic like a sex orientation is not covered under title vii is the sexual orientation orientation claim and the court denied summary judgment and said i don't know i'm reading to claim, reading the complaint and it's as if i were a main grid to a woman i would get health insurance. a man married to a man and so i don't. and that's sex discrimination to the court actually said i don't see anything here but sexual orientation. there was anything but sexual orientation because, it's just now, i think now the social norms have changed, the legal logic was always there. but now the social logic has changed. and in a way social logic, cultural logic had to change before legal logic could prevail. and courts could just actually see the words in front of them. so last piece because i want to leave time for questions.

let me conclude with this. 50 years ago congress passed title vii of the civil rights act of 1964 and set us off on a journey in which sex would not be taken into account in the workplace just as race religion, national origin color would not be permitted to be taken into account. the journey has not been a simple one, and it is not over yet. but over time allies increasingly be understood to cover many forms of discrimination that the 1964 congress could not have anticipated. it has generated policies in practice on the ground that have advanced gender equity, and the law as both shaped and been shaped by social norms. we all need to remain part of this great journey and to do our bit in bringing complete equity to our workplaces. thank you so much for your attention, your engagement, and

your scholarship. all of it makes a huge difference. thanks so much at. [laughter] >> okay, if there are questions you either have to come to a mic or you might get the preferential treatment of a c-span person coming to you but, such as come to this mic. >> thank you for that terrific address, and i guess i would like to go back to connect your talk to some of the discussion yesterday. hearts and minds come when we talk, talking about the debate over the 1964 act and whether congress is legislate morality can will it secede you saw different people saying at least you can reach conduct and maybe eventually you might reach its hearts and minds. i really welcome hearing a little bit more about your vision of the interplay of these three things and how this

element of hearts and minds in getting people on board social norms. >> as you can imagine one of the reasons why i loved your presentation and all those quotes what i think it really reflected, number one if you haven't changed hearts and minds to some extent, you are not going to get a law passed in the first place. he left a few not one that there's a problem. if you don't feel like it's a problem that people with green eyes are not getting jobs, or you know, people who tell bad jokes can get fired if the employer doesn't like the joke so have to actually believe that something is problematic that is going on in society. that representative to bachus he should respond to. and the backdrop is absolutely at will employment. it's got to be something. some hearts and minds have already changed. but not all. representative democracy means it meant the 60 votes.

it's always meant 60 votes in the senate for a controversial bill. and i do think we have to accept that we cannot, not only cannot, not only can we as the government not legislate morality or beliefs we can definitely legislative the basis of the public morality, that's the first thing to what do we think is right or wrong. not only can't we legislate, we should not be legislating beliefs. that's the essence of religious protection. you can't tell someone that they have to stop believing something. but we can send a signal through legislation of what we think is wrong and then we can say you have to act in accordance with this unless there's actually an exemption that we put in for you. and then i do think ultimately it will change social norms. you need t. get to a mic.

don't worry, there will be someone there who is thinking of a question. >> thanks for that really terrific talk. i have two questions. pretty separate but the first had to do in the beginning of your talk when you're talking about telling a good story about the role of title vii and civil rights act of 19 safety for with sex discrimination i kept waiting for you to talk about sexual harassment. because my view has been actually as a legal matter the creation of the legal norm against sexual harassment was sort of remarkable coming out of the supreme court without much support of the language of the law. and so but you were telling it as a pessimistic story because of the social norm. and they continued so i guess i'm wondering if that's an accurate, am i reading you accurately or do you think there's something problematic about the law? connect to the second one? the second one is what has been very interesting, talking about all these guidances that you

issue. i'm an administrative law person is my big field and a lot of people tell the story the problem with the eeoc is it okay to any chef roskam taking issue anything binding. i wonder if your attitude is you are freer to do what you want that will ultimate influence the law because you can't issue binding rules but you can issue guidance is which will have what other social effect of possibly can do but you won't have the same sort of controversy and resistance if you're doing binding rule-making. >> both great questions. so on the first one, no, it's not that i would want to template importance of the legal development around sexual harassment. it's just that i already feel that i spoke about 10 minutes too long. you know like when there's that moment when you're like flagging a little, right? can't ideas, not me i'm just going. so that's the main reason. i mean, i think part why the screen for accepted it is the

eeoc had found a sexual harassment with sex discrimination, and have put that in the guidelines. the guidelines, we haven't updated them since like 1979 something, except for minor stuff, and we did put that out for notice and comment, the sex discrimination guidelines. but i think it helped that there was an agency that spelled it out, that there was some courts bill that had accepted it. even though it's not inherently in the plaintext, but you can get to it that is because of sex, in the courts got caught up to me just to show desired in order when it really is not about that. it's about power. i do think that is a positive storage is what i think there are a lot of other positive stories about how the words were interpreted. but to be sexual, part of when i came up with this idea of laws policies and practice and social norms there were two things that

drove in one of them was sex harassment story i was saying that because the law is clear. we bring a lot of cases. i can't say how much money we make in settlements from these cases, and every employer in a big employer has a policy. has training. has all the stuff and get it's like it it doesn't the trickle down to some supervisor, some coworker, you know, and it's not that they want to pay the money. that's what i think it's a partnership between the government and businesses you know the national restaurant association, and advocacy groups working together. in an for some time, one of my colleagues on the commission, we have done a lot of things together, real i think manifestation of bipartisanship we wanted to make it clear in an enforcement plan that we're talk about systemic harassment, that we wanted an education campaign not just more litigation.

and it hasn't necessarily been understood that way but we are still fighting for that. on the guidances so i think someone referenced it yesterday so when a court decides a result that histhat is action in line with what the eeoc has said in one of its guidances, it will always say well of course there's no chevron deference but this is the agency charged with limiting the law, they cut his expertise you know, we think this makes sense. and then when they come to a result that is opposite from what the eeoc has said they so if they say, you know eoc does not power to issue regulations. so in that respect i actually think that the guidance in a sense almost as much as regulation potentially. but, you know right now with the rise of the office of

management and budget, which reviews regulations, i think the biggest issue that agencies have with regulation is not only a notice and comment period that getting through the white house is office of management and budget. and so i think that's what a fair number of agencies, not just the eoc ends up moving to guidances, and again one of the things that the commission and i have together pushed for is putting out our guidances for public input. and the agency has never done that and they don't want to get because they feel it will just slow things down and whatever, to me i often civil i think we are smart but we are not that smart, right? so my cannot be some benefit to putting up what we say in our guidance and get input? obviously it raises it as a political matter but i totally get that. i've been doing politics my

