just a moment to continue work on programs and policy for the defense department. no votes are expected for today and the number of amendments are pending. live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2 ask lawmakers are about the taliban to begin today. -- about to the gavel and to begin the day. . the president pro tempore: the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. o god, in this quiet moment may a holy hush come over us, giving us a sense of our dependence on you. may our senators not trust too much in their abilities to solve

problems and meet challenges but continue to seek the eternal and transcendent resources you offer to people of faith. lord give our lawmakers humble and contrite hearts that they may be channels of light and truth. uphold them with your everlasting and uplifting arms. may they persevere with integrity so that they may be presented holy and unblameable in your sight. keep our senators calm and filled with faith, in spite of all they must

face. we pray in your great name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: mr. president we recently learned that dr. james billington rnlings -- dr. james billington, the librarian of congress who has been with us almost 30 years will be retiring in january. he plans to plan more time with his wife of nearly 58 years marjorie. he wants to see more of his four children and 12 grandchildren. i'm sure he'd like to catch up with his buddy who place for the grateful dead or maybe sit back with a box or two of the mallo bars he loves so much. but i don't think dr. billington is ready to take his scholar cap off quite yet because he's preparing to do la little writing too and about folks who played an important role in the history of -- what else -- the library that means so much to him. dr. billington has called the library of congress the greatest collection of knowledge and copy righted creativity in human

history, and i know how proud he is of the many initiatives he's undertaken to expand its reach and its relevance. i noted yesterday that you're unlikely to come across many guys who can say they have been a princeton valedictorian a harvard professor an expert on the kremlin a veteran and a rhodes scholar. but that's our librarian of congress. he speaks seven languages. he's got 42 honorary degrees. and i'm hoping he'll soon be able to start catching a full eight hours sleep every night. dr. billington has certainly earned it and we wish him the very best in his retirement. on a different matter, mr. president, i think a lot of people were shocked to hear that the obama administration was unable to prevent the information of four million americans from being compromised by hackers.

officials in the white house now owe it to every american to let congress help them get out of the past and up to speed with the cybersecurity realities of the 21st century. that's just what the measure we'll soon consider will help do. it contains modern tools that cybersecurity experts could help deter future attacks against both the public and the private sectors. the measure would also help get the word out faster about attacks as soon as they are detected provide governments and businesses with knowledge they can use to erect stronger defenses and help strike a critical balance between security and privacy in the process. the bill would do so, for instance mandating the creation of guidelines to limit the use retention and diffusion of consumers' personal information.

this is more than just a smart measure. it's a transparent one too. it's been carefully scrutinized by senators of both parties. it's been endorsed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis by nearly every single democrat and every single republican on the intelligence committee, and it's been posted online and available for anyone to read for quite some time. the need for this smart bipartisan transparent measure couldn't be clearer. we shouldn't wait for the administration to fumble away another four million social security numbers or personal addresses before we help them get modernized and up to speed. that hasn't stopped some democratic leaders from thinking they should try to score some political points by taking down a bipartisan measure to combat cyber attacks. i hope they won't do that. most americans would find it

awfully cynical for democratic leaders in the wake of the administration's inability -- inability -- to stop such a massive cyber attack to vote against the very same cybersecurity legislation their own party vetted and over whelmingly endorsed in committee for the sake of scoring political points. we've got a smart transparent bipartisan fully vetted measure before us that can help make our country safer. senators in both parties have a chance to offer other amendments to the bill. amend it too. my hope is now is that we can work together to pass a measure that's in support of the american people and backed by a broad coalition of supporters, everyone from the u.s. chaib of commerce to the u.s. -- u.s. chamber of commerce to the u.s. telecom association. the sooner we do, the sooner we can conference it with two similar white house-backed bills that passed the house and the sooner we can finally get a good

cybersecurity law on the books to hem -- help protect americans. that brings me then to the larger debate the senate is having this week. the bill the cyber measure has been offered to is the annual defense authorization act. it's a related issue. it's about protecting our country. it makes sense to consider these issues together. now the defense bill is another measure that should be sailing to passage with strong bipartisan support. it does so almost every year. but democratic leaders now seem to have a different idea. here's a headline that just appeared in "the washington post." here's the headline: "democrats prepare for filibuster summer." democrats prepare for filibuster summer. you can already feel americans just tense up. they don't even like the sound

of it. who would? let me read you just a few lines from that story. "after almost six months in the minority senate democrats aren't afraid to be obstructionists. detailing a strategy of blocking appropriations bills and other republican agenda items until they get what they want. until they get what they want. get ready for filibuster summer" the post warned. because despite opening themselves to charges of hypocrisy, democrats have decided to block all spending bills starting with the defense appropriations measure. putting the obvious hypocrisy aside, one thing is clear. the party leaders opposite seem to think this is all just a game. democratic leaders seem to think that the pay raise for a soldier who gives everything to protect our country and who would give anything to provide for her kids

isn't something she's earned but something she can gamble with in a high-stakes game of shutdown roulette. democratic leaders don't seem the least bit bothered by the dire national security implications of what they're doing. they packed the car for their filibuster vacation and they're ready to hit the road, whatever the consequences, for our country. they're headed down this road at a time when the united states has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of world war ii. those are the words of henry kissinger, and he's right. from beijing moscow, and the tribal areas of pakistan to ramadi and tehran, we see unrest and global threats that threaten american values and american interests. and what do we see from

democratic leaders? a serious plan? we hear the president telling us he still doesn't even have one when it comes to confronting one of the most serious challenges: isil. this is eight months after he announced his intention to confront this threat. this is eight months after i and others called on the president with a comprehensive plan to defeat this menace. and it's eight months since i pledged that congress would work with the administration to ensure our forces have the resources they need to carry out their mission. republicans have kept up our end of the bargain even if the president still doesn't have a serious plan. the president asked us for $612 billion in his budget request to congress. that's what he asked for. so we worked across the aisle to craft a bipartisan defense authorization bill at precisely that level.

he asked we delivered. the house version of this bill already passed by a big bipartisan margin. the senate version sailed out of armed services on a vote of 22-4. 22-4. we remember all set to pass the very -- we were all set to pass the very type of bill president obama indicated he wanted, but then democratic leaders started listening to that little partisan pat on their shoulder. why not take this opportunity to pump up unrelated government spending you like so much? just threaten to filibuster pay raises for troops until they shower more cash on the bureaucrats in washington. in a moment of grave and gathering threats democrats listened to that partisan voice.

that partisan voice. at a time when our military families need all the support they can get, democratic leaders reverted to a partisan forum and are now threatening to blow up a bipartisan bill. now, mr. president, i would think this would be of some concern to commonsense democrats they have to be wondering if their leaders have totally lost it completely lost it with this filibuster summer and holding our military hostage. because you don't have to look too far to see the important role the military plays in each of our communities i mentioned yesterday how important fort campbell is to kentucky. let me now tell you a little about fort knox. fort knox hosts the army's human resources command.

it's a hub for multiple major commands under the training and doctrine command. and because of its vast array of excellent training grounds and its exceptional training facilities fort knocks began hosting -- fort knox began hosting thousands of cadets for extensive annual training under the army's leaders training courses. not only has knox been leading the army in energy independence by developing the capability to go off the grid entirely, but it also continues to make an exceptionally important contribution locally as well. fort knox's economic impact on harden county and the surrounding communities stands at over $2 billion a year. my constituents in elizabeth

town and across the commonwealth know how important fort knox is to our community and to our country. they also know that passing the bipartisan defense bill before us would allow for a critical new medical facility to be built at fort knox. they don't want to see democratic leaders hold that medical facility hostage for unrelated partisan reasons. kentuckians and americans know that supporting our troops is never, ever a waste of time. they know that ensuring the military has the tools it needs isn't a game. here's something else so many of our constituents know. what america needs right now is not a summer of filibusters. but a season of serious

bipartisan solutions. that's what this defense bill before us represents, and that's what this new congress has been doing all year. we've gotten a lot done. there's a lot more we can do, and if rank-and-file democrats reject their leader's partisan gains in favor of keeping up the bipartisan work that got us to this point instead on a bill they joined with republicans to pass in committee 22-4, 22-4, then that's just the kind of productive summer we can keep working toward. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: i admire and appreciate very much my friend,

the republican leader, mentioning dr. james billington. freand of mine. i had a wonderful conversation with him yesterday. i wrote him a nice letter -- at least i think so -- talking about the work we've done together over these past three decades. it seems only yesterday that i was chairman of the legislative branch appropriation committee a new senator here, and one of the first attacks we got from republicans at that time was to whack the library of congress. they even went after the magazines that were produced in braille. i can remember the debate we had with playboy magazine. i don't know what they were trying to eliminate but they tried. i don't know what they could do with the braille on playboy magazine, but we were able to turn that back. i so appreciate this good man and what he's done. his academic record is just

really terrific. as a person, he is the best. we've traveled parts of the world with him. mark hatfield, republican, one of the republican leaders of the senate. i was a junior senator at the time. we had a great trip. he prior to coming to the library of congress was the academic leader of our country on the soviet union. a wonderful man. and i ask that my remarks indicate i agree with every word the republican leader said about jim billington. mr. president, my friend, the republican leader, threw around words like -- not like -- cynicism hypocrisy. mr. president, this speech that my friend gave, i would suggest he walk into his office, his

little bathroom there look in the mirror, because over that mirror he should be able to see the words hypocrisy and cynicism, because the speech he gave were just fervent with hypocrisy and cynicism. we have tried very, very hard since the first of the year to cooperate with republicans. we've done that. on this bill, the bill that's before us, the defense authorization bill. it's a bill i will talk about in a little bit in more detail, but this is a piece of legislation that the president said before it left the committee was going to veto it. he had not only said it, he put it in writing. we have allowed it to go on the floor without the normal filibuster and motion to proceed

that i had to approach when i led the senate as the majority leader hundreds of times hundreds of times. so we have cooperated. we have a filibuster getting on the bill as i mentioned and we have allowed amendments to get pending and get votes. that's something republicans wouldn't let us do when this bill came up the last two years. it's a major bill. and as the republican leader said and i quote a couple years ago, i quote the defense authorization bill requires four or five weeks to debate. that's what he said. so mr. president this work that he has done on this defense authorization bill is just the height of hypocrisy.

he comes to the floor today and blames barack obama for the hacking that the chinese did. he talks about what a great bill we have that he's stuck on this bill. i will talk about it in a little more detail, but he is stuck on the defense bill being cybersecurity. mr. president, for five years five years we tried to get a cybersecurity bill out. every time we got up, it was stopped by the republicans every time. i met with -- in my office five years ago i met with five different committee chairs. they moved forward to try to get a bill done. every step of the way my republican friends blocked us. so talk about cynicism and hypocrisy. and then on the defense bill, talk about what a gift they gave to the president. they gave a gift to the president of $39 billion more deficit spending.

that's what o.c.o. is, deficit spending. overseas contingency fund. they refused to allow that on virtually everything else. my friend, the chairman of the armed services committee in years past and in fact when this bill first came from the house he complained about this phony gimmick that they were using but now my friend who i came to congress with 33 years ago suddenly likes this bill. i don't know how he can do the back flip he did to come to this reasoning. there's no better example of the dysfunction created by the republican leader and his party than what we have seen not the last five and a half months, the last 24 hours. think about what he has done.

we're on a defense authorization bill that the president has said out loud and in writing he's going to veto. everyone knows that. every republican knows that. but the republican leader is hellbent on moving forward with this cynical ploy to pass a bill that's destined to be vetoed. mr. president, yesterday he even went further and intimated that the republicans love the defense of this country through our military, and we didn't, and at that time i said, and i repeat every one of my democratic senators are patriots they believe in this country, they support the military. so supporting the military isn't a lock that the republicans have . to make matters worse the republican leader is now using this bill, which should be

focused on funding our troops to pull these ploys these diverting, deceitful ploys on cybersecurity and the export-import bank. on cybersecurity, with the republican leader's blessing, says they employed a rarely used device to get a cybersecurity amendment pending with no amendment. then before any action was taken, the republican leader quickly filed cloture. when the senate considered the 2012 cybersecurity bill, and we tried so hard to get that up, senator mcconnell complained about cloture being filed too quickly, which i did because they wouldn't let us move at all on the bill. in 2012, here's what he said -- quote -- "the few days the bill was on the floor the majority limited its consideration to debate only and then filed cloture. continuing the quote but of course that's kind of par for the course around here.

the notion that we should just roll over and waive through these bills without having a chance to approve them and that democratic senators would be willing to be rolled in such a way is ridiculous, especially on a bill of this significance close quote by senator from kentucky the senior senator from kentucky. close quote. yet here the republican leader is doing just what he lambasted before. now, that really is par for the course we have found these last five months. for six years three different congresses virtually everything president obama tried to do and we tried to do, it was filibustered. that's no secret. hundreds of times hundreds of times on motions to proceed gobbling up 30 hours here, two days here, hundreds of times.

so now what we find is something that even is somewhat to me more troubling. there have been press reports today that republicans on the house side are involved in a vote-buying scheme on the trade bill by promising never to reauthorize the export-import bank. they're saying to the few republicans if you vote to allow us to go forward with this trade bill we won't do anything on the export-import bank. what a shame. so let me get this straight. republicans want to pass a trade bill that hurts american workers, and in order to buy votes, make that happen, they're going to kill 165,000 more jobs by letting ex-im bank laps. that's a number of americans working today because of the bank. as we speak today 165,000. another part of this cynical ploy unfolded here on the senate

floor. the republican leader was intent on letting the export-import bank collapsed allowed a token vote on the measure to try to apiece the bank's supporters, so he immediately walks out here in the last 24 hours files an amendment on the ex-im bank, and within hours files a motion to table the amendment. wow. so we shouldn't be easily fooled and we're not. if the bank expires there's no telling how long it will take to renew it, if, in fact, it ever happens. none should be fooled by these sham votes. we want to preserve the bank, we should vote to extend it before it expires on june 30 this year, in a couple weeks. i'm amazed that it's even an issue. it wasn't that long ago that republicans believed that this bank was good for america. republican presidents believed in it. reagan bush, bush. i remember when the republican leader was in favor of the bank.

in 1997, the senator from kentucky cosponsored legislation to reauthorize the bank's charter. with senator mcconnell's help, the senate passed that bill unanimously. that's the way we used to do it because it was so good for america. and again four years later the republican leader signed onto a letter encouraging george w. bush to extend the bank's charter, which, of course, we did. at that time he and 29 other republican senators argued that allowing the bank to lapse would be devastating to the economy and in particular our trade deficit. and now the senior senator from kentucky has turned a legislative back flip and today wants the bank to disappear. talk about hypocrisy. talk about cynicism. wow. as he continues to remind everyone he sets the schedule around here, yet he cannot be bothered to schedule a vote on the export-import bank before it

lapses. so what changed? here's what changed. the republican leader isn't the only republican performing a breath-taking about-face on this issue. the chairman of the banking committee supported the export-import bank as recently as a year or two ago. in fact, the senior senator from alabama supported a four-year renewal. the senator from alabama if he had gotten his way the bank would still have a year left before the charter expired. but now the senior senator from alabama, speaking of the bank's reauthorization, said quote, i believe at the end of the day if it expires we won't miss it. tell that to the 165,000 people who will lose their jobs. just last night the banking chairman tried to table an amendment reauthorizing the export-import bank. that motion failed overwhelmingly and displayed that the bank has a lot of support for reauthorization. now, i don't need to just point a finger at the republican

leader or the banking committee chair. many other senate republicans have flipped 180 degrees on this also. so quickly that i'm sure their heads are spinning even as we speak. to understand the republican change of position, one need only look -- where do we look? what do the koch brothers want us to do? what do the koch brothers want us to do? these koch brothers are the billionaire benefactors t. charles and david coke adamantly opposed the export-import bank today but not yesterday. they weren't always against the bank just like most other businesses in america the koch industry is always looking for new markets for their goods and they should. that means the koch brothers are all for exports. how could they not be? after all the koch brothers got into business by selling its services to josef stalin. that's where they got started.

josef stalin and his brutal communist soviet union. more recently they used the export-import bank to find an international marketplace for their goods. "the hill" newspaper reports that the koch companies georgia pacific, john zinc, molex koch heat transfer among others, received over $15 million in loans from the bank. and that $16 million says it helped sustain american jobs, but it's stunningly hypocritical that the same koch brothers are using the bank for loans they could literally write a check for, and they are attacking as a corporate give-away. this reminds me of the time the kochs attacked obamacare as collectivism. they probably know a little bit about that. that's where their business started. the kochs attacked obamacare as

collectism while collecting subsidies through the obamacare act. talk about hypocrisy. now the koch brothers figure we got it all, why should we try to help anybody else? we're multibillionaires, and that's an understatement. they're laboring in corporate welfare and a handout for big business. i wonder if charles and david got whiplash from their extreme turn-around. the koch's main political arm americans for prosperity, is leading an all-out assault on the bank. it is going to great lengths to letting the bank's charter lapse. one thing for a couple of billionaires to oppose a program for their own financial purption. it is a -- purposes. it is a different thing for republicans in congress too -- to do their business. why else the turn-around. republicans in congress were for the export-import bank until the kochs were against it. now the republicans are running for the covers, waiting to find

a way that they can try to rationalize not being for it when they were for it before. one conservative news outlet run by the heritage foundation went so far to report that republican hoastles have to re -- hopefuls have to reject the export-import bank if they want the koch brothers backing. you can't make up stuff better than this. the daily signal reports -- quote -- "a report on ad candidate's approach to one or more issues to the koch brothers beginning with opposition to the federal export-import bank. it would be tragic if the export-import bank wasn't reauthorized because of republicans with white house ambitions or senators who are afraid they're going to get a primary here in the senate being more interested in addition for the koch brothers as presidential candidates are and

republican leaders in congress do. they go meet with them a couple times of yearss to make sure they bow when they're supposed to. the republican leader and his colleagues have reported opposition on a program that supports 165,000 american jobs, jobs here right in our country many in their own states. every state in the union benefits. because they changed their opinion on a bank that returned $7 billion to the treasury, our treasury it's a flip that would make a trap peas artist cringe -- from a peas -- to make a trapeze artist cringe. we haven't much time. the export-import bank expires at the end of this month. last night's vote proves there is support. 65 senators voted in favor of support of the bank last month.