whole life, right? here's the thing. ami'm an optimist about politics. despite all potential signs to the contrary, i believe that represent democracy is the best way to go and that includes reaching out reaching out to the people. alt-a, i think we have time for one more question. and you're going to get the mic to you. >> okay. i wanted to ask a question about pay, because i think it's great that it is back on the agenda and on the eocs begin and so forth. one of the biggest barriers i've always thought to bring more pay cases and achieving more patent quality is the lack of information that people have come especially in the private sector. i've actually always discounted the economic studies and so forth that suggest that there's

not straight out equal pay violations, and that the real problem is as you are suggesting this would pay equity problem. because i don't think people know, you know, if you work for a private employer, many of them have rules that actually you could get fired if you discuss take with your coworkers. so i don't think women know for example, wanted to use relative to the males. i don't working for private and corporate identity university of wisconsin because you could file a foia request there and find out by taking you to. i voice of the biggest single thing that the of the oc would do but it would cause a firestorm of course is to mandate information. be report to the commission at a minimum the same way that job -- require the reporting of job category and hiring and so forth. i was wondering if you thought about that at why that hasn't been done, you know, and so forth? >> that is actually a great question. i think to end on for a talk on

gender equity. and i'm glad you brought up that. there is you believe instead that there is a fair amount of just straight out equal pay act violations. i might've given that a little short shrift but i want to say we bring those cases. we see those cases. but you raise a real problem, a real buried is that people don't know what their pages. number one, i think it's been very helpful that from a perspective they've been making very clear that under the national labor relations act even in non-unionized settings under the law, people are getting together and talking about conditions which include wages, they cannot then be disciplined, terminated. so that's real protection in every workplace. so that's about education to get that out. i also believe that in terms of just sex discrimination if

someone asks about the issues and then is retaliated against for doing that i mean, how is that not a form of sex discrimination? now again a lot of people women won't do that because they've been told the policy is you can't discuss. and again, a policy by justice you can't discuss without making clear what the outcome would be if you did, doesn't have the same violation. but a lot of them don't. so i do think it is important to be able to collect data. now, as you know that others may not, under the equal pay act we do have the authority to do direct investigation. so unlike title vii he did they don't have to have a charge come to us or i can issue i colleagues can issue commissioner charges if we hear about discrimination, under equal pay we can go out and do direct investigations, and that's often how we do get paid data. but any i think it's an open question of law as to whether we

are permitted just under our current authority to say in your tv '01 report you have to give is a data and along those lines we commissioned a study from the national academy of science two years ago to say if we decided to collect they did could indicate that we think we might have that authority, what they did to recommend that we collect and how should we collect it? backing in some time ago. we haven't done anything with it yet. i have to say that one of the things i learned when i came to the commission and to the federal government, things move a little more slowly than i would like. practically was a different world. i felt i should of got a passport and addiction but when they came into the government. and it's also actually why i decided to give up my tenure at georgetown and stay at the commission for a second term was

because there were things we have started that just needed more time. so stay tuned for the next three years, and i hope the commission continues acting as much a bipartisan way as we have over the past four years, and you know, civil rights should not be a part of an issue. so thank you. [applause] >> this sunday on q&a, baltimore police commissioner anthony bets on the challenges of policing the city spent it was clear to me i still have an issue with public trust in people believe me, things that were said. and regardless of the fact that i stand in front like it did for you did and say use of force is down 40% this complaint is that 50%, lawsuits are down, but also involved shooting at a medical down and were moving in all the positive ways, people in committee say and we don't believe it. >> sunday night at eight eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a.

>> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate for proceedings and key key public policy events. ended the weekend booktv, now for 15 years the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2 created by the cable tv industry and rot to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow was on twitter. >> "the associated press" reporting that senate democrats have agreed to republican plan to fund homeland security department without the immigration provision proposed by president obama. minority leader harry reid told reporters that he welcomed the opportunity to vote on the measure said that every democrat will back it. he said he looks for to working with republicans to get the measure done in the next 24 hours. meanwhile, from the hill today rank-and-file house republicans on wednesday bashed the senate

gop's plan to vote on the claim homeland security funding bill arguing they want to stand firm in attacking president obama's immigration action. while a few house republicans said they were prepared to vote for a bill without the immigration measures, many more loudly criticized majority leader mitch mcconnell's approach as they left a closed-door conference meeting. represented moberg said there's no way on gods green earth you would vote for a funding bill that didn't be found obama's actions which would shield millions from deportation. here's a bit of what house speaker ben said after this morning's gop caucus meeting. >> i'm waiting for the senate to act. the house has done its job to fund the department of homeland security and to stop the president overreach on immigration. and we are waiting for the senate to do their job. senate democrats have stood in the way now for three weeks over a bill that should've been debated, past and until the fed

does something weird in a wait-and-see mode. sound like. >> i am waiting for the senate to pass a bill. [inaudible] >> our staff is talk back and forth but listen to senator mcconnell has a big job to do, so do i. [inaudible] >> our stance been talking back and forth but at the end of the day the senate has to act and i have a frugal at last couple which are waiting for the senate to act. [inaudible] >> i'm waiting for the senate to pass a bill. there's a lot, i don't know what the senate is capable of passing, and a choice to what they're going to pass, no decision has been made on the house side. [inaudible] >> i'm waiting for the senate to act. the house has passed a bill to fund the department it's time for the senate to do their job. >> the senate should be coming back into session momentarily.

the senate has been in recess for the past hour or so. members are awaiting more updates on homeland security spending bill. no votes are currently scheduled for today as we reported a few moments ago senate democrats have agreed to a gop plan to fund the homeland security department without the immigration provisions that are opposed by president obama. again the senate back in just a few moments here live on c-span2. the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you very much mr. president. mr. president, i want to commend both of our leaders leader mcconnell and leader reid, for coming to the floor and agreeing to a path forward to fully fund

homeland security. and i want to speak for a moment about how critical this is and how it really, if we cannot get the house of representatives to agree, if they are not willing to move forward and support this path, we have actually not one shutdown but a possibility of two different kinds of shutdowns that happen within three days. we're talking about three days left the funding for the department of homeland security expires on the 27th, which is on the end of the day on friday. and so we are in a situation where those who protect us from terror threats all around us will be in a situation where they either aren't at work or are working without pay. we'll be working with pay but they won't be working with pay which of course is an outrageous situation for us to put them in.