i ask republicans to understand where the real cynicism and hypocrisy lies in this chamber. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator will suspend. mr. hatch: i withhold. the presiding officer: under the previous order the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order the senate will be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided in the usual form. the senator from utah. mr. hatch: mr. president, last month the senate passed a bipartisan congressional trade priorities and accountability act of 2015 which renews trade promotion authority or t.p.a. years of hard work and compromise enabled us to pass this bill with strong bipartisan support here in the senate. now with the senate having

already acted, all of our eyes are turned to the house of representatives where i know the speaker and the republican leadership not to mention the chairman of the house ways and means committee, who is a coauthor of the bill, are working to move this important bill forward. i want to take some time today to address some of the concerns i've heard from our house colleagues and others about this bill and the concept of t.p.a. in general. for example i know that some have claimed that t.p.a. cedes too much congressional authority to the executive bernanke. this is a particular -- to the executive branch. this is a troublesome proposition for some republican house colleagues who might be wary of granting these powers to the white house. let me be clear. i've spent as much time as anyone in congress criticizing president obama's executive overreach. i've come to the floor numerous times to catalog all the ways the current administration overstepped its authority on issues ranging from health care

to immigration to labor policy. in fact, i was here just yesterday talking about efforts on the part of the administration to unilaterally undermine welfare reform. so when people say they are worried about legislation that would take power from congress and give to this president give it to this president believe me i understand. i would worry about that too. but that is not what our t.p.a. legislation does. simply put t.p.a. is a compact between the house the senate, and the administration. with t.p.a. in place the administration agrees to pursue negotiating objectives established by congress and is required to consult with congress on a regular basis during the whole negotiating process. in return, the house and senate agree to vote on any trade agreements to meet those requirements under a specified time line without amendments.

the president doesn't have any new powers under this compact and congress does not give any powers up. in fact, the primary purpose of t.p.a. is to enhance congress's role in the negotiating process. that's right mr. president. despite some claims that t.p.a. is an abrogation of congressional power the opposite is actually true. without t.p.a., the members of congress and their constituents have no strong voice on establishing our trade priorities. with t.p.a., congress can define trade l negotiating objectives and priorities. without t.p.a., the administration is under no formal obligation to provide congress with meaningful information on the staw of -- on the status of ongoing trade negotiations. with t.p.a., congress can provide the negotiation to provide frequent updates and consultations. for example the senate-passed

t.p.a. bill would ensure that any member of congress who wants access to the negotiating text at any time during the negotiations will get that access. in addition, members of congress will once again at any time be able to request and receive a briefing from the ustr, u.s. trade representative, on the current status of ongoing trade negotiations. in other words mr. president t.p.a. gives congress a much stronger say in the substance of our country's trade negotiations and provides mechanisms to hold the administration far more accountable. right now the obama administration is negotiating trade agreement with ad hoc and informal direction from congress. that will change once congress renews t.p.a. still, i know that there are some who believe that by agreeing not to allow amendments or filibusters of trade agreements, congress is giving up most of its power to

influence trade agreements on the back end once an agreement is actually signed. again let me be clear. under t.p.a., congress at all times -- all times -- maintains the ultimate authority over a trade agreement. the power to reject it entirely. t.p.a. does not guarantee the passage of any trade agreement now or in the future. nor does it, as some have argued reduce votes in congress to a -- quote -- "rubber stamp" from the administration. this is important mr. president, as there has been some confusion on this point with the coming vote on t.p.a., the house of representatives is not voting to approve any individual trade agreement. i know that pundits and talking heads in the media have tried to conflate passage of t.p.a. with congress's approving of the trans-pacific partnership but in realty these are separate and

distinct propositions. case in point over the last couple of years i've been the most outspoken advocate in congress in favor of renewing t.p.a. however, throughout that time i've made it abundantly clear that my support for t.p.a. does not guarantee my support for the trans-pacific partnership. indeed i'm fully prepared to vote against the t.p.p. if the administration falls short on reaching high-priority negotiating objectives. and many on this side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle have informed them of some of these high-priority negotiating object ives. even if maintaining the power to accept or reject a trade agreement is not enough, the senate-passed t.p.a. bill contains procedures, including an all new procedure that enable congress to strip procedural protections from any trade agreement if it determines that there was inadequate

consultation or that the negotiating objectives have not been met. additionally, under the bill both the house and senate maintain their constitutional prerogative to change their respectives rules to override t.p.a. so as you can see mr. president, congress does not give up any of its powers under t.p.a. in addition to preserving and enhancing congress's role in trade policy, the senate-passed t.p.a. bill contains a number of provisions that actually constrain the administration as it negotiates and implements new trade agreements. for example the bill ensures that implementing bills for trade agreements will include -- and i'm quoting the text of the bill here -- quote -- "only such provisions as are strictly necessary or appropriate to implement" trade agreements. additionally the bill makes clear that any commitments made by the administration that are not disclosed to congress before

an implementing bill for an agreement is introduced will not be considered as part of the agreement and will have no force of law. furthermore, the bill also ensures that trade agreements cannot be used to undermine u.s. sovereignty. another concern i've heard about t.p.a. and one i wanted to make sure we were protected against. the bill accomplishes this goal in four important ways. first, it makes clear that any provision of a trade agreement that is inconsistent with federal or state law will have no effect. second the bill states specifically that federal and state laws will prevail in the event of a conflict with a trade agreement. third, it affirms that no trade agreement can prevent congress or the states from changing their laws in the future. and, fourth, it confirms that the administration cannot

unilaterally change u.s. law. all of these provisions have been drafted with an eye toward maintaining the separation of powers and ensuring that no administration can use trade agreements to unilaterally write u.s. laws or policy. now we've all heard claims that the president intends to use trade agreements to change our immigration laws or enact strict climate change standards. t.p.a. ensures that throughout the process of negotiating finalizing and approving a trade agreement congress stays in the driver's seat. finally, mr. president, i want to address the concerns that i've heard about the supposed secrecy surrounding the t.p.p. agreement. some of our house colleagues as well as a number of people in the media have decried the fact that details of the t.p.p., the trans-pacific partnership have not yet been made public. they have also argued that by

renewing t.p.a. before the details of the deal are disclosed congress would be enabling further secrecy. again, this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of simple negotiation tactics. the t.p.p. is still being negotiated. and as with any high-stakes negotiation, some level of confidentiality is a must if we're going to get the best deal possible with 11 other countries at the table. in all the negotiations, there is a time for disclosure and a time to hold your cards close to your chest. so i recognize that with trade negotiations our government is negotiating on behalf of the american people, and we need to ensure that the maximum amount of transparency is possible. fortunately, the senate passed

t.p.a. bill strikes an appropriate balance to deal with these issues, providing unprecedented levels of transparency and oversight into the trade negotiating process. under our bill, the full text of a completed trade agreement must be made public at least 60 days before the president can even sign it. be made public at least 60 days before the president could even sign it. talk about transparency. this is an all-new requirement mr. president, giving the american people new and unprecedented access and knowledge of all trade agreements well before they are even submitted to congress for approval. after that 60-day period has expired and the president signs an agreement he must submit to congress the legal text of the trade agreement and a statement of administrative action at least 30 days before formally committing an implementing bill.

and as i noted earlier the bill includes all new requirements giving members of congress access to text and information throughout the negotiating process. any member of the house of representatives that supports free trade that is concerned about the secrecy of current negotiations should be the first in line to support the senate-passed t.p.a. bill. and once again any supporters of expanded u.s. exports that are also wary about executive overreach should be trumpeting their support for our bill. the senate t.p.a. bill enhances congress' role in trade negotiations. the senate t.p.a. bill maintains congress' power to accept or reject any future trade agreement. the senate t.p.a. bill prevents the president from pursuing unilateral changes to u.s. law or policy. and the senate t.p.a. bill provides unprecedented levels of transparency and oversight into

these trade agreements or into any trade agreements that may come forth including t.p.a., by the way. i'm sure that some of the cynics out there have one more question. if t.p.a. imposes all of these requirements and restrictions on the administration why does the president want it so bad? the answer to that question is simple. t.p.a. is necessary in order for our negotiators to get a good deal. we know this is the case, mr. president. without t.p.a. in place our negotiating partners have no guarantees that the deal they sign will be one congress will consider. without those guarantees, they are less likely to put their best offers on the table because they will have no assurance that our country can deliver on the deal or any deal they enter into with us. and make no mistake we need to get good deals at the negotiating table.

more than 95% of the world's consumers live outside of our country, the united states. if our farmers manufacturers and entrepreneurs are going to compete on the world stage they need access to these customers. history has shown that high standard free trade agreements expand market access for u.s. exporters and reduce our trade deficits. most importantly they grow our economy and create good, high-paying jobs for workers here at home and improve living standards for our citizens and for our trading partners. if the u.s. is going to advance its values and interests in the international marketplace we need to be writing the rules and setting the standards. we cannot do that if we are sitting on the sidelines. this is an important bill, mr. president. i was very glad to see it pass the senate with bipartisan

support. i hope that in the coming days we will see a similar result in the house of representatives. and with that, i yield the floor. ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you mr. president. we expect a ruling this month from the supreme court in the case of king versus burwell which will have such an impact on families all across america and the affordable and the availability of health insurance for them and their families. and this is an incredibly important issue. and as someone who was there in the senate finance committee at virtually every meeting and who helped write the tax credit section of the bill, i want to remind my colleagues what's at

stake here in this decision. during the finance committee markups, i worked very hard to make sure the affordability tax credits, which provide tax cuts for millions of americans were meaningful and helping people buy insurance through the marketplaces. and it took a lot of work to get those tax credits written into the affordable care act. in fact, as my colleagues know, certainly on this side of the aisle, i would go to every meeting with charts and graphs, looking at what people would have to pay under various levels of tax cuts and how to make sure it was affordable, and the great news is that the majority of americans today are able to purchase affordable health insurance for less than $100 a month, and that was a lot of work to get done, and that's really what's at stake right now. now, i know there are people who

don't like the law that was written, but the legal argument being presented in the supreme court right now makes absolutely no sense. absolutely no sense. folks on the republican side of the aisle are asking the supreme court to raise the taxes of some 6.4 million americans. we're talking about $1.7 billion in tax increases going to all these states in the red mr. president, including my own. we have members of the united states senate cheering on a court that could rule that there would be a $1.7 billion tax increase on their own constituents. don't count me in as one of those that's cheering that on. and i don't understand it. these members of congress are effectively saying that people in massachusetts where there is

a state exchange can have a tax cut and the affordable change that comes with it but people in oklahoma can't have a tax cut. they are suggesting it's fine for people who live in the district of columbia here to get tax cuts to help pay for their insurance, but people in louisiana can't. or that people in new york can have tax cuts to help pay for their insurance but people in texas can't. now, to drive this point home, mr. president, i want to take a moment to look at how many people in each state are at risk of a tax increase based on the supreme court ruling, because this is really important to literally millions and millions of americans. alabama, the supreme court could raise taxes through their decision on 132,253 people in alabama. over 132,000 people will find

out this month whether or not they get a tax increase as a result of the supreme court decision. alaska, in alaska, we see the possibility of 16,583 people in the last frontier state who would see an average of $536 more in taxes as a result of the possible decision being urged on by republicans in the u.s. house and u.s. senate. arizona, the grand canyon state. over 136,000 people. americans who would see a tax increase, $20 million total in tax increases in arizona

depending on how the supreme court rules. let's go on to what's called the natural state of arkansas. 48,000-plus people who will see an average of $284 increase as a result of the supreme court decision if they rule against what we know was done correctly in terms of writing the affordable care act. let's go on and look at delaware the first state mr. president. over 19,000 people would see their taxes go up, a tax increase in delaware, depending on what the supreme court does. later this month. florida, the sunshine state. over 1.3 million 1,324,516

people. and we're looking at almost $390 million in tax increases that would be coming from the state of florida if the supreme court sides with republicans and makes that decision that will increase people's taxes. georgia. the peach state. 412,385 georgians will see a tax increase as a result of the supreme court if the supreme court does what the republicans want to have done. illinois 232,371 people living in illinois right next to

michigan our great friends in illinois. almost $50 million in tax increases in illinois will happen beginning the end of this month if the supreme court decides to rule the way the republicans want them to rule. indiana also right next to the great state of michigan, 159,802 people living in indiana hoosiers who will see their taxes go up if the supreme court rules against providing tax credits. iowa the hawkeye state 34,172 iowans will see their taxes go up. these are families, these are working families, mr. president. these are families working hard. one job maybe two jobs, maybe three jobs.

probably our folks certainly included in this who lost the equity in the home after what happened with the great recession, trying to big themselves out of the hole, celebrating the fact that they can go to bed at night not having to worry if the kids get sick that they can take them to the doctor. most of them being able to find health insurance for less than $100 a month because of the tax cuts we passed in the affordable care act. kansas. the sunflower state. 69,979 people. 69,000 almost 60,000 people in kansas who will -- almost 70,000 people in kansas who will see their taxes go up if the supreme court sides with the republican position on the affordable care act. louisiana, the pelican state.

137,940 people that live in louisiana. almost $45 million would come out of this state in tax increases if the supreme court sides with the republican position regarding the affordable care act. maine, 60,939 people. by the way who represent families. it's people who have families who have children, spouses, who are now able to afford insurance, most of them for under $100 a month maybe for the first time ever. because of had the tax cuts, tax credits that are translated into tax cuts for people in the affordable care act.

and this one means the most to me, of course, and that's my home state of michigan. there is no way by the way i would have ever voted to do this the idea that we voted for something that would make all this happen is pretty crazy. obviously that was not legislative intent. but in michigan, 228,388 people in my state, men and women their children, will in fact see a tax increase if the supreme court rules with the republican position at the end of this month. missouri, the show-me state i'll tell you what they don't want to show is more tax increases. 75,613 people in missouri. and we're talking about $55

million coming out of the state of missouri, families who will pay more and in many cases not be able to afford health care anymore for their families. so they're going to pay more and they're not going to have health care. mississippi, the magnolia state 75 thousand -- let's see. excuse me. we're missing mississippi. let me talk about mississippi 75,6 p 13 people -- 75,613 people over 26 million people will see a tax increase. montana, 41,766 people in montana, the treasure state. and it's close to $10 million total that will come out of montana from montana families in

tax increases if the supreme court sides with the republican position in the house and senate and raises people's taxes. nebraska 56, 910 nebraskans will see their taxes go up an average of $257, almost $15 million total coming from nebraska. new hampshire the supreme court decision could raise the taxes on almost 30,000 people. 29 996 people in new hampshire who will health insurance now most of them for under $100 a month, will probably lose their health care and the bonus is they get a tax increase that will in total be almost $8 million. new jersey, the garden state 1

132,345 people in new jersey, there we're looking at about $54 million in tax increases in new jersey alone on people who will get less health care and more taxes. north carolina, the tar heel state 458,738 people. that's a lot of people in north carolina. 458,738 people who today have the peace of mind of knowing that if they get sick, they can go to a doctor, take their children to the doctor, that they can prevent themselves from getting sick by having preventive care and cancer screenings and all those things that we want for ourselves and our families.

they will see their taxes go up if the supreme court sides with the republican position. north dakota, 14,115 individuals will see their taxes go up and we're looking at $3.3 million in a small state like north dakota that families will pay in increased taxes. ohio 161,011 people in ohio, the buckeye state the great rivals of my state. 161,011 ohioans and we're looking at $41 million in total in tax increases. less health care, more taxes if the supreme court sides with the republican position some time

between now and the end of the month. the sooner state of oklahoma, 87136 people living in oklahoma. that's another state near and dear to me. that's where my mom grew up and lived on a farm and actually picked cotton. and i know how hard they work. 87,136 people in oklahoma. over $18 million will come from this state men women who just want to make sure they got some health care for their children, that they can respond if somebody gets sick, if somebody has cancer, if somebody needs to have some health care help. and they will see less health care and $18 million more in tax increases if the supreme court sides with the republican position this month.

pennsylvania the keystone state, 348 823 people that, again, big state, a lot of people in pennsylvania. 348,823 people almost $80 million total in tax increases. less health care, more taxes if the supreme court gets this wrong and sides with the republican position. south carolina, 154,221 people in south carolina will see their taxes go up. about $43 million in total if this decision goes against the american people.

south dakota, mount rushmore state. another small state but every single person there who's getting health care today who's paying less for it -- most folks under $100 a month -- is going to care about this. 16,811 people in south dakota who will get tax increases and less health care if the supreme court makes the wrong decision. if the supreme court in this case sides with the republican position. tennessee, 155,753 people in tennessee will see their taxes go up. a total of about $34 million just from tennessee alone. texas and here we begin to see

bigger numbers again. big state big numbers. 832,334 people in texas. and we're talking about over $205 million in increased costs increased taxes on people who live in texas who just want to be able to provide health care for themselves and their children. that's all. this is not some big frill we're talking about here. pretty basic. we can't control whether or not we get sick. and you're looking at 832 832,000-plus people who are holding their breath, waiting to see what the supreme court is going to do and whether or not they're going to side with them or they're going to side with the republican position.