every week we know there's a new terrorist threat, and that's literally true now. it is shocking as we turn on the television and we read the papers and we listen to the radio. the most recent threat we know is from al-shabaab, the somali terrorist group with links to al qaeda. in a video that appeared this past week, we know that they called for an attack at the mall of america near minneapolis, as well as other shopping centers in the united states and canada and great britain. and we also know that an attack on that mall would endanger as many as 100,000 people, men women and children, because that's how many people come to that mall, that big mall every single day. and al-shabaab terrorists have attacked a mall before, so we know that this is not just idle threats. 2013, they attacked the west gate mall in nairobi kenya. 63 innocent people were killed

in those attacks. on february 14, a shooter at a synagogue in copenhagen killed three people. in late january an american was one of ten people killed in an attack a terrorist attack in libya. earlier in january in paris an attack by a terrorist claimed 16 lives. we could go on and on. october alone gunmen attacked the canadian power plant killing a canadian soldier. for us in michigan, we are the busiest northern border crossing in the country between detroit and windsor. every day over $1 billion in goods and people are crossing every single day. we actually have three crossings, two of the busiest in the country. and we count on border and customs security. we count on our homeland

security people to be on the job, doing their job every single day. we also count on the people at the airports, all of us are in situations most of us are on planes one or two times a week. we all understand the critical importance at the airport. for those of us who are surrounded by water the coast guard is absolutely critical. we could go on and on with all of the ways in which the men and women of homeland security, border security, customs coast guard, as well as police and firefighters our first responders are keeping us safe every single day. and we know that if the house does not agree to what we're doing here, that in three days we will see the department of homeland security shut down, the entire infrastructure put together after 9/11 that we all

worked together on in a bipartisan basis because we saw we felt what had happened in terms of the threats to our country and the loss of lives. so it's critical that this not be just a game. this can't be just a trick mr. president, where we're somehow voting straight up on homeland security funding without other riders on immigration, other things where there are differences with the president, straight-up funding. we vote and then it goes to the house and it gets completely changed again. that is not going to work. we're going to stand with the men and women who stand with us, put lives on the line, work hard every single day to keep us safe. and it is critical that the house decide to join us if in fact the senate acts today to

fully fund homeland security, which i hope that we will. now, there's another thing i'm deeply concerned about and that is the fact that we could see we've heard a lot of people talking about well, we'll just do a continuing resolution from last year. that is effectively a shutdown of first responders, because when we look at the list, immigration customs enforcement detention, antitrafficking smuggling, those things that are funded under a continuing resolution, which is a fancy word for last year's funding those things don't continue. the new grants that keep firefighters in michigan and across the country going in detroit alone we have 150 frights. those grants were supposed to start in october. and because we haven't fully funded homeland security, they have been waiting.

we have people that will be laid off, police officers, firefighters in michigan and across the country under a c.r. under a continuing resolution. it is effectively a first responders shutdown. so that's the second shutdown i am concerned about. we would caecus tomorrows -- we would see customs and border protection unable to award contracts for new video surveillance. how many times do we talk about the need to protect the borders. but if we don't fully fund homeland security, if we do what it sounds like may happen from the house some short-term funding from last year, we stop first responders. we stop surveillance equipment. we stop the ability to upgrade our coast guard. we prevent and delay contracts for police and fire.

nuclear detention equipment -- nuclear detection equipment can't be replaced that deals with our enemies who are trying to smuggle nuclear devices or dirty bombs into this country without a fully funded department of homeland security. emergency communications. think about the malls or think about things like fema. think about the unprecedented storms and snow that we have seen in parts of our country. the cold. the idea that we would somehow not fund upgrades to emergency equipment and effectively have a first responder shutdown is outrageous. i can't imagine that the public, and rightly so, will understand this. i certainly don't understand it. secret service concerns that we've all heard about and the

ability to upgrade those operations. i could go on and on as it relates to first responder funding. so mr. president, i am, on the one hand, pleased that it appears we may in fact have a path forward to separate the debate on fully funding our homeland security, our protections at the borders and airports and so on as well as police and fire, first responders across the country separating that from a debate on immigration. i appreciate the differences and we can have that debate. and i appreciate that has been proposed to be separated. but we have to make sure that there are no tricks and no double crosses when it comes to the house of representatives. because we are not going to support an effort to go back again and hold homeland security

funding hostage to other policies and disagreements with the president. and then finally let me stress if the house does less than what the senate is going to do on fully funding homeland security, they are shutting down first responders in this country. that's what they are doing. if we see a funding bill that is last year's numbers, they are putting in place a shutdown of our first responders in this country with threats all around us new threats every day. people in this country deserve a lot better. we can do better than that. so i hope we will come together today to do the right thing. fund homeland security fully so our police and fire are

available -- police and firefighters on the streets and we are securing our borders and our homeland operations. and i dearly hope that the house of representatives will step up and join us in getting this done. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: the distinguished senator from michigan made an eloquent speech about the importance of fully funding the department of homeland security. what's astonishing to me is that she didn't listen to her own speech the first time the republican majority leader brought up the house-passed bill to fully fund homeland security and the democrats blocked it. and why she didn't listen to that speech the second time the republican majority leader brought up the house-passed democrat house-passed bill to fully fund homeland security, and the democrats blocked it. and why she didn't listen to that speech the third time.

the third time the majority leader brought up the house-passed proposal to fully fund homeland security, and the democrats blocked it. and why not the fourth time, the fourth time the republican leader brought up a bill passed by the house of representatives to fully fund homeland security, and the democrats blocked that. now this is the fifth vote we're going to have to fully fund homeland security, which we -- which we want to do and which we voted to do four times. so let's not confuse the issue here. i mean, i'm amazed they come up with this stuff on the other side. you'd think they were living in a different world than we are and than the rest of us are. the house has passed legislation to fully fund homeland security, every single penny of it. senate republicans have brought it up four times. the president knows that. four times. we voted yes.