utah 86,330 individuals in utah that will see their taxes go up all together about $18 million. virginia 285,938 people pretty close by in virginia. again, on average they'll see $314 increase in their taxes or $8 million-plus total. excuse me. i'm looking at the wrong numbers here. $73 million almost $74 million in virginia. $258 on average per individual. $74 million in total tax increase just across the bridge.

west virginia, the mountain state, we have 26,145 west virginians that would all in total would be seeing over $8 million coming out of the state of west virginia if the supreme court sides with the republican position on the tax credits under health care. and finally wisconsin 168,142 another close neighbor of ours in michigan. 166,000-plus people seeing over almost actually over $52 million coming right across lake michigan as we look across at wisconsin s. less health care, taxes go up if the supreme court gets this wrong and sides with

the republican position. and finally wyoming. 16,937 individuals over $7 million comes from the state of wyoming in total taxes if the supreme court gets this wrong. madam president, our central question for justices to consider in king vs. burwell is legislative intent, and that's a question i am, frankly very qualified to answer, given how engaged i was in crafting the affordable care act and especially the tax cuts represented in affordability tax credits. i was there. i can speak firsthand to what the intent was. the core purpose of this law was to make sure that coverage was

affordable for every american. health care coverage was affordable for every american. pretty simple. and to achieve that, i fought very hard to make sure that these tax credits would be available, that they would be enough to make a difference. i pushed so hard for these tax cuts and finance markup that the chairman, senator baucus, ended up calling me "senator affordability" in the process because i knew we had to get that right for every american, including my state. the key to the affordable care act is for every american and small businesses to be able to pool their risks to help drive down the costs for everyone. and it's doing that. so the law created the marketplaces where -- and we wanted to give states the right to create a marketplace of their own if that was their

preference. now here's the important part. we didn't want states to feel like they were being forced to create a marketplace so we gave them a choice. either a federal marketplace or you could choose a state marketplace. the federal marketplace created healthcare .gov. with healthcare .gov every american has the opportunity to go online to see if they qualify driven by the tax credits created within the affordable care act. the great news is that 6.4 million americans are getting those tax cuts right now. now the court is considering the ludicrous idea that congress actually meant to make those tax credits available in states that created their own exchanges but only in those states.

that somehow we were not trying to make sure that everybody in the united states had access to affordable health care and lower taxes to be able to put that money towards providing health care. not every changes not every state -- not every exchange, not every sedate, -- not every state, not every person buying health insurance. only americans living in states with a state exchange. that's what they have to believe in order to take the position that the republicans are asking them to take. madam president, i can't think of a single instance in the history of our country where members of the united states have voted to give tax cuts to people in one state and not to people in another state particularly if it's their own state that's not getting the tax

cut. senator max baucus from montana was chair of the finance committee at that time. in montana there was no plan to set up a state health care exchange. it is totally absurd to suggest that senator baucus would help, would lead the writing of a health care bill with tax cuts for the people of other states and not his own. or why would i? as a senator from michigan, push so hard for these tax cuts and the affordable care act that my own constituents didn't qualify for but people in other states would? madam president, that makes no sense whatsoever. the legislative intent here is crystal clear. so we have this bizarre situation where colleagues across the aisle are asking the court to strike down the tax cuts, raise taxes on millions of

their own constituents. my belief on this issue is the same as they were five years ago when i pushed the tax credits through the finance committee. their right to get those tax credits has nothing to do with where you live in the united states of america. it has to do with whether or not you need health care for yourself and your children. if you're an american, then you deserve the opportunity to receive these tax cuts that will make health care affordable for you and your family. whether you get your plan through a state exchange or through the federal government, it doesn't matter. that was the intent of the law when we wrote it. that is how the law has worked since the marketplace opened. and that is how it should continue into the future. finally, madam president i want to make it absolutely clear that

the bill authored by the senator from wisconsin senator johnson is not a repeal and replace plan. it is a trojan horse that would completely destroy the health care law that is currently providing medical care for over 16 million americans in our country. experts tell us it would lead to a death spiral where rates would go up so high that only sick people would be willing to pay the premiums, making insurance completely unaffordable for american families. it would let your state decide what health benefits are essential to your family, meaning a family in iowa would have completely different protections than someone living a few miles away in minnesota. it puts an expiration date on the tax credits that make health coverage affordable. conveniently enough, though, it extends the tax cuts until after

the 2016 election. and there's the real danger that when the guarantee of these tax cuts expires in september 2017, they will not be renewed. by putting that expiration date after the election, it's clear that this bill's first priority isn't finding a way to make health care affordable. its priority is delaying a massive tax increase until after the election. its priority is to win election first, dismantle affordable health care coverage second. my hope and frankly my prayer is that the court recognizes what i know to be true, what i know to be true, that the language of this law is consistent with the original intent, which is clear from the very first words of the

law. title 1 page 1. here's what it says. quality affordable health care for all americans. not americans in some states and not others. all americans. it is my deep hope that the court ruling will allow us to lock in affordable health care coverage for good. then we can move on and spend our time more productively, focusing on how to make a good law even better for families, communities, businesses and providers. madam president, i hope that will be the opportunity we will have. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i would ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider executive calendar number 145 and the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or

debate on the nomination. that following the disposition of the nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table no further motions to be in order to the nomination, that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination -- small business administration, douglas j. cramer of kansas to be deputy administrator. the presiding officer: the question is on the cramer nomination. -- on the kramer nomination. if there is no further debate, all those in favor say aye. those opposed nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is affirmed. mr. enzi: madam president? the presiding officer: under the previous order the motion to

reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table. the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate will resume legislative session. mr. enzi: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i rise today to speak about the growing burden of federal regulations and the need to rein in the creation of new rules and the expansion of existing rules. the regulatory burden in 2014 is reported to be nearly $2 trillion, and the size of the federal register last year came out to nearly 78,000 pages of new rules and regulations. this chart shows the 78,000 pages of regulations is all too common especially for this administration where regulatory overreach has become normal and the size of the federal register has topped 80,000 pages for four out of the six years of the president's time in office. with this administration, we're seeing a high water mark of

regulations that are drowning american families and businesses. the flood of regulations has been getting bigger every year for the past two and a half decades. under administrations from both parties. we can't afford to keep piling on these rules. the economic burden of federal regulations is clear. one study estimated that the regulatory burden in the united states cost more than $1.8 trillion in 2014. and that was bigger than the g.d.p. in india. my second chart puts these in perspective. only the ten largest economies are bigger than the united states regulatory burden all by itself. mr. president, this burden is real. some studies have estimated the regulatory drag on the economic growth in the united states to be as high as 2% per year. over the last six and a half decades. an annual report from the competitive enterprise institute noted that in 2014, regulations

cost the average household nearly $15,000 and a study by the small business administration found that regulation increased costs by more than $10,000 per employee. mr. president, the fact that we cannot afford this burden is just as clear. economic growth in the first quarter shrank by .7%. if we get a growth of 1%, it increases the revenue without raising taxes to the united states by $300 billion. that's according to the congressional budget office. according to the president's budget person, it would increase it by $400 billion. imagine what a .7 loss costs us. complex regulations are costly and time consuming especially for small businesses. small business owners and their families have to take on dozens of different responsibilities to make their business work. they have to be compliance experts now and that takes time and resources away that they need to put toward growing their

business and succeeding. i have spoken to many businesses in wyoming that have stopped measuring their permitting applications and pages because it's easier to measure them in feet. businesses are struggling in this regulatory environment because they can't make long-term plans for investments. they don't know what new regulation might come out next month that will change their entire business model. and the problem with complex permitting and regulatory requirements is not just the cost that existing businesses have to bear. it also comes as a cost in businesses that don't even get started because the federal government has placed a mountain of paperwork between their idea and success. the rash of regulations by this administration is clear. president obama's administration has issued more than 80 regulations that have a price tag of more than $100 million each. that is at a minimum $80 billion in costs for this administration's rules. but what is more disturbing is

not just the willingness to turn out more red tape but to find new and creative ways to do it. agencies are only supposed to create new rules when they have clear authority from congress to do so and can demonstrate a real need for the regulations. however, we're seeing more and more examples of the administration finding new justifications and new interpretations of laws that congress has passed in order to get around congress. president obama said that because he is unable to rely on congress to achieve his agenda, he intends to use executive orders. we've seen that with the environmental protection agency, the national labor relations board, the consumer financial protection bureau who is collecting everybody's data right as we speak the national security agency and so many other federal agencies that are willing to read new authorities into existing laws and grant themselves new powers that congress never intended. one place that's willing to force through a agenda regardless of the intent, the

will of the people, is in the energy sector. energy is one of the main drivers of our economy and yet this administration is doing everything it can to wage a regulatory war on coal by releasing rules and regulations designed to make coal harder to produce and making energy more expensive to use in our nation. anyone who uses electricity should be concerned about this. oh yeah, that's everybody isn't it? i recently talked to some sisters who were driving from arizona to wyoming. they were running low on gas so they stopped in colorado to fill up. the power was out at the gas station, so they couldn't pump gas or get a snack or use the rest room. all of these things. the gas pump, garb register, the rest room lights are depending on electricity. think of all the things around you that depend on electricity. almost everything we do is depending on electricity. and yet this administration seems to want to do anything it can to drive up the cost of electricity. a few years ago senators on both sides of the aisle realized

that coal is one of the best sources of energy, only stockpilable one and rejected a cap in tax as extremely expensive and bad idea. bipartisan. now the administration's moving forward on a back-door cap and tax proposal. they believe the best way to reach their goals at promoting alternative energy sources is to make current sources more and more expensive to produce and to use. this hurts consumers it hurts jobs it hurts the economy. it's a simple fact -- make it more expensive to mine coal and the coal industry will be less profitable. make it less expensive to produce coal -- more expensive to use coal to produce energy and consumers will see a hit on their energy bills each and every month. make it more difficult to turn a profit with coal and coal workers find themselves with fewer benefits, less job security and a lot less employment which costs the government for unemployment. this administration has made it clear they do not care about these costs.

the small business advocate wrote e.p.a. that their review panel and clean power plan was only checking the box and is unlikely to succeed in identifying reasonable regulatory alternatives for small business. the incomplete information they provided greatly limits small entity representatives' ability to propose potential regulatory flexibilities or discuss the costs and benefits of particular regulatory alternatives. rural electric cooperatives, transmission companies municipal utilities are going to bear the costs of these coal regulations. this is where the communities get their electricity so the costs will be passed on to the consumers. businesses really have no other choice. several members are pushing back on this regulatory overreach. for example i'm proud to cosponsor a bill with senator vitter introduced earlier this week to protect small business from the onslaught of regulations. but the recent case of a colorado-wyoming mine is a good example of how the

administration does not care about a loss of jobs or costs to consumers and is a clear signal to congress that we have to do more to oppose this. coal produced by this mine is responsible for employing 200 people. the craig power station in senator gardner's state of colorado sends power to a tristate cooperative which provides service in the west. if the cooperative goes offline it will raise electricity prices for electric customers. why would it go offline? because of a little vacation on the mine planned from 2007. senator gardner will this affect your state's mine but it also puts a wider precedent on our most endurable fuel source. so what does talking this one mine offline -- i know they're picking on a small one. that's easier to do than picking on a big one but what does it mean to your constituents? the presiding officer: the

senator from colorado. mr. gardner: i thank the senator from wyoming through the chair for bringing that point to our colleagues in the senate about what is happening in western colorado the colowyo mine. the senator mentioned in his comments that sometimes the regulations from this administration can and should be measured in a matter of feet and not just pages because that's how many new regulations are being piled upon businesses in this country. in the case of the colowyo mine the permit is brought into question by federal court that has given this mine 120 days the service of surface mining, 120 days to rectify a decision made back in 2007, a court case brought eight years after the 2007 permit was granted, if the 120 days go by and the court decides that the review wasn't complete by the office of surface mining it could result in a shutdown of

the colowyo mine. as you mentioned this will result in 220 layoffs. communities in person colorado of craig and meeker will be devastated. this mine is responsible for about $200 million in economic impact to western colorado, it pays millions, almost $10 million to the federal government in terms of taxes. it pays about a million dollars to the state of colorado in terms of severance taxes. think about the impacts that losing 220 people would have on the main street of craig colorado to the people of meeker colorado, to the impact this would have on families the kids of the 220 employees being pulled out of school systems. maybe $100,000 or more impact to schools that can barely afford the loss already. and that's just to mention the direct impacts to those communities of this court decision which, by the way we only have about 85 or 86 days

left to rectify this permit decision if the department of interior decides they're not going to appeal this decision. so you have 80-some days to make this decision that could affect the lives of 220 people that could affect $200 million worth of economic activity, and you mentioned this power is from and through an leak co-op. the senator from wyoming mentioned this is from an electricity co-op. there are no shareholders, no guaranteed income to tri-state. this is an organization that is a cooperative. it's designed to be owned by its members, those people who receive power through the cooperative. and so when you increase the cost of electricity by closing down a mine that feeds the craig power station in this case, you're increasing the cost of that electricity you're taking money out of the hands of members across the tri-state region whether that's in wyoming or colorado or new mexico or nebraska.

those costs will get born by the members of the cooperative. and one thing we know as well, is tri-state is one of those cooperatives that provides electricity to some of the poorest areas in colorado. some of the areas that can least afford it. as a result of this decision, it will increase the cost of electricity and those costs will be borne by those people who can least afford it. people on low income, people on fixed income, people in rural areas of our states that don't have as high income as other areas in the state or country may. so this will a is have a significant economic impact. in fact, the senator from wyoming may or may not know a number of members of congress from the colorado congressional delegation have written letters to the department of interior urging them to appeal this decision as well as putting a stay on this decision as we have 80-some days left. because 220 people, their lives, their livelihoods their jobs are at stake and

these are small communities. communities that can be economically devastated with 220 job losses. you know, the presiding officer is -- represents a state where there are many towns where five jobs is a really big deal, two jobs is a really big deal, one job is a really big deal. for a community that's the size of a town that i live in, 3,000 people or so, to lose 220 jobs would be economic catastrophe. so i ask for unanimous consent that i be allowed to submit a letter from governor hickenlooper to the honorable sally jewell, secretary of the interior, asking for an appeal of this decision. i ask unanimous consent for -- further ask unanimous consent for a letter written by congressman edpearl mutter to appeal this decision and to be allowed to submit pour the record a letter that i wrote as well as congressman scott tipton asked urging an appeal of this decision. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. enzi: i thank the senator from colorado for his insights. this is just the beginning of a process of eliminating coal mining in the united states. if they have to a -- a company that has their permit for eight years, mining coal, that permit took extensive permitting. now what they're saying they have to look at where the coal is burned and see what the impacts are. that has never been one of the requirements. it's one of those increases in regulation that this administration is fond of, it's designed to put things out of business to raise costs and i would ask unanimous consent that an article called the case for legislative impact accounting by economics 21 which is part of the manhattan institute also be included in the record following my comments. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: i yield the floor. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the

senate will resume consideration of h.r. 1735 which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 99, h.r. 1735, an act to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities of the department of defense and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: madam president as we return to the legislation legislation, unfortunately we are still apparently unable to move forward with managers' packages and amendments and others, and so i'd like to apologize to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have pending amendments, who have parts of managers' packages, who have invested so many hours of time and effort to this legislation, not to mention

members of the committee who spent an inordinate amount of time putting together a defense authorization bill that i think all of us on both sides with the exception of four who voted against it that were proud of the product that was accomplished in a bipartisan fashion. and i again want to thank my friend from rhode island for all of his hard work. but apparently right now we are still stuck in resistance, and rather than go through all the reasons why i hope that we could have some serious negotiations in order for us to move forward and complete this legislation. meanwhile, madam president the world moves on and there are greater and greater challenges to our security.