they voted no. this is the fifth opportunity they will have to fully fund homeland security, and i hope, i hope we can do that. i hope we can do that. but let's not be recreating events that never happened. let's recognize the fact that for two weeks for two weeks republicans have been prepared to fully fund homeland security and the democrats themselves have blocked it not once, not twice, not three times. four times. four times. now, mr. president, if i may switch gears i came to the floor to talk on another subject, one which fortunately has bipartisan support. and i'm glad to speak about something like that because i think the people of this country gave us in the republican majority an opportunity this year to come to washington and shake things up but get things done. and in the health, education labor and pensions committee we're working hard to do just

that with senator murray, the ranking democrat on the committee, just as i worked with senator harkin in the last congress when our committee reported out 25 different pieces of legislation which became law. so we got things done in the last congress and i'm fully confident that senator murray and i and the other members of our committee can do that in this congress. that doesn't mean we agree on everything. we don't agree on a lot of things. if you had to pick a group of liberals and a group of conservatives and line them up, our committee would probably have as much difference as any committee in the congress but we've also got about 30% of the jurisdiction in the congress. that's why ted kennedy used to say when he was in the united states senate, and we know it's our responsibility to get things done. we're working hard on fixing no child left behind. we're working with secretary burwell and the president on finding ways to move discoveries and devices through the national institutes of health and the

f.d.a. into the medicine cabinets. and i see the senator from maryland on the floor. yesterday we worked together to hear a report that the senator from maryland and i and the senator from colorado, senator bennet; the senator from colorado senator burr asked for two years ago which is to take a look at all the federal regulations governing higher education, our 6,000 colleges and universities, and give us an assessment of how much they cost give us an assessment of how much confusion and duplication there is, give us an assessment of how many times since 1965 and the eight different times we have reauthorized the higher education act of how often we have failed to weed the garden, how often have we instead just dumped just laws, new regulations on top of old ones, and tell us exactly what to do.

and the chancellor of vanderbilt university and the chancellor of the university of maryland gave us this report. senator mikulski was there, i was there senator murray, senator burr, senator bennet was there. it was a very impressive report. i won't speak long about it because i see the senator from maryland would like to speak but i would like to take about five minutes and say these things. it's sometimes best to tell a story to underscore a point and here's story one. vanderbilt university hired the boston consulting group to tell the university how much it spent, the university spent in complying with federal rules and regulations for higher education in a single year. according to the boston consulting group vanderbilt university last year spent $150 million complying with federal rules and regulations.

that's 11% of all of its expenditures. that adds about $11,000 to the tuition of each one of about 12,000 students at the university. that's absolutely absurd, mr. president, absolutely absurd that somehow or another that could happen. or a second example. the student aid form that 20 million families fill out every year. it's 108 questions long. our committee has been told that two questions would do the job for 96% of the families. what's your income, what's your family size. a bipartisan group of us have introduced that. that would save millions of hours, millions of dollars across the country. or here's a third example. the head of the national academy of sciences says that 42% of the time of an investigator on a research project is spent on administrative tasks. 42% of the time. i asked the head of the national academies what would be a reasonable amount of time.

he said about 10%. mr. president, we spend 30 billion taxpayer dollars a year through colleges and universities on research projects and we could save a billion of that $32 billion by reducing closer to ten we could fund multiyear investigations into cancer research, ebola research vaccines, so we should do that. so this is an enormously promising report. ten years ago the senator from maryland and i worked on a report called rising above the gathering storm. we had asked a group of distinguished americans to tell us the 20 things we might do in congress to help make our country more competitive in the world. and they gave us the 20 things that formed a blueprint and we passed most of them and eventually funded most of them. so i think this report, which we received yesterday has the opportunity to be as important as rising above the gathering storm that became the america

competes act. it is a blueprint for how we can reduce overregulation, simplify rules, save money make consumer protection clear keep tuition down find more money for research and let colleges and universities spend their time and money educating students instead of filling out forms. so i think senator mikulski from maryland senator bennet from colorado senator burr from north carolina and my partner senator murray on the help committee for this. i would ask unanimous consent to include in the record my opening statement from yesterday's hearing, followed by pages 1-6 of the report that was presented to us yesterday and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: thank you very much.

mr. president, i'd -- i had come to the floor really to speak about the issue of the funding for the homeland security bill, but i want to note and acknowledge the comments just made by my colleague from tennessee, senator alexander the chair of the health education committee. i couldn't agree with him more. hello, america. two senators, different parts of the country different political parties, different political views on some social issues and whatever but i couldn't agree more with this outstanding report whose original idea came from the gentleman from tennessee. when we worked on the reauthorization of the higher education act about five years ago now one of the -- we agreed we had agreed upon goals -- to make college more accessible, to

also make college more affordable to always insist that that college offer a quality education and than students on the campus be safe and secure so that they could be in a true learning environment. as we looked at the affordability issue you know, i'm a student loan, student grant person, so i was focusing on the students. i taught at loyola university in baltimore at the community college, but my colleague who was the president of a college a university, said we ought to look at regs. regulation could have a tremendous impact. so we put our heads together. our cochairs came from tennessee, the maryland cochair was dr. kirwan, our retiring but

very able chancellor. and it is a terrific report. it's exactly what we wanted. where are these regs that number one are duplicative duplicative. the same darn report after report and then you do a report on the reports so that then they can ask you questions and ask for a follow-up addendum. then there is also issues where the requirements are contradictory so there they are, the administrators of both the colleges and universities themselves or of an individual grant program. so we want to clarify that. and not only did under senator alexander's leadership did we go for what were the top ten concerns that were really burdensome duplicative or contradictory, they gave us a checklist on what would constitute a criteria for a good reg. i think they gave us a great

road map and now it's our part to use the report so we're not like everybody elsewhere we got them to do a report and we don't do anything with it. when we did the rising above the gathering storm which i was so excited to be part of. it was truly a bipartisan effort on how we could compete it led to legislation and it led to other executive branch. so i want to thank the colleague from tennessee. this is how we should be working together. put our heads together. get the best advice from what is out there in the real world and put our shoulders to the wheel and get it done. so senator i hope -- does the senator have a sense of when he would like to move on the timetable to implement this? mr. alexander: i would say to the senator mr. president --

the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i would say to the senator from maryland, thanks for her comments and her leadership. my hope would be -- i will need to sit down and talk with the senator from washington, senator murray which we plan to do in march. my hope would be that we could begin hearings in april five or six hearings, aligned with the recommendations in the report, maybe some other matters like accreditation form working groups within our committee and by the fall move ahead with the reauthorization of the higher education act and complete it by the end of the year. ms. mikulski: i thank ?aft tennessee and i so look forward to working with him. mr. president, this is the way it ought to be where senators come together and we bring our best ideas. we also begin our concerns, we put them all on the table but we began with civility, we began with respect. we established what were agreed upon goals and how each one of us thought we could get to the

road map to do that. this is the way i would hope we would work. and now as we come to almost a crisis with the funding for the homeland security bill, running out on friday, that this is time for us to put our party differences aside put our pet projects aside and focus not on what is good for our politics but what is good for america. i understand that our leadership on both sides of the aisle senators mcconnell and senator reid have arrived now at a framework where we will go through a set of parliament procedures, which is our way to then arrive at a point where we could be voting on a full year's funding for the homeland

security bill without any additional riders that could derail the bill placed on it. i would like to compliment the leadership for beginning a key communication, establishing a parliament choreography where we could actually get the job done. the leaders have been working on this. we know that they will be coming here on the floor in a few minutes to share with us that idea and begin the procedures where every senator can exercise their will and their judgment. but i just want to say this as the ranking member or the vice chair of the appropriation committee. we have got to fund the department of homeland security. we have just got to do it. we have got to do it and we have got to do it now. i hope we can do it in the senate this afternoon and that the house really follow what we are doing here. this is so crucial because the

very nature of what the bill is homeland security. this isn't about a new age that you can see might -- agency that might be duplicative of another. this isn't even about great big sums of money. this appropriation committee arrived at its recommendations when we were working on the omnibus. the presiding officer is the chair of the subcommittee on homeland security. i know that in the way he does his due diligence he has reviewed this bill. so the money part i don't think is controversial and it actually does the job. and what the job is, is to do the full funding to protect the homeland. you know, i really worry about our country. here we are, we have got isil making additional threats to the

united states about the security of our malls. while we were all pondering what our strategy would be and parsing what the politics would be our great federal agents were on the scene making sure that four americans didn't go to join isil to fight against us and perhaps organize predatory attacks against us. our people are on the job and now it's time that we do our job and fully fund this agency. america is at risk. we face terrorism. we face the consequences of natural disasters which fema and the coast guard are really helping us right now. we face cyber threats. we need a department of homeland security funding in a way to prevent and respond to these situations. and when i look at this, it is really standing sentry in terms of all we need to do, in terms

of port security, airport security guarding our borders through our patrol -- border patrol agents. 23,000 border patrol agents. but i also look at the first responders. if anything happens in our country, it is local law enforcement and local firefighters who are the first to respond. we have helped them with this response by providing them with federal funds. i'm really proud of what we have done on this. i want to speak particularly about the fire grant program. now, think about what they do. every day when they report to duty our first responders don't know what they will face. in my own home state of maryland will they face a train derailment? we've had those. will we face a metro fire? we've had that.

will we have a multiple accident on 95 that could involve a horrific accident that requires rescue that could carry hazardous and toxic waste? and then because of who we are with our airports and our seaport, we also are a big threat for a terrorist attack. our first responders are asking us to give them the money they need to do to pay the bills and also help them with this. over ten years ago i joined with one of my republican counterparts senator kit bond of missouri. we were both concerned about what was happening to our volunteer fire departments. as he crisscrossed missouri and i crisscross maryland, we were shocked to find out that a new fire truck could cost as much as a million dollars. one full suit of protective gear that would be fire retardant or

fire resistant could be $2,000. the special breathing apparatus developed while they go in to look at it can cost over $5,000. we put our heads together and listening to our firefighters, we know you can't fund that on tip jars, pancake breakfasts, crabcake dinners or oyster fries in my own state. we wanted to help them so we need toed to make sure we help them so they protect us. so we came up with the fire grant program. it has been a tremendous success. in my own state in the decade since we passed it, over 600 -- 600 fire departments have been helped with the new equipment that they need. when i travel my state i've got people who defend and protect me, and my community shake my hand because they do this -- you know what the

volunteer firefighters do. i'm sure it's the same in north dakota as it is in western maryland. and they say you've helped me be able to do the job. they do this on their own time, and on their own dime. so what happens if we don't fund homeland security? it means that those two billion-dollar grants in emergency -- for firefighters, for port security, for local efforts and so on, will not be funded. and make no mistake for those people perhaps in the senate or in the house that says why don't we just do a continuing resolution, a continuing resolution means that grants cannot be funded. mr. president, under current law for any program if an agency

is on a c.r., it cannot issue grant money at all. so that means right now they're getting ready to take the fire grant proposals. secretary jeh johnson can't even put it out to say it's now the annual time for you to come in, firefighters with your request, or fire chiefs. so we are placing america at risk. not only, you know, with the really big big big picture stuff, but ultimately the big big picture comes back home, when that terrible, terrible day of 9/11, who ran up that burning building? who ran up those 30, 50 steps who ran up the steps at the world trade center? it was firefighters.

infringe unflagging, unabashed in their heroism and their desire to rescue and every day, right this minute, one of them somewhere is doing something. certainly we can fund the grant program so they have the truck that they need, so they have the breathing apparatus they need so that they have the protective gear they need, so we can protect them while we protect us, rather than protecting our political butt. we got to get off of our butt and fund this bill. so i look forward to the leadership on both sides of the aisle coming forth with the program to do it. and i hope we have a sense of urgency because there's a saying from tip o'neill that all politics is local but ultimate ly all homeland security is local. mr. president, i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings on the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president i appreciate our democratic colleagues joining us in proceeding to the house-passed bill. i've spoken with the democratic leader and my colleagues on the republican side and commit to offering an amendment to the house bill to fullyily fund the

department of homeland security while addressing the president's executive actions on a separate adjacent track through consideration of the collins bill. when the senate proceed to h.r. 240, become offer a clean substitute and work to expedite consideration of the bill as amended to get it back over to the house this week. i would welcome bipartisan cooperation to pass the d.h.s. funding bill as well as the commonsense collins bill. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the minority leader. mr. reid: the majority leader and i have had a number of very good discussions the last 24 hours or so. we've grate that in order to pass a clean homeland security appropriation bill for the replannedder of this fiscal year that democrats will support getting on the house homeland security funding bill in exchange the leader will provide the only amendment, will be a clean homeland security funding substitute which he just

outlined. the substance of this amendment is the same as the bill introduced by senators mikulski and shaheen about a month ago. the senate will adopt that amendment and send the amendment to the house in an expedited fashion. ance the senate will vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the collins bill. i'll be very brief. i don't personally believe the collins bill is a compromise. it would undermine law enforcement and tear families apart. so until full-year funding for the homeland security department is enacted i'll vote against going to the collins bill. after a clean bill is signed into law i'm happy to have a vigorous debate on immigration and the best way to fix our broken system. i want to be very clear mr. president, that democrats would be willing to expedite the plan that by have before us by consent. in conclusion let me thank the majority leader for working with democrats to come to a solution on the impasse that we've been faced with for the last four weeks. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i move to

proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote 53, on which cloture vote was not invoked on the motion to proceed to h.r. 240. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor signify by saying aye. those opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. mcconnell: mr. president i move to reconsider the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to h.r. 240. the presiding officer: question is on the motion. all in favor say signify by saying aye. those opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 222 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 1 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:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to change their vote? on this the yeas are 98, the nays are 2 three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion upon reconsideration is agreed to.