in fact, this morning "the new york times" says trainers intended as lift but quick iraqi turnaround is unlikely. that's "the new york times." "the new york times" says mr. obama's plan does not call for small teams of american troops to accompany iraqi fighters onto the battlefield to call in airstrikes or advise on combat operations. nor is it likely to significantly intensify an air campaign in which american warplanes have been able to locate and bomb their targets only about a quarter of the time. this alone is not going to do it said michelle flornoy the senior policy official in the pentagon during mr. obama's first term. quote -- "it's a great first step but it should be the first in a series of steps." the point, one of the reasons why i have that quote it's not just former bush administration

officials, it is former obama administration officials that all agree that what we are doing is without strategy and without prospect of success. "politico" article obama's iraq quagmire, the president finds himself dragged back into a war he was elected to end. when pressed on why the latest efforts do not include having american troops serve as spotters for airstrikes or sending apache air aircraft to back up iraqi troops, deputy security advisor ben rhodes told reporters the president has been very clear he'll look at a range of different options. that's encouraging news, that the president has been are very clear. i love it. all these spokes people, they use two sort of fillers. one is very clear and the other is quite frankly. do you ever notice that? isn't that interesting? maybe we should take that out of

their vocabulary. very clear and frankly when they are neither clear nor frank. but anyway, mr. rhodes a really interesting guy said the u.s. military is cannot and should not do this simply for iraqis and frankly iraqis want to be in the lead themselves. the u.s. military cannot and should not do this simply for iraqis. does anyone in the world think that the united states of america is -- would be engaged simply for -- quote -- "iraqis? does mr. roads ever listen to mr. baggedy and isis and their intentions to destroy america as much as they possibly can? "politico," trainers or advisors, white house and pentagon don't agree. white house says the new batch of troops deploying to iraq are going to train iraqi recruits to

fight the islamic state. the pentagon says the 450 american personnel headed to this air base are going to -- quote -- "just as advisors." the mixed signals come as president barack obama struggles to find a balance between achieving his goal of -- quote -- "degrading and ultimately destroying the terrorist group known as the islamic state in iraq and the levant while restoring a war in iraq he's worked to end since he became president in 2009." "the wall street journal" editorial, obama's latest iraq escalation. from "the wall street journal" editorial this morning president obama all but admitted on monday that his strategy against the islamic state the failing by ordering an additional 450 u.s. military advisors to join the 3,500 in iraq. alas this looks like more of the halfhearted

increment a.m.ism that hasn't worked so far. the fundamental problem of mr. obama's strategy is he is so determined to show the u.s. isn't returning to war in iraq he president is doing enough to win the war we are fighting. in september he pledged to -- quote -- "degrade and ultimately destroy isis." the can kind of commitment a u.s. president must never make lightly but his fitful bombing and timid special forces campaign hasn't been able to stop the jihadist advances much less drive it out of iraq's western cities. the longer isis stands up to a u.s. president pledging its destruction, the more of a magnet it becomes for young men willing to die for its perverted form of islam. and, again an article in "the wall street journal" today to u.s. allies, al qaeda affiliate in syria becomes the lesser evil. now, madam president this is what so many of us were so

concerned about when we literally begged for help to the free syrian army back as long ago as three years ago that we would end up in a situation where we had the faustian choice of al qaeda of bashar assad versus al qaeda or al qaeda affiliated organizations. that is a scenario that most of us said might happen unless we supported the free syrian army. "the wall street journal" says in the three-way war ravaging syria should the local al qaeda branch be seen as the lesser evil to be wooed rather than bombed? this is the view of some of america's regional allies and even western officials. outnumbered and outgunned the more secular backed western rebels have found themselves

fighting shoulder to shoulder with the al-nusra front an al qaeda delegate designated a tripping by the u.s. and united nations in key battlefields. the list goes on and on. lebanon's lib minister, a christian politician, long opposed to mr. assad said -- quote -- "this is great error. we refuse the choice between isis and nusra. we want to choose between democracy and dictator silvership not between terrorism and terrorism. if the syrians where to choose between isis, nusra or assad they will choose assad. that is exactly the situation that assad has been hoping for. "the new york times" russian groups crowd fund the war in ukraine. the novo rische boasts on its sight, it bought a pair of binoculars used to spot and

destroy an armored vehicle. it's clear just how extensive the network is or how much money flows through it though the separatist groups identified by the times claim in social media posts to have raised millions of dollars. "the new york times" increasing frequent call on baltic sea the russian navy is back. the williams, the new cold war 's arctic front, putin is militarizing one of the world's coldest, most remote nations. the wrawpt, "the u.s. should send aid to democracy's front lines in ukraine." this is "the washington post." "in the past several months, ukraine's freely elected government has taken dramatic steps to reform its economy fight corruption, and rebuild democratic institutions. it has imposed painful austerity on average ukrainians, stripped oligarchs of economic and

political privileges. it's done all this even while fighting a low-grade war against russia which has deployed an estimated 10,000 troops to eastern ukraine an with its local proxies attacks ukrainian forces on a near daily basis. what's missing is a decision by mr. obama to make a defensive ukraine a priority. the president has ceded leadership on the issue to germany and france and overridden those in his administration and congress who support arms deliveries. a stronger u.s. commitment to ukraine will not guarantee its success, but mr. obama's lukewarm support risks a catastrophic failure for the cause of western democracy." i cannot emphasize enough to my colleagues that this is a critical and fundamental issue as to whether we will provide

defensive weapons to ukraine and i would remind my colleagues who don't want to send american troops anywhere, they are not asking for american troops. they're not asking for a single boot on the ground. but why in the world we can't provide them with defensive weapons is something i will never understand as long as i live. "the new york times," "hackers may have obtained names of chinese with ties to u.s. government." so -- and, of course, we all know that in the last week some 4 million americans, at least have been hacked into and had some of their most sensitive information broken into, which is one of the arguments that many of us had for consideration of the cyber bill on the floor of the senate as part of the defense bill. obviously we are in a cyber bar.

obviously it requires department of defense involvement and engagement along with our intelligence agencies, and that's why i am a bit taken aback by the vociferous opposition by my colleagues on that side of the aisle to addressing this issue since it is clearly part of the defense and security of this nation. i'd luke like to mention -- and i appreciate the indulgence of my friend from rhode island -- about the issue of russian rocket engines. less than six months after the prohibition was enacted in last year's ndaa, which would end the use of rd-180 on military space lunches by 2019, the administration has stated they want access to 14 more russian rocket engines. agreeing to the administration's request endorsing another eight years of russian rocket engines and over $300 million for

vladimir putin and his cronies. we must not reward vladimir putin and the russian military industrial complex. we cannot in good conscience agree to reward the russian military industrial base with over $300 million in rocket engines while they occupy crimea destabilize ukraine send weapons to iran and violent the 1987 inter intermediate nuclear forces treaty. the bill before us would limit the use of russian rocket engines and restate the commitment to end the use of russian engines for national security space launches by 2019. there are some who want to continue our nation's dependence on russian rocket engines? the ndaa would put an end to this dependence and stop hundreds of millions of dollars from going to vladimir putin. we can meet our national

security space needs without russia and we must lead by example by eliminating our dependence as quukly as possible -- as quickly as possible and fostering competition. i say to my colleagues, we have two launch providers --u.l.a. and spacex, who will be able to provide full redundant capabilities by 2017 with the delta vi and the falcon heavy. the at l.a.n.the atlas v is not going anywhere soon. as "the new york times" editorial board stated last week "'the new york times' "the new "the new york times" said, "after leaning on france to cancel the sale of two ships to russia because of the invasion

of the ukraine the united states can hardly insist on continuing to buy national security hardware from one of mr. putin's cronies. comrade capitalism, "murky pentagon deal with russia, big profit for a time -- florida firm." u.l.a.'s dealings are russia are questioning. the roit investigation this past november on the rd-180 raises troubling issues regarding the businesses and shell companies that facilitate the purchase of russian rocket engines. the report describes a five-person company called rd amras, a joint venture between a russian manufacturer and rocketdyne that collects cost markups. the article uncovers in the past

rd amras was investigated had by the defense contract management agency which determined that in a previous contract that rd amras had collected $80 million in unallowable excessive pass-thru charges. the article titled "comrade capitalism" also exposed the role that senior politicians and close friends of vladimir putin play in the intergomash argument. according to a russian audit of the russian manufacturer, funds were being captured by unnamed offshore intermediary companies. now, mr. president, i just want to say that there is no argument. there is no argument for the continued purchase of these

rocket engines from the russians from vladimir putin and his cronies. one of whom is involved in the management who has been sanctioned by the united states of america. i have confidence that america is capable of building our own rocket engines and i am confident that we can do that in a reasonable period of time, like one to two years. for us to commit to continued use of these rocket engines and making millions and millions of dollars -- in this case $300 million -- for vladimir putin and his cronies is -- the question has to be asked of individuals who want to continue the purchase of these rocket engines from this russian shell company, why do you want to help

vladimir putin? why do you want to help vladimir putin and his cronies by giving them as much as $300 million? that is a legitimate question. and if parliamentary any of my colleagues who support this unlimited f basically or tinged purchase of rocket engines from russia rather than having it terminated at a reasonable and very short time that question has to be asked. why are you helping vladimir putin? why are you helping his cronies? that is a legitimate question, and if any of my colleagues try to force this continued purchase unnecessary purchase of russian rocket engines that question needs to be asked of them. madam president i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. vitter: madam president i ask for any quorum call if one is going on, to be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you madam president. madam president, i have three unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate.

they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders and therefore 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. vitter: and madam president, i ask unanimous consent that my amendment number 1473 be modified with the changes at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. vitter: thank you madam president. madam president, i have discussed this amendment yesterday on the floor. it deals with brigade combat teams in the army, making sure we don't cut through fat into meat and bone with regard to that essential part of our force , and i urge bipartisan bipartisan support of this commonsense amendment in the underlying bill. there's already language that does similar things on the air force side and on the navy side

with regard to major significant, key units in those forces and it's the same principal that would be applying to the army's brigade combat teams. and this amendment is strongly supported by the national organizations built around both the army national guard and the regular army. thank you madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: i call for regular order with respect to amendment number 1564. the presiding officer: the amendment is now pending. mr. reed: i have a modification to the amendment which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the amendment is so modified. mr. reed: i thank the presiding officer and i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: thank you madam president. well madam president, this morning i heard the distinguished majority leader say it was a time for bipartisan solutions. he said -- and i quote -- "what america needs right now is a season of serious bipartisan solutions." madam president, democrats couldn't agree more. we've been asking for weeks for all parties to sit down and

start talking about the budget. not at the 11th hour, not when we're already at the edge of the cliff. now. from a substantive perspective this only makes sense. both parties hate the sequester. both parties understand there's a smarter way to budget than senselessly act being like we're hostage to these arbitrary meat cleaver cuts that were never intended to go into effect, whether on the defense side or the nondefense side. so majority leader, mr. majority leader, let's sit down and start talking about those serious bipartisan solutions. the majority leader makes it seem like, oh, he's been negotiating and being fair. every number in the appropriations committee had no consultation from the democrats. they just chose the numbers. that's not bipartisan. they did not talk to the white house who has veto power over

every one of these. that's not bipartisan. we all know, madam president the only way we are going to get something done on the budget, on the spending bills is by sitting down together and talking. why not sooner rather than later? why not now rather than at the last minute? there's a charade going on by my friends on the other side. they totally decide the appropriations numbers by themselves they totally decide to use o.c.o. for defense but do nothing for the nondefense side and then they say let's move forward with those bills. that is not bipartisan. any democrats been consulted? i'll ask the majority leader, who has he consulted on the other side of the aisle about his numbers. who has he consulted at the white house about his numbers when he knows he needs both of us to get anything done.

so i think what the majority leader wants to do is play a game of chicken. wait till the end and then say do it our way. well, that's not going to work. and over the next month or two the american people are going to see that we will not move forward on these proposals until, but certainly with great vigor when there's a bipartisan discussion and agreement. we all know how this place works. the senate and the system of government which has both the executive and the congress involved in doing the budget. and doing the appropriations bills in particular. it works only when both parties come to agreement. when one party tries to shove things down the other party's throat which in all due respect is what the majority leader is now doing we end up with worries and sometimes the reality of a government

shutdown. if the majority leader wants that he should continue with this strategy. and any shutdown will be on his hands. but we don't want that. the american people don't want that. and my guess is most of the members on this side of the aisle don't want that. we want to come to an agreement. all we want him to do is talk to us. not decide in his office or maybe with the chair of the appropriations committee what all the numbers should be, how much this on defense, how much to spend on education, how much to spend on highways. those are one of the most important decisions we make around here, and they will not be made without bipartisanship sooner rather than later. mr. majority leader, like it or not, we have a democratic president. we have 46 democratic votes in the senate, enough to stop us from moving forward if we can't

negotiate. like it or not mr. majority leader so the path you're pursuing is a sol desack -- cull see tack that will either force us -- cul-de-sac that will either force us to sit down and negotiate later in the day or force a c.r. which no one wants or even if some of the people on that side of the aisle have their way a government shutdown. like they did once before. none of those is a good solution. the best solution is for us to all sit down. we should not keep kicking the can down the road. and yet here we are. "roll call" this week, mcconnell cool to budget summit. when he was asked is it time to start talking about the budget, he replied no, of course not. why? what's his logic? his logic is democrats should just accept everything republicans want. that's not why we have two

parties. that's not how the senate works. that's not how democracy works. there is nothing left for democrats to conclude other than there is a yawning chasm between the republican leader's stated intentions and his actions to date because the current posture has been by the majority leader my way or shut down the government. well we've seen that before and it didn't work and it's not going to work this time. we're saying let's negotiate and let's start those negotiations soon before it's too late. if the republican leader truly wants a season of bipartisan solutions, well, the winds are blowing in one direction. sit down with democrats and let's start negotiating a sensible budget and let's start doing it now. we're ready to sit down this afternoon. we're ready to sit down at any moment that he gives us a signal. let's get in the room and start

the real work of finding bipartisan agreement on the budget. plain and simple. and one other thing. when the american people ask why is washington so gridlocked, just look how the majority leader is handling one of the most important parts of what the government does. where the dollars go. there's gridlock when one side insists it has to get all of its way and not sit down with the other side. that is the path at the moment that the majority leader is on. we hope he gets off it. it's untenable it won't work, it will lead to a bad solution. once again i repeat, we are willing to sit down and talk about budget, talking about how much to spend on defense and transportation and education medical research today.

we're waiting mr. majority leader for you to give us that ability, that signal so we can actually enact a budget without acrimony and that will work for this great country of ours. i yield the floor. mr. rounds: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. rounds: thank you madam president. i rise today to encourage my colleagues to join the bipartisan group of armed services committee members who support a very important measure for our troops. last month we overwhelmingly voted in favor of the national defense authorization act of 2016 that the senate is considering today. the defense of our nation is a fundamental responsibility of the federal government, and the annual passage of the ndaa is an important step in making sure our service members have what

they need to do their job and to succeed. these brave men and women selflessly sacrifice everything to keep us safe from the forces of darkness who wish to do us harm. we owe it to these men and women to wisely work together to make certain they have the necessary tools to accomplish their dangerous and demanding missions. and that is what we did in the arm services committee just a few weeks ago. under the leadership of chairman mccain and ranking ranking member reed we passed a bill that makes a post of needed reforms. and we did this overwhelmingly by a bipartisan vote of 22-4. i'd like to cite a number of bill provisions which make our nation stronger and which i hope congress and the president will enact into law. our bill cuts nearly $10 billion

in wasteful and duplicative spending thereby freeing up additional friend funds to procure weapon systems of the future. this bill also makes an important reform aimed at recruiting and retaining the all-volunteer force that has so consistently defended our country for over four decades. the armed services committee produced this legislation by using the limited and admittedly less-than-optimal funding tools at its disposal. for now the hand that we are dealt to fund the defense of our country is limited by the budget control act which includes arbitrary spending caps and the threat of sequestration. so in our bill we are funding our armed forces using funds from the overseas contin yency operations account. we're doing so at a level above that requested by the president for this account.

o.c.o. was included in the budget control act because members of the 112th congress recognized the importance of funding our mum who serve men and women who serve on the front line. i believe that many members of the senate fervently hope that we will be ail to fund our dpoft this a fiscal -- our government in a fiscally sound manner without the threat of sequestration that pervades all of congress' budgetary deliberations. i'm asking -- i'm willing towork with any of my colleagues on either side of the aisle to fix the budget control act. but until that day comes we need to use the funding options which we have available to keep america safe. the legislation before us today does just exactly that. we are following the rules that are in force today. i'm proud of my colleagues who serve with me on the armed services committee for coming

together to achieve a truly bipartisan comprehensive bill. our bill will support our troops and meet the demands of a military that needs to continue its dynamic evolution in the face of ever-more sophisticated threats. i was pleased that a number of the provisions i offered were included in the package we are debating today. now that we've completed our work in committee and leader mcconnell has brought our bill to the full senate for debate, we must come together to pass the ndaa, as the senate has done each year for more than five decades. it is no coincidence that the ndaa is the only legislation to achieve this track record. rather it indicates the vital importance that generations of senate members have attached to it the. the defense of our country is not a partisan issue.

the bipartisan ndaa sustains what our service members need to succeed in a world that grows ever-more dangerous. from russian aggression in ukraine and mounting chinese coercion in china to the ugly aggression of the self-proclaimed islamic state in the middle east, new threats continue to rise throughout the world. these threats are multifaceted, our enemies' tactics ever-changing. we must make certain our armed forces can continue to face these challenges and we must up-hold our commitment to them. i encourage my colleagues to pass the ndaa, and i encourage our president to work with congress to keep americans safe. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

mr. cotton: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. cotton: earlier this week, the supreme court wrongly decided the case of zbetosky v. kerry a decision that impairs congress' role in foreign policy and is an affront to our close ally israel. the case concerned the executive branch's refusal to implement a law passed by congress. the law required state department officials to offer u.s. persons born in jerusalem the option of listing israel as their location of birth on passports and other consular documents. the state department's practice had been to list the place of birth only as jerusalem

reflecting the president's policy of not recognizing any national sovereign authority over the holy city. despite the fact that the president signinged the statute into law the executive branch has fought tooth and nail for 13 years to free itself from what it viewed as the heavy burden of writing the word "israel" on one line in a tiny number of u.s. passports. and it argued its case all the way to the supreme court. in litigating the case, it is no surprise that the president outlined a maximum maximalist position. it was a surprise that the supreme court acquiesced to the president's position. before monday in the entire 225-year history of our nation, the supreme court had never sided with the president's blatant refusal to comply with a statute. this is a remarkable and disturbing break with precedent. one made through a poorly

reasoned judicial opinion. the court announced the president possesses an exclusive constitutional power to recognize other nations and that this power crowds out any attempt by congress to legislate in this area, including on how locations of birth are characterized on passports. but this conclusion suffers from a umin of umnumber of problems. the court is supposed to only find a pre-collusive executive power where it is committed to the executive branch and our constitution but nowhere in the text of the constitution is there a reference to a recognition power let alone an allocation of such a power to the president alone. the court acknowledges this in its opinion. so it instead finds the recognition power embedded in the constitutional provision stating that the president shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers. but as alex anster maimton wrote in federalist 69, that provision was understood to be a matter of dignity, not authority that have no consequence for the

administration of government. in other words the provision does not imbue the president with the power. it imposes an obligation an minimum him a ceremonial one at that. the provision furthermore appears in a section of the constitution that imposes an array of obligations on the president, not the section investing him with any powers. it appears right before the provision that obligates the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. i would assume the framers believed that the laws would include ones regarding passports. i want to be very clear on this. the recognition power the court identified is not enumerated in the text of the constitution and no one telt of one at the time of the constitution believed it to be included. the power to declare war and raise an support armies. these powers place the executive branch in a central role in the conduct of our nation's foreign

policy. the supreme court therefore stood on remarkably shaky ground when t. a ons nod an exclusive presidential power one that can nullify congressional enactment and it unwisely and indetermine nationally expand the president's unchecked discretion in the conduct of foreign affairs. that is a poe fengsly dangerous opening, particularly with the current president. president obama has shown an unhealthy penchant for both ignoring the law and for granting unilateral concessions to long time enemies abroad. that cannot and must not go unchecked. beyond the constitutional infirmities of the court's opinion, i want to comment on the broader issue and the background of the case. the executive branch based its refusal to comply with the passport law on the fear that identifying a person born in jerusalem as having been born in israel would up-end the peace process. the state department declared

that compliance with the law would compromise efforts to forge an agreement wean israel and the palestinians, significantly harm our foreign policy. this is embarrassing hyperbole and complete nonsense. the role of an honest broker in negotiations is just that -- to be honest. so let's be honest. israel's seat of the government is located in jerusalem. israel administers the entire city. over 500,000 israelis live and work in jerusalem. the reality is that jerusalem is the capital of israel and any final agreement whenl it includes some sort of sharing arrangement or not will not change that. the united states and the world should not deny that reality. it should accept it and then begin the hard work of helping the parties forge a lasting peace. the role of an honest introark to ground negotiations in truth. it is to quell unreasonable reactions and expectations.

it is to strip away issues that are peripheral and focus on those that are essential. the president believes the designation of jerusalem as a part of israel on a mere passport could throw the entire process expect for peace into a tailspin says much about his confidence and abilities as a mediator. and it perhaps also says much about the current political climate in the middle east. where deepened i guess distinguishes would render renewed talks at this point unproductive. ultimately a resolution of the israel-palestinian dos dispute should be reached but progress towards that resolution will not move forward if the palestinians remain unreasonably sensitive to peripheral issues such as passports. it will not move forward if the president is afraid to speak the truth, and it will not move forward if the united states congress is restrained from adding a dose of reality to the conduct of our foreign affairs. madam president i yield the

floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i would ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: madam president let me ask consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: thank you madam president. we have two more weeks remaining before the scheduled district work period in regards to the fourth of july, and then when we come back from there the next work period will be another deadline and the deadline i'm referring to is the enactment of a six-year transportation reauthorization bill. madam president, we have been talking about finding a six-year reauthorization solution now for over a year. well over a year. we've been working with short-term extensions. we had a ten-month extension that expired just recently, we did another two-month

extension, with a commitment that our committees would work to come together, the democrats and republicans would work to come together for a six-year reauthorization of the transportation programs for this country. madam president, my constituents are frustrated, i'm frustrated because you see i commute between baltimore and washington every day. this community this area is the second worst traffic congestion in the country. we desperately need a more robust federal partner in dealing with the transportation challenges of my state and every state in this country. we need to move forward with transit projects. every person we can get to use mass transit is one less car on the road, helps all of us, helps our transportation infrastructure and wear and tear helps our environment. we have bridges that literally must be replaced in the southern part of my state the nice bridge desperately needs to be

replaced. that costs money and you need a federal partner to do that. we have road maintenance and expansion issues in every state in this country. we have safety concerns that are not being addressed today. i would like to take my colleagues to some of the overpasses in baltimore that need to be upgraded for the purposes of safety. on route 1 through college park desperately needs attention. in my state georgia and randolph roads in montgomery county 301 a major artery on the eastern shore of maryland that has real serious safety upgrades that are important. each one are extremely expensive. i know every senator could list dozens of projects that need to go forward. and then there's the issue of jobs. without the predictability of a six-year program transportation construction is delayed that costs us not only construction jobs and there are literally millions of construction jobs

that depend upon the federal partnership in transportation but the economic impact of a reauthorization of the surface transportation program. so many projects in maryland are affected by it but let me talk about one part of maryland that doesn't always get the same attention and that's the western part of our state not where the real population in maryland is located. but the completion of the appalachian highway the north- south highway is critically important to the economic future of western maryland. i might tell you also pennsylvania and west virginia. we need to get that done. and quite frankly without a reauthorization, a long-term reauthorization of the surface transportation programs, i don't know if we'll get that done. and that means jobs and that means our economy. we know that we have to be more competitive as a country. we know we're involved in global competition. the countries that we compete with are putting much more of

their economy into transportation than are and into infrastructure. we must do a better job. the federal partnership in constructing the roads the bridges, the transit systems is called map-21. and it expires at the end of july. again, this is not the first time. we haven't reauthorized the six-year program for a long time. we need a six-year program why? because when you enter into a transportation project it's more than just a two-month commitment or a ten-month commitment. our states can't go into these multiyear projects unless they know they have a federal partner and the only way they know they have a federal partner is if we give them the certainty of a six-year authorization bill. it's critically important. what should we do? starting now the committees of jurisdiction need to have

hearings and working sessions and report out legislation. that should be done now. there needs to be a commitment as to what schedule will be followed so we don't miss this deadline. that was the commitment that the leadership gave us, that we will get this done in this two-month period. unless our committees are working to come together with legislation and the public works committee the presiding officer and i both serve on, we need to bring out a bill. we've done it before. the senate finance committee is responsible for the financial aspects and i'll come back to that in a moment and the banking committee is responsible for the transit sections and the other committees involved. but let me make an observation. yes, we have to come out with a six-year reauthorization. that's critical. we don't want any more short-term extensions. secondly it's got to be a robust program. we know if we just reauthorize at the current level it will

be inadequate. we know that. we know that for each of us in talking with our state transportation agencies. they tell you they need a more robust federal partnership that the challenges today are more expensive and we've delayed for so long it's even more expensive, so we need to come to grips with a six-year reauthorization but at a level at a level that will allow for a strong he federal partnership. the president's number is $478 billion over six years. i think that's a reasonable level. if we just have a level funded adjusted for inflation it would be $331 billion. i would hope that we would recognize that the additional $147 billion the president is talking about over six years is a modest increase but an important increase to increase the federal share to deal with our urgent needs of safety and economic development and jobs

and competitiveness. now, here's the problem -- the current revenues in the transportation trust fund if we just use the $331 billion, which is basically a freeze adjusted for inflation for the next six years there's a $97 billion gap. we don't have enough money projected in the transportation trust fund for basically a standstill six-year reauthorization. we're $97 billion short. so we need to come to grips as to how we're going to fill that void. and, madam president i said i served on the finance committee, there's lots of revenues that go into the trust fund that we should look at, there are adjusted -- there are other ideas how we can bring in transportation revenues and i hope we look at all that. then there's been the recommendation that has been done by both democrats and republicans, and we've got to

find a way to bridge the gap here. it doesn't do any good to have one party that agrees with how to deal with it. we all have to agree on it. and it's incumbent upon the republican leadership to get engaged and we've already said we're open to the current revenues that go into the transportation trust fund but there's one area that seems to be an agreement between democrats and republicans and that is looking at international reform. we've all talked about the fact we have a lot of earnings from our corporations, american corporations that are trapped overseas because the companies have made a decision not to repatriot -- repatriate the money back into the united states because it would be subject to a higher u.s. corporate tax rate. and they don't want to pay that higher tax. that's a business decision made by u.s. businesses.

now, obviously, the way to solve that is to reform our business taxes here and senator thune and i are cochairing a working group of the senate finance committee to try to come to grips with that. and it's going to be difficult for us to do that because you heard the numbers i've already given you but every 1% reduction in the corporate tax rate costs about $100 billion over ten years and if you include relief for those who pay the personal tax rates for their business income, it's probably closer to $150 billion or $160 billion to get a 1% reduction in the corporate tax rate. so that's going to be challenging. in the meantime, there have been recommendations in order to unleash those funds why don't we find a charge that is less than the full corporate tax for those revenues that are returned to the united states, and we

have democrats and republicans working together on a bill, including the president who has submitted that in his budget. he has submitted a toll charge for the revenues that are trapped overseas that corporations would have to pay that toll charge would be at a 14% rate, and then he's projected a minimum travel on foreign earnings at 19% that would have to be paid with certain reforms on trying to move united states more to a territorial corporate tax rate. i mention that because i think there's interest by both depends to -- democrats and republicans, so we can have greater activity here in the united states. these proposals generate a significant amount of revenues, both one time only and permanent revenues. i mention that because we could take a look at the international

tax reform proposals and democrats and republicans have both submitted proposals on this that could help us get to a robust six-year reauthorization of the transportation tax bill -- the transportation bill, not tax bill the surface transportation bill. we could get to that. and the reason for mentioning that now is let's talk about it. let's have republicans talk about it also. let's not wait these last two weeks, go into the work period come back and faced with another deadline with no game plan how we're going to resolve it and say we have to pass another short-term extension so we can get together to talk about it. let's start talking about this now, and i tell you, there are viable options. the one thing i found madam president, is that democrats and republicans agree

on infrastructure is important and we have to have a stronger program in this country for infrastructure. i always enjoy hearing from senator inhofe, the chairman of the environment and public works committee, a person i came to the congress with, who says frequently that he may be a conservative but when it comes to infrastructure spending, it's important that we have a robust federal program. and under his leadership, under senator boxer's leadership, we've been able to bring out bills from the senate environment and public works committee to reauthorize the six-year program. the challenge is, can we find the revenue. and, of course there we need to be -- work together as democrats and republicans. so madam president i come to the floor to urge my colleagues let's work together. that's what the american people expect us to do. they expect us to work together to solve a problem. i don't think there's a member of the senate who would disagree we should have a robust

reauthorization of a six-year transportation program for this country. that our states need it, our country needs it, and we need it for our economy. let's put aside our own individual differences let's sit down, work out a bill, let's start working out now let's not wait to the next deadline. i urge my colleagues to do this. that's what the american people want us to do and that's what we need to do to move this country forward. with that, madam president i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: i know we're on the national defense bill and of course national defense is ultimately about national security and one of the concerns i have about national security and our national interest is the challenge of a nuclear-armed iran. i came to the floor last week to say that when it comes to dealing with iran, as we count down to the deadline for an agreement, the trunnel is always illusive. i said then that international inspectors reported that tehran tehran's stockpile of nuclear fuel rather than decreasing actually increased by 20%. now in the last days before the agreement deadline is reached david albright, a well-respected

expert on iran's nuclear program, in an article for the institute for science and international security, says that the state department's explanation of iran's newly produced 3.5% enriched uranium falls short and that the state department seems to be making excuses for the fact that iran has not reduced its enrichment level, which they agreed to in the joint plan of action. now, the fact is, uranium enrichment when taken to the maximum, can lead to bomb material. so reducing the enrichment level is critical in terms of possible breakout time in iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon. albright says, and i quote "the core of the state department's explanation in the last few days appears to be that iran meets

the conditions of the joint plan of action once it feeds newly produced low-enriched uranium flouride gas at esfahan." now, this -- to bring this down into lay terms this conversion plant is there to take this enriched uranium that if further enriched can lead to bomb material and to transform the enrich uranium that can be prepared for potential nuclear material to an oxide form, and that's a form for which the nuclear bomb threat is dramatically real estate reduced. but, madam president the esafan plant didn't even become operational until the fall of 2014 a year after it was supposed to have opened. and conveniently for the

iranians it's having operational difficulties making it highly unlikely that iran can convert the low-enriched uranium hexaflouride which we are concerned about into enriched uranium oxide. put simply, at the end of the day, once again iran will not have lived up to what they agreed to. now, we knew from the beginning it was going to be a challenge. we knew that it was going to be difficult for the iranians to blend down their nuclear fuel rather than to ship it out to another country which so far they have refused to do. and we knew that it would be a concern if they weren't able to convert low-enriched uranium hexaflouride into the enriched uranium dioxide the one in which we have obviously far less concerns and frankly because that is obviously a problem, i

am concerned because as the albright article states -- quote -- "the amounts of low-enriched uranium amount to about 4,000 kilograms of 3.5 low-enriched uranium hexaflouride. enough enough to make potentially two to three nuclear weapons, if further enriched to weapons-grade uranium." two to three nuclear weapons if further enriched to nuclear-grade uranium. i'm concerned that this is more blue smoke and mirrors that overlook the real ambitions of an untrustworthy negotiating partner. i am concerned that iran is still saying it will not ship out excess low-enriched uranium but somehow blend it down and store it at the plant which can't possibly blend down enough at this point to meet the requirements under the joint plan of action.

and i'm concerned that this is more of an issue than the administration is willing to concede, particularly if at the end there is no deal and we through sanctions relief pay them to convert and then they walk away with massive amounts of low-en enrichard enriched uranium that can be converted to weapons-grade uranium. according to david albright, and i quote "based on the iaea's report -- the international atomic energy administration report to member states -- the problems in making enriched uranium oxide work were apparent by the fall of 2014 but the administration decided not to make a major issue about the lack of oxide production. the article goes on to say, and i quote "concluding that iran has met the joint plan of action condition to convert to oxide

newly enriffed up to enriched up to 5% is incorrect. " and it further says, "in this case the potential violation refers to iran not producing the enriched oxide at the end of the initial six-month period of the joint plan of action and again even after its first extension. the choosing" -- and this is a continuing quote -- "the chootion of achoosing of a weaker condition which cannot be met cannot be a good precedent for interpret interpreting more important provisions in a final deal. moreover it tends to confirm the view of the critics that future violations will be downplayed for the sake of generating or maintaining support for the deal." it says that, "the administration relied on a technical remedy that iran had not demonstrated it could carry

out," and the article concludes "the state department has some explaining to do." now, madam president the enrichment issue is one thing but then there is the recently released u.n. security council report on a whole host of the existing security council resolutions and mandates, as it relates to iran. and there are other problems as well. they are well-documented in this recently released report that iran has continued to deny the legitimacy of security council resolutions not addressed in the joint plan of action. that iran's arms transfer actively continue raising concerns in particular in the region that cases of noncompliance with the travel ban have been observed, that iran has continued certain nuclear activities, including enrichment and work at araq, there is no progress by iran in addressing possible military interventions agreed to to be

addressed by iran and the international atomic energy agency. the most troubling relates to allegations of explosives at parching. it goes on to talk about iran's missile technology. here you have a sense from the u.n. security council's report which the u.n. report speaks to iran's missile capability -- i've taken a map that i give credit to "the new york times" for about what that means. iran has two kinds of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear weapon according to report. the gihab missile a variation of the liquid fuel shahab 3 with a range of about 1,600

kilometers, which is about 995 miles, and the other is the shajil missile with a range of about 2,000 kilometers which is about 1,250 miles. here's the first missile encompasses most of the gulf and certainly our ally, the state of israel, as well as afghanistan and pakistan, to mention among others turkey. and then the longer-range missile actually goes as far as into europe. and this is a missile technology that is still in development. so this is to quote from the u.n. security council report. so we can see the range of iran's missiles and the potential military dimensions of its pursuits. and then there is the issue mr. president, of arms embargo violations and the transfer of conventional arms.