vote: mrs. shaheen: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you mr. president. mr. president, i just want to applaud the vote that we just had. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mrs. shaheen: a 98-2 vote shows very clearly that our

colleagues here in the senate want to see funding for homeland security. everybody understands that the risks to this country are too great for us not to provide the resources that the department needs so they can continue to do their jobs. we just heard that there were -- that the department of homeland security was involved with the f.b.i. in the case of three people in brooklyn who were threatening this country because they wanted to go to the middle east and join isis. so we need to make sure that d.h.s. has the funding they need. this is real progress. i applaud senators mcconnell and reid for their efforts to get to this point. i hope we can continue down this road get funding for the departmenters and thatdepartment, understand that when we send -- and that when he send a bill over to the house the house will also work in a bipartisan way to get a clean funding bill before the

resources run out the money runs out for the department of homeland security this friday. so we have a little bit of time. we need to get this done, an the senate took a giant step forward today to do that. so i applaud my colleagues. i hope we can keep this going and that we can get this done very soon. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, i do not agree with the speaker of the house john john boehner on very much, but i do agree that it is an excellent idea for there to be a giant session of congress in the fall to hear from pope

francis. to my mind, in the last few years the pope has played an extraordinary role in speaking out on issues of enormous consequence that impact every man, woman and child not just in our country but on the planet and he has shown great courage in raising issues that we very rarely hear discussed here in the congress or in parliaments around the country. what i want to do just briefly this afternoon is quote and discuss some of the statements that the pope has made, that i think we need to listen to. so i think it is a wonderful idea that we have -- that speaker boehner has invited the pope but i think it's important that we also listen to what he

has said. quotes: "we have keeted created new idols. the worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal." and then on another occasion is what he says is, an i quote "man is not in charge today. money is in charge. money rules." end of quote. and then he says in another quote, "today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest where the powerful feed upon the

powerless. as a consequence masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized without work, without possibilities without any means of escape." end of quote. and then he says on an issue that is, i think very relevant to this body -- he says, and i quote, "in this context some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth encouraged by a free market will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. this opinion which has never been confirmed by the facts expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sack sacrilized workings of the

economic system." then he says, and i quote "these things become the norm, that some homeless people die of cold on the streets is not news. in contrast, a 10-point drop on the stock markets of some cities is a tragedy." in other words when people die because they are poor and hungry and cold, that's not news. but a 10-point drop in the stock market becomes a tragedy. and then he says, "we must say we want a just system, a system that enables everyone to get on. we must say we don't want this globalized economic system which does us so much harm."

so here you have the leader of the catholic church raising profound issues about the state of the economy certainly not just in the united states but all over the world. and i don't want to paraphrase him, but my interpretation of what he is saying is that money cannot be an end in itself. the function of an economic system is not just to let the marketplace reinmarketplace reign and end up in a situation where a small number of people have incredible wealth while so many people have virtually nothing. that's true not just of the united states but even more true around the world. we have a situation right now mr. president, incredible as it may sound where the wealthiest 85 people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of

the world's population. 85 phenom phenomenally wealthy billionaires over here, half the world's population other here. does anybody in the wildest stretch of the imagination think this is anything close to a just world economic system? and oxfam recently told us that within the global economy within a year or two mr. president, the top 1% of the world's wealthiest people will own more wealth than the bottom 99%. what religion condones this type of economic disparity? what political party should condone this type of economic disparity? and what the pope is essentially saying is, we need to pay

attention to those people who are hurting not just the homeless not just the hungry, but those people who are working longer hours for low wages and at exactly the same time when in this country we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires. is that what our economy is supposed to be about? mr. president, let me just amplify what the pope was saying by giving you some cold statistics in terms of what is going on in the united states of america. i'm not talking about the global economy. i'm not talking about greece, where unemployment is 25% and where their economy is contracted by a quarter in the last six years. i'm talking about the american economy. mr. president, since 1999 the

median middle-class family, that family right in the middle of the american economy has seen its income go down by almost $ed 5,000 after adjusting for inflation. incredibly, that family earned less income last year than it did 26 years ago back in 1989. mr. president, you want to know why people in america are angry? whether they're in the occupyied wall street movement and consider themselves conservative whether they're in the tea party movement, consider themselves conservative, the median male worker, that man right in the middle of the american economy earned $783 less last year than he did 42 years ago. in other words you've seen an explosion of technology productivity but the male worker in the middle of the

economy inflation adjusted for dollars, made $783 less last year than he did 42 years ago while the median female worker, that woman in the middle of the american economy earned $1,300 less last year than she did in 2007. so all over this country you're seeing men and women working longer hours for lower wages you're seeing people working working not one job but two jobs, three jobs in order to cobble together the income they need and maybe some health care as well. but while the middle class continues to disappear on a 40-year trajectory the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are going phenomenally we well and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider.

this is what the pope means when he says, "while the income after minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. this imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and thus, deny the right of control to states, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good." end of quote from popen pope francis. so what does he mean when he talks about the income of a minority increasing exponentially while the majority is crumbling? i talked about median family income. let me talk about what's going on among the top 1%. today the top 1% in america now own about 41% of the entire wealth of our country while the bottom 60% own less than 2%.

let me repeat that. the top 1% owns over 40% of the wealth. the bottom 60% own less than 2%. today, incredible bring the top .1% now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. .1% -- 16,000 families own almost as much wealth as the bottom 300 million people in our country. today the walton family, wealthiest family in america is now worth $153 million more wealth in one family than the bottom 40% of americans. over the past decade, the net worth of the top had 400 billionaires in this country has doubled up to an astronomical