for whatever reasons and the report speculates that maybe member states, meaning member countries of the united nations don't want to upset the apple cart of the negotiations so there hasn't been report even in the midst of very clear violations taking place that have been largely reported, but it says for whatever reasons there have been no reports from member states to the u.n. about the transfer of conventional arms by iran. but the u.n. report nevertheless says -- quote -- "the panel notes media reports pointing to continued military support and alleged arms transfers to syria lebanon, iraq, lebanon hezbollah and hamas. the report says a shipment of arms was confirmed by the president of the regional government which says we asked for weapons and iran was the first country to provide them, a clear violation if there ever was one. and according to the report,

some member states informed the panel that iran's nuclear procurement trends and circumvention techniques remain basically unchanged. in fact, great britain informed the u.n. pabl -- panel they are aware of a network associated with iran's centrifuge technology company known as tesa and khala company listed sanctions under the u.n. resolutions. the report further states member states have reported on the methods iran used and continues to use to carry out financial transactions below the radar to conceal any connection to iran. some states, for example that import oil have authorized their banks to receive payments into accounts belonging to the central bank of iran. but the funds were reportedly paid out against invoices for exports of goods to iran,

although the goods were never exported meaning money was taken out and ultimately made its way to iran even though they were not for payment of anything because nothing was shipped. the simple fact is -- and there are many other examples in the u.n. security council report, which i commend my colleagues' attention to -- we can't trust iran to abide by its agreements or to abide by united nations resolution even when they are in the midst of negotiations. when you think they'd be behaving the best. you want to put your best foot forward. why do we think we can trust them if they are violating u.n. security council resolutions which is the world not the u.s. not even the p-5 plus 1 but the world telling them up can't do these things because they violate the international order, why do we think we can entrust them to enrich uranium not to pursue a weapons program

and not find any way possible to renege on any agreement they reach when they are violating existing security council resolutions? as i've said, mr. president i'll come to the floor to reiterate my skepticism that iran will not do all it can to pursue their agreements but rather to find a way to pursue its agenda, to play fast and loose with the truth hide it, cover it up, and buy time. iran mr. president needs to be held responsible for its commitments -- forget about its word. its commitments. there can be no slippage, no delays no obfuscation. that's how they succeeded in the past to bring themselves to being on the verge of becoming a threshold nuclear state. so where do we go from here? it remains to be seen whether compliance with that which has already been agreed to by the

iranians even at this early stage, while the world is watching can be realized or will it be explained away? i intend to come to the floor again and again to hold iran accountable for its actions to keep a lay ter like -- laser like focus on the mullahs in iran because i feel like when the press is gone and the curtain closes on the p-5 plus 1 talks iran will pull back into the shadows. i ask my colleagues when that happens and if it goes wrong what will we do then? you know, i haven't seen the final agreement so we'll have to wait to make a final judgment on it. but if the final agreement follows in line of the framework agreement, then we have a set of circumstances where we are not solving a problem. i think even some of the experts that were before the senate foreign relations committee yesterday in a briefing admit to the fact -- and one or two of

them are proponents of an agreement, but they said this does not solve the problem. it only kicks the problem down the road. now, i'd rather -- those are hard choices no matter what. but i'd rather confront a country that is on the path to nuclear weapons before they get it and when they are at its weakest point not when it becomes a country at its stronger point with far more resources, with sanctions that have largely dissipated and even with snap-back provisions, which i think we should have, but several years down the road when the world is now engaged iran in doing business and iran has risen in its economy -- it is an economy that has already stopped its free fall, just on the basis of expectations and decides possibly to break out three or four years down the road, putting all of those international sanctions back together, as someone who is the author of those sanctions here in the congress, i can tell you

that's going to take a lot more. there's no instantaneous snap-back of we'll put the sanctions back and they'll have effect immediately. you have to tell the world, you have to give them notice that in fact there are sanctions back in effect. you can tell companies that went and did business, you've got to give them time to disinvest from those businesses. and by the time you add that, if experience is a good barometer we gave at a minimum six months' leave time to tell the world this is going to be a sanctionable activity. and then by the time we actually pursued enforcement and implementation of those far beyond close to a year, well that happens to be the time that we're supposedly vying for breakout time. so i am going to continue to come to the floor to continue to shed a spotlight on the challenges that we have with iran, on the shortcomings of the interim agreement as we hope for

a good final agreement. but i will use the refrain that the administration at one time used, which is that no agreement is better than a bad agreement. and that is what my concern is, mr. president, that we are headed towards a bad agreement. with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. a senator: i rise today to talk about a problem that despite a congressional ban on the practice, continues to playing our budget. mr. flake: that problem is earmarks. back in 1986, just a little

history lesson here, as congress engaged in a last-minute scramble to fund the government, a republican congressman from pennsylvania slipped an earmark into a massive spending bill. he turned a small exhibit of steam-powered trains known as steam town u.s.a., into a national park. three decades nearly $100 million, and one congressional earmark ban later that project continues to cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually. the bridge to nowhere the north carolina teapot museum, the indoor rain forest in iowa and yes, steam town u.s.a., these are among the many e-- egregious ear marks earmarks declared

extinct, fossilized of a bygone era are making an appearance. what congress and many didn't realize is despite a ban on earmarks we're still paying millions of dollars for the old ones. through unexpended funds,ing carveouts and a tax code, spending on past earmark projects and their recipients, these still roam the federal budget landscape. today i'm releasing a report, jurassic pork, which will highlight the fossilized pork projects that are still embedded or buried deep in the federal budget. it should serve as a reminder that the past scandals that brought about the extinction of earmarks and it also should serve as a warning the cost of earmarking because they often outlive the practice itself. jurassic pork digs into just two

dozen of the many earmarked projects and recipients of congressional bounty that continue to cost taxpayers millions of dollars. take, for example the aptly named verasa r.f.t.a. a bus rapid transit system in colorado that covers 40 miles. that began as an $810 million earmark. since the earmark ban took place in 2010, thanks to continued federal funding this project this vestige has cost taxpayers $36 million. also highlighted in the report is the american ballet theater which supplemented the flow of federal grant money with more than $800 -- $800,000 in earmarked funds from a member of congress who also happened to perform in one of the group's recent productions.

then there are the 6,000 unspent highway earmarks representing $5.9 billion that sit idle in the department of transportation account. these include pork projects like the $600,000 upper delaware scenic byway visitors center. in jusecton new york, unfortunately for taxpayers the visitors center ended up being built in narrowsburg because the specification was identified as jusecton the money will likely continue to sit on the government's ledger. within these unspent transportation earmarks there is a smaller group that are often referred to as orphan earmarks. these are earmarks that have had less than 10% of their expended, or their anticipated funds spent over ten years. according to the congressional research service 70 earmarks worth more than $120 million remain on the books.

and in august 2015, more than 1,200 earmarks from the last major highway bill that was passed in 2005, these will officially become orphan earmarks. these represent $2 billion in yet to be spent funds. now, with the near-bankrupt highway trust fund, congress needs to find -- find a way to permanently park these unspent funds. to that end i've also introduced a jurassic pork act which will rescind funding for orphan earmarks and it will return this money to the highway trust fund. we all know the highway trust fund could use it about now. now, like john hammond the billionaire c.e.o. of the failed jurassic park in the first film, not everyone in congress is content to leave these as relics of the past. not a year after the earmark ban was implemented in the senate, the then-majority leader

proclaimed -- quote -- "i've done earmarks all my career, and i'm happy i've done earmarks all my career." others from both sides of the aisle have argued that a return to earmarking would help to lard up or incentivize votes. but taxpayers don't exist for political horse trading nor as a reward for powerful members to dole out as tribute. taxpayers need to remain vigilant against all these kinds of parochial spending that we cannot return to work as we knew it. now, the moratorium on earmarks in 2010 did put an end to these kind of shenanigans but as readers of jurassic pork will see, the spending on their legacy continues. now, taxpayers have already seen the end of this movie. we don't need to be treated to a sequel. 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:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: i ask for regular order with respect to vitter amendment number 1473. i send a second-degree amendment, the lee amendment number 1687 to the desk as a second-degree amendment to vitter 1473 and ask for its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report.

the clerk: the senator from utah mr. lee proposes an amendment numbered 1687 to amendment numbered 1473. mr. lee: i ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed

with. the presiding officer: is is there objection? without objection. mr. lee: thank you. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in progress be -- the presiding officer: objection is heard. quorum call:

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president i'm fully aware that we're not going to be able to get passed a unanimous consent request. but i wanted to make sure the chair knew and others know that we do have an theament i an amendment.

it is an amendment that already has about 60 cosponsors -- he'll have the number in a minute. no 20 cosponsors. there was a provision in the bill in the senate. that has to do with commissaries. it is viewed upon as privatizing commissaries. it is not really that. all it is is an attempt to evaluate the idea of the commissaries being privatized by using five commissaries as test cells to see what kind of result we would get if we did privatize those. now, what we're doing with my amendment is taking it back to -- taking that language out and allowing us to go ahead and do the assessment before we do that. it wouldn't make sense to me that if we wanted to get this done even if we felt very

passionate about privatizing that we would do it before we had an assessment. so this would move -- so the assessment would be in there first. now, we had a lot of discussion about this in the senate armed services committee. as i said, we have now 21 cosponsors that would like to reverse this so that we could do the assessment, then make the determination much it is kind of interesting ... even though most people say that privatizing is not going to make -- actually save any money or make any money, the amendment actually requires an assessment before we make any chaiption to our service members' privatized commissary benefits. this is something that is a very popular thing among themselves of the armed services and wives and husbands. 95% of the service members were using the commissaries to purchase household goods to achieve needed savings in their family budgets with 91%

satisfaction rate last year. we don't get 15e9 91% satisfaction rates around here. but the language in the bill i.g.didin the report released january stated in recommendation number 8 to protect access and savings to d.o.d. commissaries and exchanges. well that's exactly what we want to do. i have a list, a very impressive list which i will not read -- these are some 41 associations, including labor unions and the gold star widows and american veterans and all of these others. i i ask that this be made part of the record at this point in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: and i also have an analysis of letters of support that is for five -- six different organizations. they are the military officers

association of america, armed services marketing council international brotherhood of teamsters, american federation of government employees afl-cio, american military retirees association and saving f save-- andsaveourbenefits ompleght so i ask that the analyses of these six organizations be made a part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: it is my intention as soon as weak get in the point and get this the queue and be able to get by a unanimous consent request to set current business aside, it will be my intention to do that, to consider this bill. and with that, i'll yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mccain: i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: is there objection?

without objection. mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent notwithstanding rule 22 the cloture vote be moved to 3:00 p.m. can today i ask it be in order to call up the following amendment jim 1578, whitehouse collins 1660, cardin 1468, at 11:00 a.m. on tuesday, june 16 the senate vote in relation to the following amendments, fischer-obamacare, 1825, cardin 1468, gillibrand 1478, whitehouse 1693, durbin 1359 as modified that there be no -- and paul 1543, there be no second-degree amendment prior to the votes and if the amendments require 60 affirmative vote threshold for adoption, there be two minutes equally divided between the votes all votes after the first be ten minutes in length, and notwithstanding

rule 22 cloture vote on the mccain substitute amendment number 1463 occur at 3:00 p.m. on tuesday june 16. the presiding officer: is there objection? the democrat leader. mr. reid: reserving the right to object and i initially say to my impatient friend, he has to be impatient -- he has to be patient to allow me to say a few words now. during the short time that we've been in the minority here we behaved in a way that i think is a responsible minority. for example on this bill dealing with authorization of our defense capacity here in the united states, we have been very clear how we support the troops but remember, it's a difficult issue. the president of the united states said he's going to veto this bill. so we've worked through all of this with that in mind.

having said that, in spite of that we did not ask for a cloture vote on a motion to proceed. when we were in the majority, having the minority not do that was a big day. it happened extremely rarely. and we about have been doing that consistently with some exceptions but not many. on this defense bill we've allowed amendments to become pending, there's a dozen or so pending right now. we've allowed the senate to conduct votes we have allowed managers' amendments to be cleared, lots of them. we have reacted in a responsible way, and we have no regret having done that. the two managers are working together to set up amendments for votes in a mutually agreed-upon fashion when out of the blue comes this cybersecurity amendment.

now, it was also done in a very very unusual way. where senators burr employed parliamentary devices to get the cybersecurity amendment pending where we are right now. mr. president, we could have been playing around all week with our offering amendments but i have always felt that it should be done extremely rarely for the minority to do something, we could have done that. if you look at our amendments that have been offered by we democrats, they're all with rare exception dealing with the security of this nation; not sagesage grouse, not all the other things that the republicans have brought up on this bill. to say that the ex-im bank and the cybersecurity amendments have impeded progress is a gross understatement. the cybersecurity bill is a

major bill in its own right a major bill. and, mr. president, i can speak with some authority in this regard. five years ago i got every committee chair that had jurisdiction over the subject and we met over a peered of days -- a period of days to come up with a cybersecurity bill. and we did that. republicans stopped us. we kept getting a smaller group of people involved because we were narrowing the bill. and we actually were scheduled finally to have a vote here on a cybersecurity bill. it wasn't as good as i thought we should have, but it was an important bill. and what happened on that? the chamber of commerce made a call to some of the republican leaders here and suddenly that bill is gone; we're voting on another obamacare amendment that, of course, went nowhere. but we have tried cybersecurity. the intelligence committee reported this bill out and i

appreciate they did. it was on a bipartisan basis. but it also contains a lot of matter within the jurisdiction of other committees. for example the homeland security committee. for example the judiciary committee. and to her credit, the ranking member senator feinstein recognized that and went to the democrats and said, we'll work with you to make sure the problems you have with this bill when it gets to the floor ... we'll work with you on those. and senator feinstein is a person of her word. i know she would do that and she will do that. now, this morning the republican leader is here on the floor saying that we've just had an attack of 4 million people, and it's obama's fault. i think that's stretching things a little bit especially recognizing i've only given you

a brief travel through the times we've tried to get up cybersecurity lels. -- cybersecurity legislation. we should take the tile to get -- we should take the time to get it right. i have checked with our ranking member of the finance committee who is extremely interested in this and hasn't been for ten minutes or ten days or ten years on privacy. he has been our leader on privacy. -- on this side. aisle. and he believes we could finish if we had a free shot at the cyber bill. we could finish it in a couple days and i agree with him, at the most. so we're not trying to avoid cyber. we believe it is an important part of what we need to do but we should take time to do it rievment we should not tacking this important piece of legislation on a bill the president has always said he's going to veto, just so the republicans are blame obama for vetoing this bill as well. if the majority would withdraw

this cyber amendment and agree to take it up after this bill and we'd do it in a couple dis and we could return to working on the defense bill. but we cannot take up all these new amendments that my friend, the chairman of the committee wants to have votes on, with the nine he talks about plus six -- that's 15 -- until we resolve this matter dealing with cybersecurity. so mr. president without belaboring the point -- and i appreciate my impatient friend being patient and listening to me go through this, i ask the majority leader or my friend, the chairman of the armed services committee, if he would allow -- he would modify his consent request as follows: i ask unanimous consent that the cloture motion with respect to amendment number 1569, that's cyber, as modified be withdrawn that the pending amendment 1569 -- again cybersecurity -- as modified be withdrawn and upon

disposition of 1735, the defense authorization bill, the senate proceed to the consideration of calendar number 28, that's' 754 that's the bill that came out of the intelligence committee. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: reserving the right to object, i'm going to propose a modification of the consent that was propounded by the democratic leader that following disposition of h.r. h.r. 268 5rbg the defense appropriations bill, the senate turn to consideration of s. 754, the cybersecurity measure report reported by the senate intelligence committee. i further ask the that there be ten relevant amendments to be offered by each manager or designee with an hour of debate followed by a vote on amendments offered, with a 60-vote threshold on those amendments that are not germane to the bill. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: is

there objection to the request of the majority leader? mr. reid: reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the minority leader. mr. reid: reserving the right to object on my friend's new modification -- or i should say "modification" -- i repeat, the cybersecurity bill is important. and the senate should turn to it. but putting it after the defense appropriations bill is a fault promise. it is a facade. i think it's pretty clear -- i heard the republican leader give a speech down here today -- that he knows unless there's some changes made, we're not going to get on the defense appropriations bill. so this is a false promise. if we could do in a more specific determined time, that would be one thing. but the republican leader, obviously, has no plan to complete the defense appropriations bill if this is how we're proceeding. rather proceeding ahead with this partisan budget plan, a plan that the president said will not become law until republicans sit down to work on a bipartisan budget, the senate

will not finish the dwns appropriations bill. the right to do this would be to consider the cybersecurity bill on its own merits. after defense authorization bill is done. it would take two days, and so i ask the majority leader if he would modify his consent request to the following: that upon disposition of the defense authorization bill, h.r. 1735, the senate proceed to consideration of calendar number s. 28 -- s. 28, which is the cybersecurity bill. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: reserving the right to, object, and i will object, i would note that the cybersecurity bill was reported out of the committee today with only three members voting against it. there was a lot of discussion about the democratic leader saying we're not going to pass the bill. but when the votes were counted only three members all on the democratic side, but only three voted against reporting the bill out of committee.

my good friend, the democratic leader and i have had this discussion back and forth but one of the advantages of being in the majority is that we set the schedule. and we're going to do the defense appropriations bill after we do the defense authorization bill, and therefore i object. the presiding officer: is there, to the request of the majority leader? mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: objection is heard. does the senator from arizona modify his request? -- with the request of the democratic leader? mr. mccain: could i just -- mr. president, could i just make a couple of comments real quick before the distinguished majority leader modifies his request? the presiding officer: the snr from arizona. mr. mccain: i would just remind my good friend from nevada the democratic leader, the last two years we took up a defense authorization bill and it was taken up so late, there

was not a single amendment -- not a single solitaire amendment on the defense authorization bill for the last two years. so i understand the democratic leader's commitment to amendments. it is too bad that for two years we never had a single amendment to a defense authorization bill. as far as relevant amendments are concerned one of the things about this body is that everybody has the right to propose an amendment until their amendments are not made germane. the three pending democratic amendments we have now on the bill are not germane. so all i can say is, i hope we can get a modification. i hope we can get -- move forward. i just with a nts to point out one more -- i just want to point out one more time, what i know my colleagues have heard over and over, henry kissinger testified before the senate awmed services committee the world has never been in more crises. this world sat risk and we have

to -- we have to protect the men and women who are serving in our security and i would argue that a national defense authorization act is probably more important now than it's been at any time in recent history. i refuse to modify my request. the presiding officer: is there objection to the senator's original request? mr. reid: which senator? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. reid: yes i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, the cloture vote on amendment number 1569 be moved to 3:00 p.m. today and that the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the minority leader. mr. reid: i will be extremely brief. but i -- we can have a debate here. we can look at all the press clippings of both sides, what happened in the last two years on appropriations -- i'm sorry

on defense authorization. we didn't get a bill. we got a bill but it was done in secret by the managers of the two bills in the house and the senate. the reason that happened, it wasn't our fault. they wouldn't let us on the bill. "they" meaning the republicans. so we can debate that all we want. that's the facts. i do not object to my friend's request. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: without objection, the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: mr. president i send a cloture motion to the desk for the mccain substitute amendment, number 1463. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the mccain amendment number 1463, to h.r. 1735 to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities of the department of defense signed by 17 senators as follows: mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that the readings of the names be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk with the underlying house bill h.r. 1735. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on h.r. 1735, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities of the department of defense signed by 1 senators as follows: mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the reading of the names be dispensed with. officer without objection. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: in just a moment the senate will consider an important cybersecurity measure. i would urge every one of my colleagues to support it. "usa today" recently cited a

cybersecurity expert who noted that this senate legislation has the potential -- the potential -- to greatly reduce the number of victims targeted by the kind of hackings -- hackers we've seen in recent years. it contains modern tools to help deter future attacks against both the government and the private sector. provide them with knowledge to erect stronger defenses and get the word out faster about attacks when they're detected. the top democrat on the intelligence committee reminded us that the cybersecurity measure before us would also protect individual privacy and civil liberties. she has urged copping to -- quote -- "act quickly" -- unquote -- to deter a threat that is literally impossible to overstate. the white house has also urged congress to act. the new congress has been asked to act and today we are with a

good strong, transparent bipartisan measure that is been thoroughly vetted by both parties in committee and that's been available online for months literally months, for anyone to read. it was endorsed by nearly every democrat and every republican in the intelligence committee 14-1. it is also backed by a broad coalition of supporters, everyone from the chamber of commerce to the u.s. telecom association. it's legislation that's all about protecting our country which is why it makes perfect sense to consider it alongside defense legislation with the very same aim. cybersecurity amendments can be offered and the debate will continue. so let's work together to advance this measure. there are now 4 million extra reasons -- 4 million -- 4 million extra reasons for

congress to act quickly. the sooner we do the sooner we can conference it with similar legislation that passed the house and get a good cybersecurity law enacted. to help protect our country. the opportunity to begin doing that will come in a few moments with a vote for cloture on this bipartisan cybersecurity bill. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senate democratic leader. mr. reid: mr. president, we have here on the senate floor an authorization bill for about $600 billion. defense authorization about $600 billion. and i can't imagine the procedural games the chicanery involved in this. why would we have on this bill yesterday something on ex-im bank? is it just to check it off so

they can say we did it and democrats wouldn't let us do it? why would we have on a $600 billion bill dealing with the security of this nation, why would we have something that also deals with the security of this nation that deserves another piece of legislation so we can have amendments and talk about that? and we've agreed to do it in a very short period of time. there is no good reason for doing it this way. we should limit what we're talking about here to the matter at hand, and that is the defense authorization bill, some $600 billion. we have agreed to go to cybersecurity. we're willing to do that. but i cannot imagine, i cannot imagine why the republican leader is doing this. it makes a mockery of the legislative process. mr. wyden: would the leader yield for a question? mr. reid: i'd be happy to yield to my friend, the ranking member of the committee. mr. wyden: i strongly oppose cloture on the cyber measure

and i want to ask you a question on this. i think we all understand how dangerous the hackers are. they're increasingly sophisticated. the most dangerous hackers rarely use the same technique twice. and i believe what you're saying is you can't deal with this responsibly by stay pelg a sigh -- buy stapling a cyber bill to something else. the presiding officer: the time has expired. mr. reid: pardon me? i couldn't hear the chair. the presiding officer: all time has expired. mr. reid: mr. president i respectfully suggest that we're in leader time now. my time is protected or used to. and he asked me a question. i yielded for him a question. mr. wyden: i'll be very brief. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: if i oppose the cloture of the cyber measure, i think what the leader is saying is the cyber measure is so serious that you shouldn't deal with it by stapling it to

something else. it's so important we ought to have an opportunity over that two-day period to deal with it separately. is that the leader's view? mr. reid: without any question. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the r standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on amendment numbered 1569 as modified to mccain amendment number 1463 to h.r. 1735 to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities of the department of defense signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on amendment number 1569 as modified offered by the senator from arizona mr. mccain, for the senator from north carolina, mr. burr, to the substitute amendment number 1463 should 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: is there any senator wishing to vote or to change his or her vote? if not on this vote the yeas are 56, the nays are 40. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted if the affirmative the motion is not agreed to.

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

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: mr. president -- the presiding officer: there is a quorum call. mr. coats: i ask that the call of the quorum be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coats: mr. president now that we've concluded the vote --. the presiding officer: the chamber will be in order. mr. coats: now that we've concluded the vote i would like to announce for the record that

i'm privileged and honored to be able to host a number of people from my alma mater wheaton college, its board of trustees is visiting and have visited the capitol. i'd like to thank them for their service to our college and to america and they're spending a good amount of time here working through issues that are very important to a school that is evangelical, a school that has been true to the faith dealing with the challenges that exist today. so i'm pleased to be able to acknowledge that. they're here visiting the capitol and not enjoying the sights of washington and making some tough decisions. with that i yield the floor. mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you mr. president. mr. president, i want to say a

few words about family values. family values is an expression that has been used for many years by my republican colleagues and generally speaking what they mean by family values is opposition to a woman's right to choose, opposition to contraception opposition to gay rights. and i happen to strongly disagree with many of my republican colleagues on those issues and let me take the opportunity to briefly give a somewhat different perspective on family values, on real family values, on the values that really matter to millions of families in this country. mr. president, when a mother gives birth to a baby and is unable to spend time with that newborn child during the first weeks and months of that baby's

life because she does not have the money to stay home and is forced to go back to work, which is the case for millions of mothers in this country mr. president, that is not a family value. separating a mother from a newborn baby for economic reasons is not a family value. in fact, that is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for. when a wife is diagnosed with cancer and her husband cannot get time off of work to take care of her because he does not have any family or medical leave time or any sick leave time, that is not a family value. that is an attack on everything

that a family is supposed to stand for. when a husband wife, and kids during the course of an entire year are unable to spend any time on a vacation, when they can't get together in leisure activity, when they can't relax and spend quality time with each other, that is not a family value. let us be very clear in understanding that, in fact, in terms of protecting the needs of our families, in terms of real family values, in many many respects the united states of america lags behind virtually every other major country on earth. when you look at other major

countries, what you find is the united states is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers some form of paid family leave some form of paid sick time, some form of paid vacation time. in other words, when it comes to basic workplace protections and family benefits, workers in every other major industrialized country in the world get a better deal than our workers here in the united states. that is wrong that is a travesty and that has got to change. last place is no place for america. it is time for us to join the rest of the industrialized world by showing the people of this country that we are not just a

nation that talks about frames, but -- family values, but we are a nation that is prepared to live up to these ideals by making sure that workers in this country have access to paid family leave paid sick time, and paid vacations just like workers in virtually other major country on earth. simply stated, it is unacceptable that millions of women in this country give birth and are forced back to work because they don't have the income to stay home with their newborn babies. what is, when we talk about family values, more important for mothers and fathers to bond with their babies at a time when

almost every psychologist will tell you that those are the most important weeks and months of a human being's life, what kind of family value is it when you tell a woman who has just had a baby that she cannot spend time with her child but she has got to go back to work? this is not a family value. that is an insult to every mother every father, and every newborn child in this country, and we have got to change that. the reality is that the family and medical leave act that was signed into law in 1993 is total ly inadequate. today, nearly eight out of ten workers in this country who are eligible to take time off under this law cannot do so because they cannot afford to do so, according to the department of labor. even worse 40% of american

workers are not even eligible to receive this unpaid leave because they work for a company with fewer than 50 employees. in my view, every worker in this country should be guaranteed at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave and that is i am a proud cosponsor of the family act introduced by senator kristin gillibrand. the family act would guarantee employees 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave to take care of a baby, to help a family member who is diagnosed with cancer or has some other serious medical condition or to take care of themselves if they become seriously ill. and just like social security, retirement and disability, it is an insurance program that workers would pay into at a

price of about one cup of coffee a week. but that's not all. we have got to make certain that in this country workers have paid sick time. it is absurd that low-wage workers in mcdonald's burger kings and low-wage employees allover this country who get sick are forced to work because they cannot afford to take time off. not only is this unfair to the workers, it is also a public health issue. i don't know but but i am not crazy about the idea of somebody who is sick coming to work, preparing the food that i eat in a restaurant. and that is why i am supporting the healthy families act introduced by senator patty murray which guarantees seven days of medical leave to

american workers. this will would benefit 43 million workers who don have access to paid sick leave and it would create a permanent floor in workplaces where employers already provide some paid sick leave. last but not least mr. president, when we talk about the disappearing american middle class, we are talking about millions of american workers working longer hours for lower wages. we are talking about americans who are overworked, underpaid and in many cases living under enormous stress. in my state of vermont i see it every week we come home, you talk to people and they're working not one job they're working two jobs and sometimes two jobs in order to cobble together some income and some health care. here's an amazing irony. many of us can remember in

school reading about workers protesting taking to the streets 100 years ago mr. president, and they held up large banners and you know what those banners said a hundred years ago? they said "we want a 40-hour workweek." a 40-hour workweek is the demand 100 years ago and today we still not have achieved that goal. in fact, today 85% of men who are working and 66% of working women are working more than 40 hours a week. in fact, in america today not widely known but true, our people are working the longest hours of any major country on earth because as real wages go down, people have got to work 50 hours they've got to work

60 hours husbands are work here wives are working there all together to cobble together some income in order to provide for the family. today americans are working 137 hours a year more than workers in japan and the japanese are very hard workers. we are working 260 hours more than the british and almost 500 hours a year more than french workers. and that is why i am introducing legislation today to require employers to provide at least ten days of paid vacation to workers in this country. this is already done in almost every other major country on earth, and it is one more way to demonstrate our commitment to real family values. so what we are saying is that if

families are overworked, if husbands and wives don't even have the time to spend together with their kids, what family values are about is that at least for two weeks a year people can come together under a relaxed environment and enjoy the family. that is a family value that i want to see happen in this country. so mr. president the time is long overdue for us to start talking about real family values not about abortion, not about gay rights, but the values that the american people want to see inscribed in law to protect their families. let us make sure that every american worker is entitled to paid family and medical leave paid sick time, and garnetted at least -- and and guaranteed at least

some paid vacation time. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. peters: today i rise to urge my colleagues to support bipartisan legislation that i introduced with my colleague senator lankford, the federal vehicle repair cost savings act. i am pleased that the senate is considering the first bill that i introduced as a senator, which was approved by the homeland security and government affairs committee by a unanimous vote earlier this year. i appreciate senator lankford partnering with me to work on this legislation in committee and as it has moved to the senate floor. i look forward to continuing working with him as a member of the subcommittee he chairs, the regulatory affairs and federal management subcommittee. i also appreciate that my colleague from michigan, representative huizenga has introduced bipartisan companion legislation in the house of representatives. the federal vehicle repair cost savings act is a bipartisan,

commonsense measure that will help save taxpayers money and promote conservation by encouraging federal agencies to use remanufactured auto parts when they are maintaining their fleets of vehicles. in addition to saving money this legislation also supports remanufacturing suppliers and their employees in michigan and across the country. remanufactured parts are usually less expensive than similar parts and have been returned as same-as-new condition using a standardized industrialized process. the united states is the largest producer consumer, and exporter of remanufactured goods. remanufacturing of motor vehicle parts accounts for over 30,000 full-time u.s. jobs, and our country employs over 20,000 workers remanufacturing off-road equipment. in addition to the cost savings using remanufactured parts it also has significant environmental benefits. remanufacturing savings energy

by reusing raw materials like iron aluminum, and copper. on average the remanufacturing process saves approximately 85% of the energy and material used to manufacture equivalent new products. i urge my colleagues to support senate bill 565 the federal vehicle repair cost savings act commonsense legislation that is food for taxpayers our environment, and american manufacturers. mr. president, i also rise to support the bipartisan ayotte-peters amendment to authorize bilateral research and development with israel on anti-tunnel capabilities. i appreciate senator ayotte's efforts to work together on this critical matter of national security. israel remains our closest ally in the middle east, and this amendment will further our shared cooperation to increase security for both americans and israelis. our ally israel faces

significant threats from underground tunnels built by terrorists intent on murdering innocent israelis. hashadhamas and hezbollah threatened israel with a sophisticated network of tunnels used to smuggle weapons and carry out kidnappings and attacks against israeli citizens. threesthese tunnels cost thousands of dollars. often they are built using resources intended for humanitarian purposes in gaza that are instead diverted to terrorist activity. they are constructed with machinery designed to avoid detection, and in some cases hamas has filled the tunnels with provisions to last several months. the israeli defense forces call the tunnels underneath gaza an underground subsidy of terror. bomb attacks from terrorists are a growing threat to forward-deployed force and our

diplomatic personnel abroad swrl. terrorists carry out these attacks by digging tunnels underneenlunderneath the. isis is also using tunnel bombs detonating at least 45 tunnel bombs in iraq and syria over the last two years. we face threats from tunls on american soil as well. our own border patrol and law enforcement on the southern border are up against drug smugglers, human traffickers and other global criminal organizations using tunnels to sneak drugs weapons and people across our border illegally. i serve on the homeland security committee and understand the threat that our border patrol agents and law enforcement face from transnational criminal organizations using tunnels along our southern border. these criminals flow to the path of least resistance and as our border security efforts address

one threat, they continue their criminal being a tuft. when the u.s. border patrol blocked drug smugglers and human traffickers from utilizing existing drainage tunnels the criminals began digging their own tunnels. we need to stay ahead of these threats and that is why we must conduct critical research and development so we can detect and destroy these dangerous tunnels. this amendment will authorize joint research and development with israel on anti-tunnel capabilities. this joint approach will help us work together on research and development against this shared threat. the amendment requires israel to share in the cost of this research and provides a framework for sharing intellectual property developed together before action is carried out. this amendment would allow the department of defense to work with israel to develop a capability that will be used to protect our homeland and our troops abroad as well as those of our ally.

this amendment will make clear that joint research and development on anti-tunnel capability can and should be part of our security cooperation with israel. i will send a strong -- it will also send a strong message that the senate recognizes the threat posed by tunnels intended for attacks against israel as well as this cooperation will help us secure our own borders as well. i urge all of my colleagues to support the ayotte-peters amendment number 1628. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent further proceedings under the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent that amendment number 1569 as modified be withdrawn that the next first-degree amendments in order to h.r. 1735 the defense authorization

bill be the gillibrand amendment number 1578 and the ernst amendment number 1549 and that the gillibrand and ernst amendments be subject to a 60-vote, affirmative vote threshold. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. mccain: mr. president? could i call up the -- mr. reed: mr. president? mr. mccain: could i call up the ernst amendment number 1549. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. mr. mccain: i ask the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: the clerk will report by number. the clerk: the senator from arizona, mr. mccain, for mrs.

ernst proposes amendment numbered 1549. mr. mccain: i yield the floor. mr. reed: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside on behalf of gillibrand i call up amendment number 1578. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from rhode island, mr. reed, for mrs. gillibrand proposes an amendment numbered 1578. mr. reed: i ask consent further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: thank you mr. president. mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, it is obvious we have an agreement to votes on both the gillibrand and ernst amendment. i would imagine that it may be a recorded vote, but i'm not positive. but then we are planning on moving forward with additional amendments and it is agreed to

by both sides and managers' package as well, it is our intention. i am told at some point there may be a cloture motion on the bill as well. so i want to thank the senator from rhode island for his continued cooperation, and hopefully we can get as many members' amendments as possible up and voted on and finish up the bill at the soonest next week. now i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. mccain: and i eagerly a wait the loquacious and convincing words of the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president i appreciate the comments of my friend from arizona but if i'm going to be as loquacious as he suggested, it may take me a little more than ten minutes so i'd ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president over the last few days this chamber has been discussing the defense authorization bill, thus fulfilling one of our most basic responsibilities as part of the federal government, and that is our national security. and in the process making sure that our war fighters -- the people who are on the cutting edge of the knife so to speak

in terms of our national security -- that they have the resources that we are morally committed and duty-bound to provide them. so in voting for the defense authorization bill, we as legislators are fulfilling our responsibilities just as those who wear the uniform are performing their duties. no more, no less. although i must say ours is a tad safer than they are experiencing, to be sure. but with so much at stake for the security of our country the well-being of our folks in uniform as well as the families of those service members hanging in the balance as i mentioned yesterday, it is particularly disappointing that the democratic leader has characterized the discussion of this bill as a -- quote -- "waste of time." i really have to believe he would want to take those words back because it certainly is not a waste of time.