$ed 1 trillion in just ten years. in terms of income as opposed to wealth almost all of the new income generated in recent years since the wall street crash has gone to the top 1%. in fact, the last information that we have indicates that over 99% of all new income generated in this country goes to the top 1%. the top 25 hedge fund managers on wall street made more than $24 billion in 2013, equivalent to the full salaries of more than 425,000 public schoolteachers. so what we are seeing in this country is growing income and wealth inequality. what we are seeing around the

world is the same. and what troubles me very much, mr. president, is that in the midst of a disappearing middle class at a time when we have more people living in poverty today than at almost any time in recent history, i believe that my republican colleagues on the budget committee will bring forth a budget in the next few years which will move us in exactly the wrong direction. when the rich get richer, their proposal will be let's give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. when large corporations are enjoying huge profits and major corporation after major corporation is paying nothing in federal income tax their proposal will be let's give more tax breaks to large

multinational corporations. and then after giving tax breaks to the rich and large corporations they then say well, we want to balance the budget. and the way we're going to balance the budget is on the backs of a disappearing middle class, on the backs of millions of working families, on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country. this is the robin hood principle in reverse. this is taking from the poor and working people and giving it to the millionaires and billionaires. and i would hope the american people say enough is enough. we don't need more tax breaks for the rich and large corporations. we don't need to cut social security medicare, medicaid, education, nutrition programs for hungry people, pell grants so that kids can go to college. that is not what we should be

doing. in fact, we should be moving in exactly the other direction. from 1983 to a few years ago what we have seen in this country is an incredible transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. we're talking about trillions of dollars in wealth going from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. and most americans are saying enough is enough. we don't need more austerity for the middle class. we don't need to cut social security medicare and medicaid. maybe it's time for some austerity for the top 1%. so mr. president i hope that when we come together to discuss the budget, members of the senate will listen to what pope francis has been talking about and give us a budget which works for the most vulnerable people

in this country which works for tens of millions of working families, and does not simply work for large campaign donors. and with that, 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:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president somebody asked me a little while ago, shouldn't we be voting on the mishmash on homeland security that the house of representatives sent over because of the immigration matters in it. i reminded them that the senate in the last congress voted by a two to one margin, a bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill which we sent to the house of representatives, and the speaker refused to bring the bill up. it probably would have passed. had it passed, it would have been signed into law and president obama would not have been doing any executive orders.

there would be no need to. we had everything from border security which republicans and democrats voted for to minors and the dreamers which republicans and democrats voted for. in fact, we had hundreds of hours of hearings and markups. we had around 140 amendments were brought up, and i would call for one republican amendment and one democratic amendment, went back and forth. day after day night after night. we did 140 or 141 amendments. all but one of them passed a bipartisan vote. we then had dozens of amendments on the floor all of which passed bipartisan votes. the final bill got 68 votes. we've done the work on immigration. let's not play games endanger

the needed funding for the department of homeland security at a time we face all kinds of dangers in this country. let's not close down department of homeland security on a made-up mission of doing something for immigration. we passed an immigration bill. they could take out the draft of that old bill, vote it up, vote it down. 68 senators, republicans and democrats alike voted for it. let's bring up something similar. let's have a real debate. let's have amendments. let's go to immigration. then in the meantime, let's pass the department of homeland security bill. millions upon millions of taxpayers' dollars are being wasted even today as they prepare for a shutdown not knowing whether these tactics are going to close down the department that major part of our government or not. they have to spend the money. that's money wasted, to say nothing about the job that's not

being done. mr. president, i refer to my speech about groundhog day because we've seen this one. our friends across the way of the capitol closed down the government before. i'd ask consent that my full statement be included in the record at this point. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, i don't see anybody seeking recognition, so i will suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president i rise once again in support of the people of ukraine in their struggle against russian aggression. the most recent diplomatic efforts seem to have emboldened president putin. since minsk 2 the last time they came to agreement with reference to a cease-fire, there have been hundreds of cease-fire violations and the city of the devoliciba has become under putin control. a bridge is vulnerable and his intentions are clear. in my view, we need to urgently increase the costs to putin with tougher sanctions and by providing more security assistance to the ukrainian

military. at a press conference on february 9 with chancellor merkel, the president said that his team was considering options, including the provision of defensive military equipment if the diplomatic effort with respect to russia had failed, as recent events have show. minsk 2 is clearly dead and we need to take a different approach. at so many points in history there have been opportunities for the international community to deter rogue actors from violating the sovereignty of other countries. unless bullies like putin are confronted they will always bully, they will always force a response they will always be an even greater problem for their neighbors and for the broader international community. putin took crimea. then he took doneske and then

donsk and last week divulskivel. he paid a price but price has not changed his behavior. so now is the time to increase the costs to putin. now is the time to increase sanctions on russia and work with europe to consider additional angsz sanctions in other sectors of the economy. and now is the time for the president to abide by his words on february 9 -- to provide badly needed defensive weapons to the ukrainian government and to rethink our strategic response to russia's encroachment in ukraine and across the former soviet territories. the international community simply cannot remain passive in the face of such unbridled aggression that will only invite further aggression.

so i call upon the administration to fully implement measures that this body authorized when it passed the ukraine freedom support act which the president signed into law on december 18. last month i wrote to secretary kerry in the wake of the bloodiest period since the start of this crisis. i urged the administration to fully implement the authorities provided in the law and to comply with the clear reporting deadlines. the legislation passed with unanimous consent in both houses of congress. it authorizes the president to provide much-needed military and humanitarian aid to ukraine. and it imposes additional sanctions against rawsh shah in this time of crisis. now, the legislation was -- against russia in this time of crisis. now, the legislation was necessary in december and even more so today. we know that the sanctions implemented by the united states and the european union have had a tangible affect on the russian

economy. combined with the decrease in global energy markets, they have puttedput unprecedented pressure on president putin. but he is undeterred. he continues to provide illegitimate and illegal support to separatists in eastern ukraine, evidenced by osce and nato reports cataloging the growing number of russian troop and artillery that remains in the region, and as evidenced by the spike in violence by so-called russian-backed separatists against both military troops and civilians. russian troops -- russian troops and these so-called russian-backed rebels have carried out deadly attacks on civilians in eastern ukraine. they have killed scores. they've killed women. they've killed children. they've ignored minsk 1. they ignored minsk 2.

and now they have gained control of the devulsalva and made moves towards verapo. this must end. the violence must ends and the killing must stop. we must renew our commitment to the people of ukraine and stand against putin's blatant aggression. now, i appreciate the administration's comprehensive efforts to counter russian aggression but i also believe it is not enough. we must act immediately to influence the course of events on the ground and urge the president to fully implement the ukraine freedom support act the violence, threatening ukraine's territorial integrity. it's threatening the regional. the international community has an obligation to respond to putin's clear signals that his intention is to escalate tensions in ukraine and across the region.

since senator corker and i along with other committee members introduced the ukraine freedom support act putin has escalated his belligerent and aggressive tactics. nato has deployed more than 400 times last year to intercept russian military flights near member states european airspace. in july of 2014, ukranian pilot nadia chebac hench neko was captured and is illegally detained in russia despite russia's commitment in minsk to free her. in september of last year russians abducted an estonian security officer from estonian territory. he was taken from estonian territory to moscow where he has been languishing in prison without due process.

in october sweden's military discovered what it believed was a russian submarine outside of stockholm. in december, about a dozen russian aircraft, including bombs, flew into the baltic sea region. in january attacks on civilian buses took the lives of 20 ukrainians. it is time for the international community to say enough is enough. in my view, mr. president fully implementing the sanctions and the assistance in the ukraine freedom support act will help ukraine restore its sovereignty. it will help restore its territorial integrity and it will help deter russia from further destabilizing the region. i urge the president to implement these measures immediately without delay. that said, i understand that there are individuals on the

european union and canadian targeted sanctions list who do not appear on the american list of sanctions. now, why is this the case? perhaps the most egregious example, it's alexander baritnakoff the head of the russian f.s.b.p. he is not on the u.s. list in relation to either ukraine or the magnitsky act but he is on the european union and canadian lists. to make matters worse he was here in the united states last week for president obama's c.v.e. conference. to say that i'm puzzled would be an understatement. the fact is there are almost 150 individuals and entities on the e.u. and canadian sanction list that are not on the united states list. if there is no justifiable reason for excluding these

individuals, then they should be added. yesterday before the senate foreign relations committee secretary kerry indicated that these lists will be synced, harmonized in the coming days and i'll keep a close eye on this process clearly for the international effort to be effective we need to be in lockstep with our canadian and european allies. when we passed this ladies and gentlemen last -- this last legislation lisa last december it coincided with a report about the fortunes russians wore spending to lobby washington against passing that bill. they claim the sanctions would affect the west's willingness to invest in russia and i say that is exactly what these sanctions should do. putin is using his military power to impose his will in ukraine, but he is also using every economic tool at his disposal and we must do the

same. we must make it clear to mr. putin that there will be consequences for -- consequences for his actions. and there is not only obviously important in the context of ukraine, which it certainly is in the first instance, but it is also about sending a very clear global message that if you violate and upend the international order there will be consequences to doing so. because in the absence of real consequences to doing so, there are other actors in the world who are looking at what is happening in ukraine and say well what did the united states what did the west do to stop the aggression of russia? and if the answer is not very much at the end of the day not certainly enough to stop that aggression then other actors in the world who may be more

powerful than their neighbors who may have nuclear weapons in their possession like north korea, will think about what they want to do and whether that's china in the south china sea that has territorial disputes with our allies, south korea and japan whether it's the challenge we have in north korea, the nuclear armed north korea, whether that is maduro in venezuela oppressing his people i could go through a list of global actors who will wonder that if at the end of the day there isn't much consequence for violating the international order, then i will do what i wish to do because i have the power to do it without much consequence. that is an incredibly risky world to live in. so i urge the president to implement our bill now. the military situation on the ground is clear. the organization for security and cooperation in europe,

nato the ukranian national security and defense council have all reported on the presence of russian military convoys and troops in eastern ukraine. as a matter of fact, i was there last year in the midst of the invasion and i call it an invasion because last time i checked, where i come from, if you have russian troops crossing from russia into another sovereign country if have you surface-to-surface missiles, armored vehicles and tanks and all of them are crossing without provocation, then you clearly have an invasion. that has only mounted. and you can take a soldier and take his russian lapel off and put something else on, but it's still a russian soldier coming from russia into ukraine. fear is mounting in maripol that pro-russian rebels will conduct further attacks to ease land access to crimea from russia. and if russia gets its land

access to crimea despite all of our talk that we will not forget that crimea was taken by force illegally in violation of international law crimea is gone. if russia continues down this path its illegal occupation will be solidified and putin clearly intends to continue playing games. prior to minsk ii, alexander koarchenko the head of the separatists said there would be no more cease fires and the separatists would not stop until they had reached the about borders of the former donesk region. he has stayed true to his word. he issued issued an order to take no prisoners claiming they were no longer interested in prisoner swaps. i say to my colleagues the situation is dire and it is becoming increasingly clear that

we are not doing enough to change it. we must raise the cost to putin and his cronies by providing ukraine with the assistance it needs to defend itself. the world is watching, and waiting, and the time is now. the ukraine freedom support act explicitly authorized the provision of defensive military assistance. let's provide it. we send over night vision goggles, those are great to see the enemy but if i can't stop the enemy what good is that? what good is that? let's provide antitank and anti-armor weapons crew weapons and ammunition, let's provide counterartillery radars to target artillery bullaries fire control, and optical guidance aequipment, let's provide tactical troop surveillance drones and secure command and communications equipment. the administration was required to report to congress on

february 15 regarding its plan for increasing military assistance to the government of ukraine. ten days later we are still waiting on this report. i urge the president to impose the more stringent sanctions on russia's defense and energy sectors we outlined in the law. i urge him to enact further sanctions on russian defense firms that we know contribute to the instability in ukraine moldova, georgia, and syria. these firms outfit pro-russian rebels and russian troops who have invaded eastern ukraine and establish illegitimate republics recognized by no one but president putin. it's time to enact those sanctions. it is time that we put an end to the chaos and violence these firms spread around the world. and it is time to impose additional targeted sanctions on the russian energy sector to add

to existing sanctions that already are costing the russian economy about $140 billion per year. or about 7% of its economy. by imposing the energy sanctions called for in this act, the administration would tighten restrictions on the development of shale deposits, and offshore drilling. the ukraine freedom support act called for the administration to impose sanctions on other defense industry targets as well as on special russian crude oil projects by january 31. we're still waiting to see the administration's response. so mr. president on september 18 the president of ukraine addressed a joint session of congress. we applauded his message of solidarity. now is the time to move past the applause. now is the time to stand together in solidarity with the people of ukraine.

the president of ukraine asked for defensive arms, he asked us for aid and he asked us for tougher sanctions on russia. we all want a diplomatic solution to this problem but i believe this can only come about when putin believes that the cost of continuing to ravage ukraine is simply too high. we have a responsibility to increase that cost. i ask the president to heed our call and to fully exercise the authorities granted by the ukraine freedom support act and to do it now. if we do that, not only will we save a key country that is presently bleeding, the eastern part of ukraine is one of the most productive parts of the country. it is tough to keep providing financial support to it when it cannot ultimately stabilize itself because of the violence and the economic bleeding that

goes on by virtue of the war in the east. this is about a country that is looking westward towards democracy, towards the european union. we should be helping countries who want to make that decision and have made that decision by themselves be able to achieve their sovereign right to do so. we should be sending a clear international message about not violating the international order. and we should be sending a clear and powerful message that when you do, there are real consequences. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

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