but unfortunately it's becoming more and more evident that the democratic leader and the president of the united states, their threats to stall republicans' efforts to get this bill passed quickly is just the first step to a larger political strategy. and the reason i know that, mr. president, is not because i i -- it just occurred to me, an epiphany is because they said so in the pages of "the washington post" just yesterday. the headline says it all -- quote -- "democrats prepare for filibuster summer." that's the headline in "the washington post" yesterday. and the article goes on to say that democrats have decided to block all spending bills starting with the defense appropriations measure headed to the floor next week. so imagine my surprise when yesterday the democratic leader

came to the floor and accused republicans of threatening to shut down the government, the same day his colleague the senior senator from new york, detailed their strategy to block all appropriations bills in "the washington post." one thing you've got to love about our friends across the aisle, they're not unclear nor are they timid about telling us what their plans are. indeed, it is there for the tworld read and -- for the world to read and for us to read. let me say again hours after the democratic leader laid out their plans to filibuster all government spending bills their leader claimed that republicans were the ones threatening a shutdown. this type of cynical political maneuvering is what the american people so soundly rejected in

the last election on november 4. stifling debate, shutting down the senate are not what the american people sent us here to do and it's certainly not what my constituents in texas expect me to do on their behalf. and now today our colleagues across the aisle have now blocked an amendment that would provide for greater sharing of information to address the rampant and growing cyber threat that this country faces. sharing cyber threat information will help us as a country detear future cyber attacks. and it helps both the public and the private sector act in a more nimble way when attacks are detected. so the fact that seven democrats joined virtually all republicans to move forward with this bill tells me that the democratic

position is not mono lithic. in other words, when the democratic leader and the senior senator from new york say it's our plan to shut the senate down and not to cooperate to get the people's work done, not every member of the democratic minority are comfortable with that cynical strategy. and good for them. but the refusal to move forward with this legislation particularly the cybersecurity part of this discussion is just unconscionable. let me give you some other headlines. just last week there was a massive breach at the office of personnel management. the sensitive personal information of up to four million -- four million -- current and former federal employees may have been compromised and there are now records that this stolen data

includes log-in information and credentials that is actively being traded, bought and sold online. now, we are will await the details of the current investigation into this, but we know it has great potential to harm not only the privacy interests and the financial interests of the people affected but also our national security. we know that there are state actors notably china and russia, who are on a regular basis engaged in cyberattacks against the united states in an effort to steal our intellectual property and also in order to do intelligence operations using the internet and using cyberspace. in terms of the personal interest of these employees it may expose them, many of who

work for national security matters, by trying to hack intelligence. at the end of last month it was reported that the data of more than 100,000 taxpayers was stolen at the i.r.s. the former acting director of the c.i.a. on june 11, 2013, when asked about senator -- former senator and former secretary of state hillary clinton's decision to put all of her official e-mails at the secretary of state's office on a private e-mail server, michael morel said i think former intelligence servants, the good ones have anything on

classified networks that the government uses. not only do they have it on unclassified networks like the one that hillary clinton maintained but also if they're able to breach the security measures that we have in place on government networks, they are happy to steal that for whatever their purpose may be, whether it's intelligence gathering or whether it's economic harm that they can impose on american citizens by hacking their identity or stealing their bank accounts or what have you. and so we also have to be worried about the 100,000 people whose accounts were hacked at the i.r.s. the suggestion that was made before the i.r.s. commissioner at the finance committee recently is that these identity thieves steal this information so they can then file false tax returns and then claim the

refunds or the other credit that those taxpayers would have otherwise been able to receive. and imagine when these 100,000 or so taxpayers go about the business of filing their own tax returns only to find out that a cyber thief has stolen their identity and filed a tax return and taken their refund or their tax credit before they ever had a chance to do it. well, at the i.r.s., we know the breach included access to past tax returns. and as we all know, we have to put a lot of sensitive information on tax returns. that's why they are not public information. but they also include sensitive information like social security numbers, addresses birth dates all stolen and potentially in the hands of criminals. you know, the hypocrisy of the administration in this area is just breathtaking, because it

was just june 6 last saturday, that josh earnest the white house press secretary chastised congress on behalf of the president of the united states for not acting urgently enough on the issue of cybersecurity. here's what mr. ernst said -- quote -- "we need the united states congress to come out of the dark ages and join us here in the 21st century to make sure we have the kinds of defenses that are necessary to protect a modern computer system , white house press secretary josh earnest on june 6, 2015." and then our colleagues on the democratic side had the temerity to come here and block the very type of legislation that the white house has called for. how hypocritical can you get? how cynical can you get? and indeed the democratic

leader then says, well, they're doing everything the way they should be doing it, and it's really a republican conspiracy to shut down the government. well these are just the most recent examples of a threat that should keep us up at night a threat that should cause us to quickly act to find solutions to the cybersecurity threat to the american people and to the united states government, and yes, to our national security. some of our democratic friends act like the fact that we decided to file an amendment to the defense authorization bill that represents an almost unanimous vote of the -- bipartisan vote of the senate intelligence committee that this was some sort of dirty trick, that we -- we pulled a fast one on them. well this legislation has been out there for the world to see for quite a while now and was

negotiated by the senior senator from california, the ranking member on the senate intelligence committee senator feinstein and senator burr, the chairman of the intelligence committee, and as i said had only one dissenting vote in the senate intelligence committee. so to have the gall to come here on the senate floor and act like this is pulling a fast one or some sort of trick is disingenuous. i could probably think of some other words to describe it, too but disingenuous will have to suffice for now. but to come out here and to block debate and a vote on a cybersecurity bill at a time when the news is chock-full of the nature of this threat and its intrusive invasion into the privacy of the american people and its danger to our national

security is just flat irresponsible. these are not threats we can afford to ignore. and here's the coup de grace the icing on the cake. two months ago the democratic leader came to the floor and he said he was -- quote -- committed to getting cybersecurity legislation done, and that was before these most recent attacks. so for the democratic leader to claim this morning that senate republicans were -- quote -- using -- these are his words -- deceitful ploys -- close quote -- to ensure our nation is safe from these threats is really beyond the pale. in addition to the clear and undeniable urgency of the problem, i'd like to also point out that this is the same language that has been, as i

mentioned, that passed out of the intelligence committee in march, so perhaps you can understand why i am so confused by our democratic colleague's position and actually by the white house position. the white house called for cybersecurity legislation. cybersecurity legislation gets voted out of the senate intelligence committee 14-1. the democratic leader said we need to act on cybersecurity and we try to act on cybersecurity only to be blocked by the democratic leader. all i can see is the democratic leader's -- quote -- commitment to work on cyber legislation has given way to partisan gamesmanship by our democratic

colleagues who are promising and i quote a filibuster summer. well welcome to the filibuster summer. but this is not what the american people deserve. this isn't why they sent us here and this is what they affirmatively rejected this also election. but somehow our democratic colleagues just can't stand it, that we've actually turned things around and we have been able to make some slow incremental progress. we have passed the first budget since 2009. you know, that should be a scandal, but i guess that represents progress that we finally have been able to do with the new majority starting in january. and we passed -- we worked with the white house to pass trade promotion authority some things that are tough and are controversial on both sides of the aisle. and we have taken a number of positive steps on child

trafficking. on a number of topics. and now we're trying to do our most basic duty and deal with our nation's defense and that includes protecting our nation's cybersecurity infrastructure while we fund our armed forces to make sure they have the resources to do what they volunteered to do so bravely on our behalf. the men and women of this country and particularly the men and women who wear the uniform of the united states military deserve better. this national defense authorization bill, this basic bill to which this cybersecurity language was being offered has strong bipartisan support and it passed out of the armed services committee overwhelmingly. and you know what? it even authorizes funding

levels at the figure requested by the president of the united states. and yet our senate democratic colleagues are still dragging their feet, refusing to allow us to vote on amendments to this bill and defeating the very cybersecurity -- a very cybersecurity provision like the democratic leader said we ought to get to and which josh earnest chastised congress for not passing. members of his own political party, the president's own political party blocked that cybersecurity legislation so this bill should not be held hostage to political gamesmanship. the american people's security and safety should not be held hostage to political gamesmanship. and the united states senate, which used to be known as the world's greatest deliberative body should not be used just

purely for partisan gain. so i hope that the seven democrats who actually voted to proceed on this cybersecurity bill will get some morale ice. i can tell that not all of our friends across the aisle are comfortable with the democratic leader's direction to block this cybersecurity legislation and perhaps over the weekend some will have second thoughts. and i hope as they have those second thoughts they will focus on our collective duty, to our troops and their families and to our duty as members of the united states senate, to promote and protect the security of the american people. so let's get back to basics. let's do what the american people elected us to do by voting on a bipartisan bill that will protect our country and

provide for our troops. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. casey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: i ask unanimous consent for -- to speak for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. toomey: thank you mr. president. mr. president, last month, i was here on the senate floor to address the topic of the riots in baltimore and the unfortunate and completely misguided scapegoating of police officers that's been going on far too often in parts of our country today. so i rise again today on the same topic because in the last month or so, there have been some very harmful developments in this area. one of those developments is the dramatic decline in police

arrests and a massive increase in violent crime and murders in the city of baltimore. now, someone might ask why is the senator from pennsylvania speaking out so often about these tragic local circumstances that are happening in baltimore? well, first of all mr. president, as a united states senator i'm concerned with what goes on in our entire country, not just my state and baltimore is a great american city that's going through a very difficult period, and we should all be concerned about it. and second of all baltimore's of course, less than 100 miles away from pennsylvania. but most importantly what's happening in baltimore is not happening only in baltimore. the scapegoating of police and the rise of violent crime is happening in new york city and in other places as well, and frankly it's a threat to public safety and security in every

city. some including the police chief of st. louis missouri, have described what has been known as -- come to be known as the ferguson effect. and this can be traced back to the riots and the lawlessness that followed the very unfortunate death of michael brown in ferguson, missouri, last august. as you'll remember, mr. president, in the ferguson case officer darrin wilson acted in self-defense and shot and killed brown when brown attacked him while he was resisting arrest. in the weeks and the months that followed the incident and after officer wilson was cleared of wrongdoing violent protests erupted. protesters and police and bystanders were injured buildings were burned to the ground, property was destroyed. but instead of placing the onus on those who were actually causing the havoc, it was portrayed by many as if law

enforcement were somehow responsible for the violence and the unrest. antilaw enforcement sentiments were even expressed by some of the local officials in ferguson. this endorsement of violent protesters empowered those who wished to turn peaceful protests into violent riots. and it also left the police feeling powerless. what's happened in ferguson since is as tragic as it was predictable. the homicide rate in ferguson increased 47% in the latter portion of 2014 and robberies in st. louis county jumped by 82%. this really should be no surprise. this is what happens when a city puts these views of police as the problem into practice, views such as when a city determines that police are the cause of the violence as opposed to the grave defense against it, when a city

justifies lawlessness stops law enforcement from doing their job and allows lawbreakers to go unpunished. well the results of those kinds of practices are that innocent members of those very communities pay a horrible price, and these tragic circumstances are now playing out in the city of baltimore. on april 18 of this year, many baltimore residents began peaceful protests over the injury and the eventual death of mr. freddie gray while he was in police custody. now, as i mentioned in my last speech about this last month in my view, freddie gray's death absolutely calls out for justice, calls out for a thorough investigation and the judicial process is now proceeding and playing out exactly as it should. but what's happened in baltimore since then is not about freddie gray. a week after the baltimore protest began april 25, they

turned violent, and over the next five days, rioters damaged 200 businesses, they set fire to a newly constructed senior center they burned down a c.v.s. drugstore and then they cut the fire hose of the firemen who were trying to put out the flames. 144 cars were set ablaze. 130 law enforcement officers were injured many seriously. the chaos was so extreme the city had to impose a curfew for five days and they had to call in 3,000 national guard troops. now, with all of that mayhem, how did the public officials of baltimore respond? well on the first day of the violence the mayor held a press conference in which she legitimatized the violence. she said, and i quote -- "we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well." seriously, space to destroy. destroying other people's

property setting buildings and cars ablaze, attacking police officers. these are not legitimate acts. and no mayor should be accommodating those kinds of acts with space. in fact, they are criminal. they are harmful. these are exactly the kinds of activities that a mayor should be all about stopping and preventing. but that's not all. next the baltimore police were given a standdown order and they were forbidden from arresting the looters and the rioters. and then officials announced that half of all those arrested for the destruction and violence would be released without charges. mobs would gather around police when they tried to enforce the law. all of this is a clear illustration of the impact that the ferguson effect is having on baltimore. lawbreakers are in control and the city's residents are at the mercy of the lawbreakers.

law enforcement has been limited because of a lack of support from the community and the civic and the political leaders and baltimore has seen the disastrous effects of this policy. the riots began to subside on april 30 when six police officers were arrested in the death of mr. gray but the violence has continued. the month of may that just passed was baltimore's deadliest month in over 40 years. there were 43 homicides in the month of may alone. shootings have more than doubled compared to may of the previous year. and these murders have nothing to do with anger over the death of freddie gray. they have everything to do with public policy that disparages police and turns a blind eye on criminal activity. you see in baltimore in the month of may arrests were

nearly 70% lower than the same month last year. now, some attempt to portray this whole crisis in racial terms but tragically all too often the victims of this surge in violent crime are innocent african-americans who live in cities in which the police are no longer permitted to do their jobs. consider the case of an 8-year-old boy police found shot in the head on thursday, may 28 8:20 a.m. lying dead beside his mother who also been fatally shot in the head. or take the case of 23-year-old charles dob bins who was killed on may 25. his cousin reports charles was killed in a robbery. charles worked at b.w.i. transporting handicapped people to and from the terminals. when he graduated from high school he worked for baltimore city schools as a bus aide

assisting disabled children. or mr. president, consider the case of 4-year-old joselle johnson. she was in a car with her teenaged cousin when someone opened fire on the car seriously wounding them both. these are not just statistics. these are real people who are now lost to us. and their lives matter. that 8-year-old boy and his mother the 23-year-old charles dobbins, the 4-year-old girl, josell johnson and her cousin, mr. president, their lives matter. the ferguson effect, unfortunately, is not the only phenomenon at work here. unfortunately, our president seems to have bought into the notion that the police are the problem and the solution is to deny them valuable tools. this last month the president announced extensive restrictions on when local police may access

lifesaving federal surplus equipment. now, the gear that we're talking about here is almost all purely defensive riot helmets, riot shields armored transport vehicles and it's surplus gear. the federal government has paid for it, decided it has no use for it and be it has long been the practice that this surplus protective gear has been made available to local police forces. so why is this administration making it harder to send this purely defensive gear -- again, gear that would otherwise go unused -- to insufficiently protected police officers across the country? why would the administration do that? well they released the report telling us why. here's what they said in their own report. the federal government -- and i quote -- "the federal equipment according to this report by the administration could significantly undermine

community trust and that this concern outweighs the interest in -- quote --"addressing law enforcement needs that could not otherwise be fulfilled." president obama likewise opined that federal equipment -- and i quote -- "can sometimes give people a feeling there's an occupying force and can send the wrong message" -- end quote. so this is the concern that justified keeping lifesaving gear from police officers. so according to the administration the need to save police officers' lives in the line of duty is something that should be weighed against and, in fact, sacrificed to the desire to prevent distrust or discomfort on the part of others. how many police lives are we going to sacrifice for this? one? 20? 100? mr. president, this is

outrageous. each day across america there are 780,000 law enforcement officers who put on a badge and a uniform and they answer the call of those in need no matter the danger. when others run away, they run to the problem. and the rest of us in america rely on these law enforcement officers doing their job. the people who live in high crime areas often ethnic minorities living in high poverty areas of our inner cities these are the folks who most depend on those officers. and when those officers are held back we all pay a steep price but the res residents of those communities pay the steepest price. i just hope we in the federal government will stop putting obstacles in the way of law enforcement and start supporting them. i hope we as a nation will stop scapegoating law enforcement and start thanking the them. if we fail to reverse the

ferguson effect what we will see is more violent crime and more suffering of our people. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. boozman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. boozman: thank you mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be

rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. boozman: thanks, madam president. we've been able to change the chamber's culture for the better in 2015. now that is in jeopardy once again. in the first half of the year, we had a number of bipartisan accomplishments. they kicked off with the passage of the clay hunt suicide prevention for americans veterans' act at the beginning of the year. the new law will provide v.a. with the personnel services, and proper tools to help veterans facing mental illness which is vital as it is estimated that 22 veterans commit suicide every day. the clay hunt act will help stop this tragic and unacceptable trend. then we were able to pass the justice for victims trafficking act in unanimous fashion. this law will save lives.

it will restore dignity to the victims of these heinous crimes and it will help end modern-day slavery. we followed that up with legislation that will give congress a voice in the president's negotiations with iran over its illicit nuclear program. there was such a strong show of bipartisan support on this vote that it forced president obama to drop his initial veto threat. had we not maintained bipartisan unity on this, there would be no review of the iran deal. there would be nothing stopping president obama from signing a bad agreement with iran. it is because we stood together across party lines that the american people will now have a say in the negotiations. before we adjourn for the memorial day work period, we approved granting the president trade promotion authority. we worked together to provide the president with the necessary tools to negotiate a fair trade

deal. while maintaining congress' important role in the process. i say all of this to highlight that -- i say all of this to highlight what we can accomplish when we work together. unfortunately, the minority leader seems intent on ending that streak. we're in the midst of discussing another bill that should have substantial bipartisan support the national defense authorization act. yet minority leader reid has called this vital traditionally bipartisan bill -- and i quote -- "a waste of time." a bill that as the senior senator from arizona has noted congress has passed for 53 consecutive years, including those when the minority leader controlled the senate schedule. far from a waste of time, the ndaa helps us modernize our military to face today's security challenges.

we live in a dangerous world. we have to stay ahead of those who would seek to harm us, not fall behind them. this is no time to be dismissive of our national security needs. it's also about the livelihood of over 1.4 million men and women on active duty and 718,000 civilian personnel. we're talking about the nation's largest employer. the ndaa help us ensure we're doing everything we need to help them. so i think we can all agree that there's much in this bill that needs to get done. unfortunately, the white house is taking what should be a bipartisan bill and using it to push for its own political end game to increase domestic spending and worse yet the president has somehow convinced senate democrats to go alopping with this misguided -- along with this misguided strategy.

instead of approaching this in a bipartisan manner, the minority leader is forcing his kaw caucus to carry water for president obama who has indicated he would veto the ndaa unless he gets the domestic spending increases that he's demanding. that means the president stands ready to block the policy prescriptions and funding levels for the department of defense. unless we give the i.r.s. and other agencies, agencies like the e.p.a. as they try their additional power grab through entities like the clean water act, extending that; the i.r.s., as they waste money on bonuses for their employees. all of this is very dangerous. there will be plenty of time to debate or domestic spending

priorities allotments, but now is not the time. let's get this bipartisan mentality back and finish the work that needs to be done to protect our nation. and with that, mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: