the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? the yeas are 73, the nays are 26. three-fifths of the senators having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they've been approved by the majority and minority leaders. i'd ask consent these requests be agreed to and printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i want to spend a few minutes speaking about a topic that we should all be able to agree on, even in this polarized environment in which we live and work. and that is the idea that transparency and accountability are a key to good governance.

transparency and accountability are a key to good governance. open government is really a prerequisite for a free society, one in which the legitimacy of government itself depends on consent of the governed. and, in fact, you can't consent about something you don't know anything about so you get my point. and like our founding fathers recognized, a truly democratic system depends on an informed citizenry so that they can hold their leaders accountable at elections and between elections. but the american people cannot do that without transparency. justice brandeis famously said that sunlight is the best disinfectant and he's right. and that's why congress has enacted numerous pieces of legislation that have promoted accountability and transparency in government, so that good governance can hopefully

flourish. now, this is a bipartisan issue. when i came to the senate, i found a willing partner in senator pat leahy from vermont. now, senator leahy and i are polar opposites when it comes to our politics but on matters of open government and freedom of information, we have worked closely together on a number of pieces of legislation. and as we both have said, when a democratic president is in charge or a republican president is in charge, the first instinct is to try to hide or minimize bad news and to maximize the good news. that's human nature. we all get that. but the american people are entitled to know what their government is doing on their behalf, whether it's good, bad or ugly. so i've made transparency a priority of mine and i've pressed for more openness in the federal government through screns legislation. one of -- commonsense legislation. one of those bills was the freedom of information

improvement act that would strengthen existing measures found in the freedom of information act that was first signed by a texas president, lyndon baines johnson. the judiciary committee passed this bill in february by voice vote and i look forward to it passing the senate soon. but even the very best laws with the very best intentions can be undermined by those who are willing to ignore or even abuse them. more than six years ago, president obama promised that the -- promised the american people that transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstone of this presidency. he said, transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. needless to say, the record has been a disappointment. because his record certainly doesn't meet the description of transparency and adherence to

and fidelity to the rule of law. for example, when an estimated 1,400 weapons were somehow lost by the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms in mexico with one of them -- actually two of them eventually linked to the murder of a u.s. border patrol agent, the obama administration stonewalled congressional investigations. this is the fast and furious debacle. as a matter of fact, the attorney general, then eric holder, refused to comply with a valid subpoena issued by congress so we could find out about it, we could figure out, well, where did things go wrong, how could we fix them so it doesn't happen again. but eric holder, the former attorney general, rather than comply with congress' legitimate oversight request, refused and was thus the first attorney general in my knowledge to be held in contempt of congress. in contempt of congress. and then, of course, there's the

i.r.s. or obamacare. instances in which this administration has either refused to testify to congress or failed to answer our most basic questions. but this administration has been equally dismissive of the press, who are also protected. freedom of the press under the first amendment to the united states constitution. leading dozens of journalists to send a letter to the president asking him to end this administration's -- and i quote -- "politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies." that's really remarkable. so you can see, the american people have been stiff armed by this administration and they've become increasingly distrustful of their own government. that's because secrecy provides an environment in which corruption can and does fester.

in fact, according to a recent poll, 75% of americans who responded believe that there is widespread corruption in the u.s. government. 75%. that's a shocking statistic and one that ought to shock us back to reality and try to understand what the -- what their concerns are and what we can do to address them. because that's simply inconsistent with this idea of self-government, where 75% of the respondents to a poll think the fix is in and the government's not accountable nor adhering to the rule of law. it was back in march that the public first learned that a former member of this administration, secretary clinton, used a private, unsecured server during her tenure as secretary of state. and just last wednesday, when

the state department announced the release of even more documents from secretary clinton's private e-mail server. this ongoing scandal has been but the latest example of this administration's pattern of avoiding accountability and skirting the law. and i want to explain in just a few minutes here why this is so significant and why this isn't just something that ought to be brushed under the rug and ignored. secretary clinton's unprecedented scheme was intentional. it wasn't an accident, it wasn't negligent. she did it on purpose. it was by design. and her design was to shield her official communications, communications that you recall federal law belong to the government and to the people, not her, i can't see any other way to explain it. it was deliberate. it was intentional.

and it was designed to avoid the kind of accountability that i've been talking about here. there's just no other way to look at it. because her e-mails were held on this private server, the state department was in violation of the legal mandates of the freedom of information act for six years. and it's only now through freedom of information act litigation in more than 30 different lawsuits that the public is finally learning what it was always entitled to know, or at least part of it. by the way, that's the power of the freedom of information act and why it's so important. you can go to court and seek a court order to force people to do what they should have done in the first instance so the public can be informed about what their government is doing. secretary clinton's use of a private, unsecured server as a

member of the obama cabinet is also a major national security concern. we've learned that classified information was kept on and transmitted through this server. according to the latest reports, the newest batch of documents released just last week have doubled the amount of e-mails that contain classified information. neudz outlets -- news outlets are reporting that there are more than 400 classified e-mails on the server, and that's just the report so far. well, it's no coincidence that along with this news, the media has also reported that russian-linked hackers attempted at least five times to break into secretary clinton's e-mail account. which should make it obvious to her and to everyone else the vulnerabilities that exist for a private, unsecured e-mail server

, one used by a cabinet member in communicating with other high-level government officials, including people in the intelligence community. this is just absolutely reckless this chamber's aware and we are painfully aware from the news that cyber threats are all too prevalent today, and it seems every week we read a new story about different cyber attacks, cyber theft, cyber espionage against our own country. this last summer we discussed at length the data breaches that occurred at the office of personnel management, where people who had actually sought and obtained security clearances so they could handle and learn classified material, that was hacked and made available to some of our add assesses. -- adversaries. and then, of course, there's the information that we all learned about the i.r.s. being hacked as well. the personal information contained in those two hacks alone covered millions of

americans. so at a time when our adversaries are trying to steal sensitive national security information, especiallily -- especially classified information, i find it incredibly irresponsible for secretary clinton or anyone else to invite this kind of risk and to conduct routine daily business on behalf of our nation over a private, unsecured e-mail server. and the i find it even more egregious that she or her senior aids -- aids would send classified information over this server. now, i'm not the only one who believes that secretary clinton has compromised our national security by doing this. just last month, in the -- before the senate select intelligence committee, the current director of the national security agency, admiral mike rogers, who also serves as commander of u.s. cyber command, said conducting official

business on a private server would -- quote -- "represent an opportunity" for foreign intelligence operatives. in other words, foreign intelligence services would relish the opportunity to penetrate the private server of a high-profile leader like secretary clinton or any other secretary of state who, once again, is a member of the president's cabinet, his closest advisors. well, some hackers clearly noticed this opportunity and tried to take advantage of it. and we don't know, perhaps we never will know, the extent to which that national security information, that classified information was compromised. so we need to come to terms with the fact that due to secretary clinton's bad judgment, it's probable every e-mail she sent or received while secretary of state, including highly classified information, has been

read by intelligence agents of nations like china and russia, who we know are regularly trying to hack into our secure data and to learn our secrets or to steal our designs and to replicate those by violating our commercial laws. so this e-mail scandal is more than just bad judgment. it represents a real danger to our nation. i'm sorry to say, but it's true, that secretary clinton's actions may well have violated a number of criminal laws. under the circumstances, the appointment of a special counsel by the justice department is necessary to supervise the investigation and ensure the american people that that investigation gets down to the bottom line and we follow the facts, wherever they may lead. as i made clear in a recent letter to attorney general, loretta lynch, the department of

justice regulations themselves provide for the appointment of a special counsel if there is potential for criminal wrongdoing and if either there was a conflict of interest at the department of justice or if extraordinary circumstances warrant the appointment. let he start by explaining i didn't criminal statutes secretary clinton may have violated. federal law makes it a crime to retain classified information without authorization. "whoever, being an ... of the united states ... knowingly removes [classified] documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title for imprisoned for not more than one year, or both."

that's 18u.s.c. section 1924. we know from media reports that secretary clinton retained classified documents on her server. according to those reports, more than 5% of the latest e-mails released by the state department contained classified information. so we need a thorough, unbiased, impartial investigation to determine how those documents made it to secretary cline -- secretary clinton's unsecured server and if she knew this was happening. a special counsel would be the best person and in the best position to do just that. while secretary clinton may argue -- which i've heard her argue on news reports -- that none of this information was marked "classified" when it was e-mailed to her, under the espionage act, that's irrelevant, which even if true -- and i certainly doubt that

that's the case. according to the act, it's a crime to deliver national defense information to unauthorized individuals. here's the statute, 18 u.s.c. section 793(d) "whoever, lawfully having possession of ... any document ... or note relating to the national defense ... willfully communicates, delivers, transmits ... the same to any person not entitled to receive it ... [shall] be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." so, mr. president, you can see. this is serious stuff and deserved to be treated with the same requisite seriousness and that again is why it is so foreign have an impartial investigation. we know, for example, that

information on north korea's nuclear program was in secretary clinton's e-mails. i was recently with some of my colleagues at the pacific command, where admiral harris, a 4-star admiral, said on his list of security threats confronting his region of the world, north korea is at the top. it has nuclear weapons, it has intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it has a leader who's capable of doing just about anything you might imagine. so it is a very, very danger ows -- it is a very, very dangerous situation, it is a very, very serious national security issue. yet secretary clinton was communicating information -- or had communicated to her on her private e-mail server information about north korea's threat. we don't know whether the information was among the 200 classified e-mails released by the state department just last week. we know that her lawyers and

perhaps others reviewed every e-mail on her server before turning them over to the state d we don't know who reviewed them, whether they had a proper clearance, whether they were actually legally entitled to seek classified information, and that's why a special counsel would be important to answer that question, too. under the espionage act, we see that it is a crime also to remove national defense documents or permit them to be stolen. here's the statute summarized. "whoever, being entrusted with ... any document ... relating to the national defense ... through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody ... or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed ... [shall] be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." now, we know that the server was

not held in a proper place of uf custody. and we know from the testimony of experts in the intelligence community that the likely had that something was removed from secretary clinton's server by foreign hackers is high. last week news outlets reports, as i said a moment ago, that they were certainly trying. so a special counsel could answer this question and determine whether this statute was violated and how it should be enforced, if it was violated. what greater example of gross negligence is there than for a high government official like the secretary of state of the united states of america, a member of the president's cabinet, to communicate all business on a private, unsecured server when it is likely -- and maybe more than just likely, it's certain that certain national defense information would pass through it? so, mr. president, we simply

don't know what laws -- what other laws may have been broken or whether there is other explanations that senator clinton -- secretary clinton might have that would shed some light on this. but this is certainly why a special counsel should be appointed, and i would say, if secretary clinton and the obama administration is confident that no laws have been broken, then why wouldn't they embrace the appointment of a special counsel? i would point out in another case that the presiden presidenn department of justice has aggressively pursued in the past, my special request in calling for a special counsel is that the same rules apply to secretary clinton. the department's clear conflicts of interest in this case and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding it could not be more obvious. as a high-level official in the

administration for four years, secretary clinton is clearly allied with the administration, as a former first lady and a u.s. senator, secretary clinton has deep professional and personal relationships with the administration. including the president's choice of attorney general, loretta lynch. i would think ms. lynch, the attorney general, would want this sort of integrity and the appearance -- the proper appearance that would occur by the appoint of a special counsel rather than she has just sat on this and not conduct add thor reinvestigation herself. so i'm simply calling for that kind of investigation. as somebody who's spent 17 years of plief as a state court -- of my life as a state court judge and attorney general, i believe this type of investigation is entirely warntd. some of my democratic

colleagues, including the senators from vermont and california, have already claimed that this called for a special counsel is some sort of political stunt. the senior senator from california was quick to say that calls for special counsel are purely political and completely unnecessary and would amount to pasting taxpayer dollars. -- wasting taxpayer dollars. i would like to point out to both senators from vermont and california that they have, each of them, on more than one occasion called for special counsels in the past and surely i don't think they would characterize their own call for a special counsel on the same terms that the current call for special counsel is described. while serving as senators, the president of the united states, barack obama, and former secretary hillary clinton, while both of them were senators, each of them have called for the appointment of a special counsel. all that is to say that requesting the appointment of the special exon i counsel is nt

uncommon and is clearly warranted in this case. mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent to make part of the record the response to my letter requesting a special counsel from the justice department. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: following the end of my remarks. so, mr. president, i would just say that for those who are interested in reading the response -- interestingly, i didn't get a response from the attorney general to whom i addressed the letter. i got a response from the assistant attorney general. i've read it over and over and over again. it doesn't agree to appoint a special counsel and it doesn't refuse to appoint a special counsel. in other words, it is a nonanswer to the question. i don't know what reason the attorney general or the department of justice might have the for leaving this open-ended and not actually declining at this time to appoint a special counsel, if that's their conclusion, but they simply didn't answer the question.

so i'd just say this conclusion, my constituents in texas sent me here to serve as a check on the executive branch. and i'm going to continue to press the attorney general and the rest of the administration for answers because the american people deserve the sort of accountability and indeed in the end justice that needs to be delivered in this case. not a sweep under the rug, not a playing out the clock until the end of the administration, but answers that can only come from an independent investigation conducted by a special counsel. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. udall: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. eric arturo delvallede--

mr. udall: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy until about 3:40 with democrats and republicans who are going to show up here, i think senator vitter, inhofe, whitehouse, manchin, and we may have -- we may have others. -- we may have others that are here. so i see my good friend, senator inhofe, is here. senator inhofe, we -- we're now beginning, and senator whitehouse is here, so if you would like to jump in with your statement, that would be great at this point. we have -- the presiding officer: let me ask first, is there an objection to the unanimous consent request? without objection. mr. udall: thank you. mr. chairman? mr. inhofe: thank you very much. let me first mention that you don't see many things around this chamber that are truly bipartisan, and you're about to

hear about one now. and i have to give credit to the senator from new mexico in the great job that he has done in making this a possibility that we're even talking about this now. i am very honored to be the chairman of the committee called the environment and public works committee, and we do a lot of significant things around -- in that committee. we just passed out arguably the second-most significant bill of the year, which would be the highway reauthorization bill. and others. so it is a very busy, busy committee. however, the thing that we're concerned about today -- and i want to talk about it a little bit -- is a bill that we are -- have been working on for a long period of time. we had a great member, frank lautenberg, of this senate for a number of years. he and i became good friends became -- on this committee when

democrats were for eight years the majority party and prior to that we were in the majority for a long time. and during that timeframe, frank lautenberg and i became good friends. we had some things in common that people weren't aware of. that is, we both came from the corporate world where we were involved in doing things together and looking at things through a corporate mind. but on this bill that we're talking about now, it's one that we're enjoying 60 cosponsors. i want to mention that bon bonne lautenberg is in the gallery today. she has been so cooperative. if you could single out one legacy of the great frank lautenberg, it would be this bill. i remember calling up bonnie and asking if she'd be willing to come and testify before the committee. the this was some time ago. and she was more enthusiastic than i expected she would be.

she is beeshe has been a big he. anyway, we have something really good that is going on. i.t. great to see how many -- it's great to see so many of my colleagues excited about tsca reform. the lautenberg bill which now has overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle. for a long time we've been very focused and rightfully so on the public health and environmental benefits of reforming this 39-year-old failed law. i know that a lot of my friends across the aisle who are here will continue talking about that today, so i wanted to take my time on the floor to tell you some of the benefits of tsca reform that you might not be aware of. from a republican perspective. tsca reform, in addition to providing great protections for families in my state of oklahoma and the rest of the country, can play a pivotal role in boosting our economy, creating

well-paying american jobs, and creating regulatory certainty for businesses not only in the united states but across the world. today the u.s. chemical industry is experiencing a resurgence that nobody had ever predictedment for years chemical manufacturing has been moving its way out of this country, relocating in places like china, saudi arabia, south america. one of the reasons for this is we had this antiquated bill, law on the books that made it very difficult for them to do and operate here in the united states. so we kind of got used to this. everyone was leaving the united states because of that. now they're coming back. the interesting thing is there are two reasons i'm going to mention to you in a minute why they're coming back and what it means to us economically. for the last few years, one thing has completely flipped the idea on its head that we were not going to be able to change the laws that are regulating the

chemical industry. natural gas liquids are the primary feed stock for chemical manufacturing in the united states. and due to the shale boom or the shale revolution, we're very sensitive to that in my state of oklahoma, natural gas production from companies like continental resources, devon, chesapeake energy all in my home state of oklahoma, manufacturers have an abundant and reliable source of in the ral gas for decades to come. this provides the stability and certainty that manufacturers need to once again make major investments in the united states, and there is no better example of an industry reinvesting in this country because of our energy revolution than the chemical industry. as of this june the chemical industry has announced 238 investment projects valued at $145 billion. let me repeat that.

$145 billion in new capital investments in the united states of america by the chemical industry in large part due to american natural gas production. this investment is predicated, predicted to be responsible for over 700,000 new jobs allege with $293 billion in permanent new domestic economic output by 2023. and the benefits don't stop there. this investment is also predicted to lead to $21 billion in new federal, state, and local tax revenue in the next eight years and will lower our trade deficit by increasing our exports by nearly $30 billion by 2030. right now the u.s. chemical industry is capturing market fair share from around the world and all of those facilities that packed up and moved to china and moved to the middle east and moved to western europe are rushing back. you don't have to look any farther than comments by folks

like anito hatogeny, the european industry commissioner. this is a quote. he said when people choose whether to invest in europe or the united states, what they think about most is the cost of energy. the loss of competitiveness is frightening. in north america, as a whole, chemicals and plastics production is predicted to double in the next five years, while it falls by a third in europe. in other words, it will go down by a third in europe. at the same time it doubles in the next five years here in the united states. some of you may be wondering what this has to do with tsca reform. because i'm talking about the cheaper price of energy, the main stock for chemicals is natural gas. specifically, the lawton bill is what we're talking about today. let me tell you, passing this bill and getting tsca reform

signed into law not only provides these domestic industries with one manageable national rule book so products can be manufactured and distributed in all 50 states consistently, it also provides necessary regulatory certainty, the lack of which could be the one thing to drive this much-needed economic investment. moreover, today global chemical manufacturing and use in the absence of a coherent and functioning united states chemical policy is dominated by european system called reach. i won't get into much detail about the european regulatory system, but it is significantly more burdensome and costly than many of our businesses can afford to deal with. unfortunately, today is the -- it is the global standard. what we benefit by enacting meaningful u.s. chemical policy setting our nation once again to be the world leader not only in

chemical manufacturing or manufacturing in general, but to set the global standard in how chemicals should be managed. you know, that's what we are talking about. that's what this is all about. so there are two things that are bringing this industry back to the united states. one is our plentiful and cheap natural gas. and the other is this legislation. can you imagine people anticipating that the legislation is going to pass and making corporate decisions bringing back many, many jobs to the united states. so it's going to be the surge in economic benefit and consequently right now the price of natural gas, the main feed stock that goes into chemical manufacturing is far cheaper in this country than it is in europe. so i think we're looking at -- i say to my good friend who who hs carried this ball, senator udall, it's great that those two

things are happening at the same time. again, when i looked around at the press conference we had this morning and we saw everyone ranging from the most liberal democrats to the most conservative republicans, that doesn't happen very often in washington, d.c. and i think a lot of it is due to my good friend from new mexico along with senator vitter has been carrying this ball. with that, i would go ahead and vacate the floor and just ask if there are any comments. mr. udall: chairman inhofe, thank you very much. i just want to really thank you for your leadership. you're the chairman of the environment and public works committee, and i remember we came early on, senator vitter, myself to you and said you know, this bill we've been working on it a couple of years and we think it's ready to go. but obviously it has to go through your committee. and you worked with us all the way along the line.

and a lot of this has to do with your leadership and helping us with amending it in a way to keep making it bipartisan. and that's really been the history of this bill, is that it has grown. as you know, it passed your committee 15-5. chairman inhofe, our next speaker, senator whitehouse, on your committee with you -- i mean, he was able to work with you and three other members of the environment and public works committee to get the bill in the shape that we could then get it ready for the floor. and working with you, we've made a few additional tweaks in things, but i think it's ready to go, don't you? mr. inhofe: if the senator would yield, i just would observe the number of people who said when the bill first started out, there was a lot of opposition. there was opposition in our committee. and i think a lot of people on our committee were surprised when we passed it on a bipartisan basis. then of course once it got down

to the floor, this is -- you're going to have support from all corridors. again, it was a bipartisan effort and it's kind of rewarding to have that happen now and then. this is a good example. mr. udall: this is a great example. thank you so much. once again, we couldn't have done this without your leadership, your chairmanship of the environment and public works committee helped to shaib this and helped us -- helped to shape this and helped us move in a bipartisan way. i'm going to next ask senator whitehouse to talk a little bit because senator whitehouse has the ability of an experience of coming from a state, as a state official, a state former attorney general. he took a look at this bill. it was ready to go in front of the environment and public works committee. and he looked at it as a former a.g. he looked at it in terms of the states being able to participate in enforcement, and was able to help us craft a bill that could

get out of committee 15-5. senator whitehouse, we really appreciate your help and your hard work on this. you did an amazing job. any thoughts, comments about are we ready to go, is this something the senate can take up and get done now in terms of where we have it right now? mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i would answer my colleague's question by saying i think we are very definitely ready to go. and we're particularly ready to go because of senator udall's achievement in securing the 60th vote, a filibuster-proof majority who are on this bill as cosponsors. that doesn't count people who are willing to vote for it. i think we always had 60 people voting for it. but to have 60 people willing to cosponsor it so that it's clear from the get-go so that if this bill is called up, it will get through. i think that is very, very important. there was some dispute on the

environment and public works committee. we had a very lively hearing. and i think the impact of that hearing caused people to go back and say we really do need to improve this bill in some ways. i want to commend senator merkley and senator booker for joining me in i guess a little mini gang of three to pull the bill to a place where we would all support it in the committee. and that's part of how it got to 15-5. i think since then what senator udall has been able to accomplish is some of those five have come over to join the 15. to say that it's a 15-5 e.p.w. committee-supported bill actually understates because of senator udall's continued work. there is one issue i want to make a particular point on because i know both senator udall and i have served as attorneys general of our state. we take this question of a sovereign state's ability to defend its own citizens very importantly. and we both were attorneys

general. we had the responsibility to very often lead for the state those public protection efforts. so we wanted to be very careful about making sure that there was a significant role for the states in this bill to look out for the health and the safety of their citizens. and what we came up with is a provision that i believe tracks very closely with the constitutional provisions that govern this. so, a state is restricted from taking action here if it would unduly burden interstate commerce. well, that's a statutory restriction, but guess what? as senator udall knows, that's also the constitutional restriction under the so-called dormant commerce clause. so you weren't going to be able to move much further than that anyway. that is essentially the commerce clause written into legislative text. the next is if the action by the

state would violate a federal law or regulation, well, there's another part of the constitution called the supremacy clause which says that when congress has made a decision, the states can't overturn it. so once again, the restriction that we have on states coming to protect their citizens mirrors and matches a restriction that exists in the united states constitution. the last piece says that if the states is going to regulate in this area, it has to be based on peer-reviewed science. well, there's a third clause in the constitution called the due process clause. under the due process clause a regulatory agency can't just willy-nilly regulate. if it does its regulation can be challenged as being arbitrary and capricious. in order to meet the challenge it is arbitrary and capricious

it has to be based on a sound factual focus -- foundation. in the world of science that is peer reviewed science evidence. as an attorney general working with an attorney general we are confident where this bill is now gives our colleagues, attorneys general the ability to have the strong case to be made that they still have the authority to take action where their state has a real problem and people's health and safety are suffering and somebody needs to act even if for some reason somebody at e.p.w. won't. i'll close by saying this. this has been an education in leverages slating for me -- in legislating for me. i came out of being a prosecutor, executive official, i came out of being a staff person for a governor. i came out of being a practicing lawyer. but watching senator udall work has been instructive here because he won't say this, but i'm prepared to saip that -- sat he cosponsored this bill at a

time when he didn't like it. i think he cosponsored this bill at a time when what he saw wasn't that this is the bill i'm going to go with. but he saw that we need to fix tsca. we need to have a bipartisan solution to this. and if it takes me signing up for a bill that i don't like as the opener to begin building that consensus that went first with tom, then with senator carper coming on,ing then with our merkley-booker-whitehouse contingent and now most recently with senators durbin and markey joining us, he has been the thread that has made all that possible. and so i just wanted to close by expressing a personal appreciation to him for hanging in there through particularly that early period when there was not a lot of support for this in our caucus. and working with us and working with is senator inhofe and senar vitter to make the coalition we

have today. congratulations to senator udall and thanks for letting me say a few words. mr. udall: senator whitehouse, thank you so much. i just want to say about senator whitehouse, i mean, this bill would not be where it is today unless we had that trio working in the environment and public works committee. i really believe that. they took the bill that was coming up, we had a hearing on it, and they really looked and analyzed it and applied all the principles that senator whitehouse and i both talked about, and they came up with what was a very, very significant improvement. and so we're -- we're here today because of your hard work, and i have been very open. i think senator vitter has been -- he's going to join us in a minute -- senator vitter has been very open. both of us have said give us your ideas, give us your input, and we're going to take a look at it and we get technical

advice from the e.p.a., says will this work because they're over there running this bureau, and so you should feel very good about moving it down the field to the point where we are today. mr. whitehouse: my only caution going forward is that for all the wonderful work that's been done by senator vitter and senator udall to pull us together and for all the support that has been reached here, this is a fairly delicate compromise still, and we first of all have to figure out the procedural blockages and solve them that are preventing this from going through this chamber, and i would suggest that the majority party ought to be supporting the passage of legislation that is led by the majority party. it's the minority party's role to throw up objections and to make demands against legislation proceeding. so maybe not everybody on the

other side has completely taken aboard that they're in the majority now, but i think that those blocks will be cleared and we'll have the chance to go forward. but then we've got to do something with the house, and either they have to pass something or they have to pass this or we end up in conference, and i think it's really important that the record of this bill reflect that there is not a whole lot of wiggle room here for mischief to be accomplished between the house and the senate, and my confidence here is that i really do think the industry supports this bill, they have worked with it, they have worked with you, and so i don't think there is a huge incentive for mischief, but i think we do have to be on our guard that the spirit and the structure and the key points of this piece are preserved in anything that goes forward, because otherwise we're back to where we started with everybody back in their seats again. mr. udall: and senator

whitehouse, i couldn't agree more. i think those are the delicate phases we have to go through, and what i have been telling our house colleagues all along is that we've worked long and hard on this, we have been more comprehensive than they have, and so we need their patience to work through it with us and that there is not a lot of room. i couldn't agree with you more, that that's where we are today in terms of the -- and i've got good relationships over there in the house. i served there ten years, and fred upton and john shimkus and frank pallone, they're all willing to work with us. i -- i feel that if we -- if we look at what our goal is here, is to protect the american public, to protect vulnerable populations, i think we can get this done. mr. whitehouse: while we have the floor and until senator vitter comes, might it be a good time to say a kind word about our staffs? i know that during our process, our staffs worked enormously

hard, and yours have been at this for a longer time than just that intense period of negotiation where we moved the bill in our section, but i would defer to you to make those comments, but i would applaud your staff and senator vitter's who have really been doing a terrific job. mr. udall: i couldn't agree with you more, and i also want to talk a little bit about senator frank lautenberg also and have a picture here of him with his grandchildren. but let me first of all say -- and senator whitehouse, do you want to mention your staff member that worked on this that i know just spent time with jonathan black and with the whole team. we had a great team of staff members who are very goal oriented and wanting to get things accomplished. mr. whitehouse: my team was led by emily underly who leads my environmental team. she has terrific credibility in the environmental community, and she knows these laws very well, but even with that, it was an

enormously complicated task. this was a big bill. i forget the number of changes we actually put into it in the course of that negotiation, but it was 20, 22. it was a big array of changes. so it was a lot of work in a short period of time, and she and your staff and everybody who was involved in that really dove in and worked hard in the best traditions of good staff work in the united states senate, and with the intention to get to yes. mr. udall: thank you, senator whitehouse. really appreciate your comments here today and especially pressure senator whitehouse -- appreciate senator whitehouse's participation in terms of moving this forward in a bipartisan way. i worked with my staff diligently on this. i was lucky to have a chief of staff by the name of mike collins who spent many hours working on this. my legislative director, andrew wallace, drew wallace, worked on this. he's a lawyer by training. jonathan black was the

legislative assistant with the main policy area. he has been with this all along, very evenhanded and very good at dealing with other staff members and getting people to focus on the goal and not get into the arguments and not get sidetracked. so we -- we've had -- and i think this is true of the staff on the republican side and the staff on the democrat side, we've had tremendous support, and i expect that to go forward now when we start -- if we can get floor time and get this out and i believe the bill's ready to go. i think that we have the kind of staff effort in the house and the senate that can resolve most of the major differences without without -- without too much problems. so that's what we're looking forward to. as i said earlier, i just wanted to say a few words. this is a picture here of senator frank lautenberg and his

grandchildren, and one of the things -- i served on the environment and public works committee with senator lautenberg for a number of years, and there couldn't have been anything he was more passionate about than his grandchildren. and you saw that in his -- his public work. before i got onto the committee, senator lautenberg was a champion in terms of smoking and indoor smoking and tobacco smoke hurting people, and passed some significant legislation, and so it was particularly moving to me to hear him say when he got on this compromise bill with senator vitter, he said he thought that bill, the lautenberg-vitter bill, would save more lives than all of the work he had done in the public health and environmental arena, and i know he said that to

bonnie lautenberg, and that really hit all of us, that he -- he saw the legislation, he saw how it was going to evolve, and he really believed that this would make a difference. and i saw this in senator lautenberg over and over again on the committee. whenever an issue would come up, it doesn't matter what issue it was, he always came back to his grandchildren. are we doing the right thing by our children? so if we were looking at an infrastructure issue and the question was how do we frame the best possible infrastructure package, he was looking out a couple of generations in the future and saying are we going to pass on a better infrastructure system so we can grow jobs and do those -- do those kinds of things? and he had a passion about it and he brought up his grandchildren on a frequent basis, and so we all miss him

very much here, but we have named this bill after him. this bill is the frank lautenberg safe chemical act, and everybody's going to know how it started because he was -- he was one who believed in fighting for the very best, but he also believed in compromise, and i'll never forget when senator lautenberg, he had what i would call the perfect bill or -- i guess that's the best way to describe it, the perfect bill, and he was able to pass it through the environment and public works committee, but it passed without a single republican vote, and when it passes out of committee, it's now ready for floor time, but everybody realized without any republicans on the bill, it wasn't going to go anywhere, and so leadership said, you know, you better go back to square one. you can't get this out of the senate the way it's currently crafted. and to senator lautenberg's

credit, he then took the opportunity to visit -- i believe senator manchin was involved with this in terms of them coming together, and they started talking and saying, you know, maybe we can come up with something that's bipartisan, that it can attract people from both sides, and that was the original lautenberg-vitter bill which was introduced. it immediately had -- this is one of the interesting things. it immediately had 24 cosponsors, 12 republicans, 12 democrats. i was one of those cosponsors, and -- and i think that was due, one to the very good staff work. he had some great people on his staff, but it was due to his meeting of the minds with senator vitter and coming together and finding that common ground, and i remember -- i'll never forget "the new york times" on that bill came out

almost immediately. they had huge respect for senator lautenberg, and they said, you know, this is much better than current law. the congress ought to pass this. of course it needs a couple of changes, and i think they mentioned three things in their editorial. we eventually made those three changes that they were talking about, but that just shows you the respect that senator lautenberg had where he was able to work with everyone, he was able to convey to the media what he was trying to do, and he had tremendous support for engage engageing -- engaging the other side. and one of the things that's helped us come such a long way is that his -- we lost frank and then i joined with senator vitter to work on the bill, but we lost frank but we haven't lost bonnie, his widow. bonnie lautenberg has been in

this from the very beginning, wanting to see this bill become law, wanting to see that her children and grandchildren are protected, and i remember very well her speech that she gave on the floor of the environment and public works committee. she -- she came down, senator inhofe was very generous in terms of saying, you know, if senator lautenberg's wife, bonnie lautenberg, wants to come down and testify on this bill, we're going to put her right up front. she spoke eloquently at the e.p.w. committee earlier this year, and said -- and this is -- and this is a direct quote from what she said at that time. "frank understood that getting this done required the art of compromise. this cause is urgent because we are living in a toxic world. chemicals are rampant in the

fabrics we and our children sleep in and wear. the rugs and products in our home and in the larger environment we live in. how many family members and friends have we lost to cancer? we deserve a system that requires screening of all chemicals to see if they cause cancer or other health problems. how many more people must we lose before we realize that having protections in just a few states isn't good enough? we need a federal program that protects every person in this country." and end quote. that's bonnie lautenberg testifying before the environment and public works committee. we also earlier in the day today had a large number of groups which i'll talk about in a little bit, and bonnie lautenberg came down and spoke once again eloquently about the need to get this done for our children, and to have a tough cop on the beat that's going to

look out there and analyze these chemicals, try to do the right thing when it comes to that regulatory effort at the same time as senator inhofe said working with the business community. and so it's been great having bonnie lautenberg work with us, when i know she -- she feels so passionate about this, she just picks up the phone from home and calls senators and says, you know, the bills -- the bill's at this particular point, we need your help. will you take a look at it, get with your and a staff. she has been quite an advocate in terms of moving this -- moving this legislation along. now, just to say a little bit about what happened earlier today, because it was really a remarkable, remarkable experience to see the coming together of democrats and republicans and for us to

finally reach the 60 votes we need in order to break a filibuster and get the bill on the floor. and we have a variety of groups represented, and the public health and environmental side. my good friend, fred crock from the environmental defense fund was there, colleen omara. then we had people from the march of dimes, the humane society, the physicians committee for responsible medicine, moms clean air force, and other groups were there in that n.g.o. side. we also had business leaders like former congressman cal dooley who i served with in the house of representatives. cal is now head of what's called the american chemistry council. there were other leaders that were also there on the business side. the alliance of automobile

manufacturers, the u.s. chamber of commerce, the national association of manufacturers, the american petroleum institute. when we got them all there and saw them together, the big question i ask is who would have ever thought that all of these groups would be together supporting this bill and wanting this bill to move forward? and so that's one of the reasons we say to the leadership now, this bill is ready to go. it has 60 senators. we believe the actual votes would be higher than that, but clearly we have 60 cosponsors now and we're ready to roll here. so that's something that is very important for both the leadership on our side and the

leadership on the republican side to know that we're willing to do the hard work on the floor and willing to make sure that these kinds of issues that will arise as we move through this, that we can take care of those. now i want to say a little bit about -- and i'm hoping that senator manchin or senator vitter will arrive at some point here because they have crucial things that they want to talk about. but people should understand the toxic substances control act of 1976 is there to protect american families, and it doesn't. there are over 80,000 -- 84,000 known chemicals and hundreds of new ones every year. only five have been regulated by the e.p.a. only five out of 84,000. and what's absolutely clear here is the american people want and

deserve a government that does its job to keep families safe. that's why i rise today to urge support of the passage of the frank lautenberg chemical safety act for the 21st century. senator vitter and i introduced this legislation for one reason and one reason only, to bring the nation -- to fix our nation's broken chemical law. ever since the e.p.a. lost a lawsuit in 1991, it hasn't been able to regulate asbestos, a known carcinogen. that was one of the key things that senator lautenberg knew a lot about. it was in 1991. imagine 20-plus years back. the fifth circuit court of appeals in a ruling said in their analysis and in their tests that they put forward, they said the lawyers at the

e.p.a. looked at it and said we're unable to regulate asbestos now. we're unable to move forward. and no real activity has taken place since then. there's nothing that says something's more broken if an agency is unable to move forward with the regulatory activities it was set up to do. for decades the risks are there and were there. the dangers are there. but there's really no cop on the beat taking a look at chemical safety. the current system has failed. it fails to provide confidence in our consumer products. it fails to ensure our families and communities are safe. and there's just no doubt that reform is overdue. 40 years overdue. on this sunday the tsca will be 40 years old. i see that my good friend, senator vitter, has arrived on the floor. let me just say a moment before i introduce senator vitter that

i couldn't have a better partner. i remember senator vitter over two years ago, you and i met for dinner. we talked about this bill. we said let's work on it with each other. let's grow bipartisan support. you've worked actively on both sides of the aisle, as i have. and we've come a long way. and we think we're ready to go. we think this bill is ready to go, and i sure appreciate the partnership that you and i have formed on this. you've been a man of your word. when you told me you're going to do is, you'd do it. and that's the way we've worked through all of the issues, and we've had many issues. so, senator vitter, we're just -- just to notify you, we're in a colloquy situation now until about 3:40. so i think we have about five more minutes of the colloquy, and then senator daines, i believe, has arrived, and i think he's taking time at about

3:40 unless we can persuade him to give us a minute or two. but please, senator vitter, and thank you for your good work on this. you have really pulled long and hard to get the bill to this point, and we're ready to go, aren't we? mr. vitter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. absolutely we're ready to go. and i want to join my friend and colleague, senator udall. i want to join the chairman of the committee, senator jim inhofe, and urge all of us to come together as we have been over these many months and actually pass a good, solid bipartisan tsca reform effort. it was over two years ago that i sat down with the late senator frank lautenberg of new jersey neavment -- in an attempt to find compromise and work together in updating the drastically outdated toxic substance control act, what we're talking about sometimes known as tsca.

updating this law was a long-term goal and passion of frank as has been noted and i'm sad that he's not here today to see it finally moving forward because he worked so hard for that. after frank's passing, senator tom udall stepped in to help preserve frank's legacy, continued working with me to move bipartisan tsca reform forward. but in the time since senator udall have worked tirelessly to ensure the bill subsequently addresses the concerns of our fellow republican and democratic colleagues as well as concerns and ideas from industry and the environmental health and public -- excuse me -- environmental and public health community. if you need any evidence of this being accomplished, look no further than the 60 bipartisan cosponsors of this bill. 60 bipartisan cosponsors as well as endorsements from group ranging from the u.s. chamber of commerce, the national

association of manufacturers, the american chemistry council, the environmental defense fund, the march of dimes and the humane society. the frank r. lautenberg chemical safety for the 21st century act was created to balance the needs of the regulatory bodies, the chemical industry, the affected stakeholders in an effective and transparent way. and our bipartisan legislation ensures that americans will have the certainty they deserve that the e.p.a. is overseeing the safety of chemicals in the marketplace without stifling industry success and innovation. that works has been a long time in coming, as many of my colleagues have noted. but it's here, and now we need to move forward. we have a moment of opportunity. we need to act on it. and i urge all of us to come together here on the floor and get this done now. you know, in our work in the senate, these opportunities don't come a dime a dozen. they don't come every day.

they're here before us right now. and so i urge all of us to act. we have virtually unanimous agreement about a way to move this through the senate on an extremely short time frame. the only issue is senators burr and ayotte and their desire to have a vote on a completely unrelated piece of legislation. i am completely sympathetic to their having a vote, but we have an agreement otherwise to deal with tsca on the floor in two hours and move it through the senate. so we must take up this opportunity in an effective bipartisan and responsible way. and i urge all of us to do that. and i look forward to doing that in the very near future. and i thank again everybody who's worked so tirelessly on this including my lead

democratic partner in this effort, senator tom udall. with that, i yield the floor. mr. udall: senator vitter, thank you so much. as i've said, you've been a great partner to work with on this. you've always been a man of your word. senator manchin is now on the floor. i thought it would be good for him to talk a little bit about his involvement. i know he was an early is cosponsor. he was a good friend of senator lautenberg. senator manchin, one of the issues we've been talking about, is this bill ready to go. but, please, it's open for your comment and discussion. please proceed. mr. manchin: thank you, senator udall. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. manchin: i rise today to speak about the bill that is long past due, long past due and one that in part honors our dear colleague and my dear friend, frank lautenberg. anybody that served with frank knew that he served with compassion and he had a passion with that compassion that was

unbeatable. this is one of those that he had this compassion for and the passion to get it done. and i think we can all agree that the current toxic substance control act, which we know is tsca is inadequate and long past due to improve the law. it hasn't been done in more than 30 years. i couldn't believe that when frank explained to me the history of this piece of legislation. how this came about and how i became involved, in thirty started talk -- in 2013 i started talking to senator vitter and he was working it diligently, and he told me frank had always been on the front and championing this thing. so i had gone to frank to gept his input. he said joe, the time has come. it's time to do something, move the ball forward. it's not going to be a perfect bill. i understand that. to be honest, i've never seen a perfect bill. so we worked on it. but frank was willing to move it forward because here's the facts. in the 30 years that we've been

talking about doing nothing, but talking about it, 80,000 chemicals have been registered in the united states. 80,000 new chemicals have been registered which many of us use every day. we use these unknowingly. only 200 have undergone e.p.a. testing. only 200 out of 80,000. so frank thought very pragmatically, if you can just move the ball, can we do 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 or 50,000 of them? that's all he was trying to do and he knew this. there's not one person who can question senator lautenberg's dedication to reforming the law and protecting the health and environment of every american. this thing got a little bit nasty. was frank sincere about moving this forward? he had to take some steps. after 30 years frank lautenberg knew exactly what he wassing do. he knew exactly that he had to make some adjustments to move the ball. that's what we're here for. frank wanted to do that. and so we had a long talk about

that, and he said, joe, try to move it if you can. so we all got together. our staffs got together. things started to happen. and then senator udall became very much involved, and i appreciate it. he was on the committee and took it as a champion from there. and him and senator vitter are sitting on that committee really made some things happen. reforming tsca for the chemical industry, which directly and indirectly employs about 40,000 west virginians and over 800,000 people nationwide. when senator lautenberg met with senator vitter he toughened many of the most important provisions in the law and senator udall has taken up that effort further strengthening the bill. the bill that we have before us includes increased states' rights under preemption. that was our hangup for a long time. they worked through this and i commend both of them for working through the preemption to making sure that the states that basically have been out front and doing things are not going to be harmed by this.

that was never the intention. it ensures doctors, first responders and government, health and environmental officials would have greater access to confidential business information to guarantee those potentially exposed to harmful chemicals could receive the best possible treatment. most importantly, it contains a safety standard that unlike current law is based solely on human health in the environment and includes no cost-benefit analysis. now let me explain. the freedom industry. we had a leak of mchm, a chemical used in the coal cleaning process in west virginia. we had no idea what effect this chemical had on humans. now if you take -- we have one plant, one intake on the elk river that supplied about 300,000 homes with water. the whole valley was affected. everybody, don't drink it, don't bathe in it. we didn't know what effect would have, so all precautions were

taken. it shut down the whole industry, the whole community. it shut down the whole city, if you will. in july of last year, i pushed the n.i.h. and c.d.c. to conduct further studies into the potential health impacts of crude hchm. we didn't know and we had to push them. we had to get everybody on board to tell us as quickly as they could what effect it has on our humans, to our children. does it have any long-lasting effects. the n.i.h. tamoxifennology program concluded their study and indicated that no long-term health effects should be expected for residents who were impacted. that was great news. but it came long after a lot of harm was done. while i'm thrilled with the findings, we shouldn't have to wait more than a year, one year, to get safety information on the chemicals in question. the bill -- this bill that we're working on right now would require the e.p.a. to review all chemicals in congress for the first time ever. while this will be a long process, it is far superior to

the current system that allows the chemicals we use every day to go untested for health impacts on all of us. some of my colleagues have said the bill could be better, this bill could be better. i'm sure it could be better, every bill we've ever passed here could be better, but you have got to start somewhere. frank lautenberg knew that. after 30 years, he said listen, enough's enough. if frank lautenberg would have been able and we could have got this done two or three years later, my community, my state, 300,000 residents out of 1.8 million, wouldn't have been affected for one year, one year with the uncertainty of what effect it's going to have on them. i do know before i decide to vote for a bill i ask myself three things -- will this improve the quality of life of my constituents? is it better than the status quo? and have we worked as hard as we could to preserve our core beliefs? for me, the frank lautenberg chemical safety bill for the 21st century act is a yes on all three. it's a win-win-win for all of

us. senator lautenberg was an extremely smart legislator who knew it was time to move past partisan politics and craft a bill that would protect all americans. this bill does that and does it in grand fashion. let me just say that i think senator vitter summed it up. we have a little bit of jousting going on, if you will, of where -- and i understand. i sympathize with senator burr, senator ayotte in wanting to put a piece of legislation which most of us, i think all of us support. it's just maybe not the right fit for it right now, and this bill should go as clean, as much work and time has elapsed. this bill should go clean, i truly believe that. we are committed, our energy bill coming up, that we are with the l.w.g., the land water grant. we will fight for that. but it should be done in a different format than what this piece of legislation is being done and how important this piece of legislation, the frank lautenberg legislation he worked so hard and dedicated his life to. i want to make sure that we

support this in the fashion it should be, and it is bipartisan. there is not too many things here bipartisan. so this is one moment that we should seize and move forward for all of our constituents. and with that, senator udall, i commend you for the job you have done and the work you have put into this, and i know that frank would be proud of you. mr. udall: senator manchin, i want to thank you, too, because i know you have labored hard on this and you helped the original cosponsors get together and talk with each other and helped them find common ground, and i know we both -- with senator vitter here, we both believe we're going to have a couple of meetings now to try to move forward as you talk out with the bill, meet with leadership, iron out the differences, but this thing's ready to go. mr. manchin: the preemption was the last thing hanging, right? that was the hardest. you have worked through that. all those who had concerns about that know they will not be usurped by preemption, that we will commence and say you have to reduce your standards.

mr. udall: and the key here is that states are going to be able to participate much more. when we started with the original bill, we have worked towards more of having states participate. so i know that senator daines has been very generous to us and shown us great courtesy and we've run over our time. i'm going to yield the floor to senator manchin unless you have anything else -- mr. manchin: i would just like to recognize mrs. lautenberg here to observe this historic moment. we're so happy to have you here, bonnie. i know frank would be proud of all of us trying to fight the good fight that he fought forever. there is our good friend right there. he's a champion. mr. udall: joe, earlier before you got here, this is what i showed everybody, which was frank and his grandchildren. you know well how he always talked about his grandchildren, and how we were supposed to legislate with grandchildren in mind. thank you very much, senator daines, for your courtesy.

both -- you can count on me and senator manchin to work with you on the land and water conservation fund. you know, he's from west virginia but i'm from the west like you are, and i think we all believe that that should -- that should move forward. thank you very much, and yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: montana has a rich legacy of service to our country. from maintaining our nation's peace through strength strategy at montana's moundstrom air force base where we oversee one-third of our nation's intercontinental ballistic missiles or to our army and air national guard members who work to support our communities in time of emergency and respond to calls for deployment overseas. montana is playing a critical role in meeting our nation's security and military needs, and

montanans know firsthand the importance of supporting our men and women in uniform. the national defense authorization act is critical to ensuring service members have the funding and the support they need to fulfill their missions. the ndaa prioritizes the needs of our service members while protecting the important role that montana holds in international defense. the passage of this legislation is critical to carrying out our missions in an increasingly dangerous world. in fact, earlier this year, former secretary of state henry kissinger testified before the senate armed services committee. he described the perilous state of our global security. and i quote -- "the united states has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the second world war." the threats that we face from syria, from russia, from china, from isis are too serious for our troops to lack the resources they need to protect and defend

our nation from foreign threats, yet the leader of our troops, our commander in chief has threatened to veto, has threatened to veto the bipartisan ndaa which would fund our military priorities at the levels he requested. this is the same foreign policy agenda that has become the hallmark of president obama's now-famous lead from behind strategy. even former democrat president jimmy carter agrees. in fact, earlier this summer, president carter was asked whether he thought president obama's foreign policy was a success or failure on the world stage, and here is what president carter replied, and i quote -- "i can't think of many nations in the world where we have a better relationship now than we did when he took over," and president carter then continued saying," i would say that the united states'

influence and prestige and respect in the world is probably lower now than it was six or seven years ago." and just this weekend, "the washington post" editorial board criticized president obama for holding our troops ransom for his domestic policy agenda. that editorial said this, and i quote -- "american presidents rarely veto national defense authorization bills since they are, well, vital to national security. refusing to sign this bill would make history but not in a good way." it is a mistake for president obama to use our troops for leverage. our troops deserve better. the ndaa seeks to provide our troops with the support they deserve. it fully authorizes spending on defense programs at the president's budget request level of $612 billion for fiscal year 2016. it authorizes $75 million for the southern border security

initiative to help address challenges facing the u.s.-mexico border. it supports service members beyond their years of sacrifice to our nation by extending retirement benefits to the vast majority of service members left out of the current system. it includes a provision that mirrors my legislation i introduced called the securing military personnel response firearm initiative, the semper fi act, which empowers a member of the armed forces to carry appropriate firearms, including personal firearms, at d.o.d. installations, reserve centers and recruiting centers. additionally, this bill provides much-needed support for montana's military missions. there is $19.7 million for the tactical response alert facility at at the air force base, $4.26 million for an energy conservation project there. it authorizes funding for avionics authorization programs,

increments one and two, to ensure that our c-130's can stay in the air and authorizes funding for c-130 engine modifications. and it expresses the sense of congress that the nuclear triad plays a critical role in ensuring our national security and that it is the policy of the united states to operate, sustain and modernize or replace the triad and to operate and modernize or replace a capability to forward deploy nuclear weapons and dual-capable fighter bomber aircraft. because the heroes of our nation serve our country selflessly day in and day out, and they don't deserve partisan politics. it's unfortunate that critical appropriations for our military and veterans were blocked in recent weeks, and today's vote shows there is overwhelming bipartisan support to fund our troops. given this, it is senseless, it is senseless that partisan politics continues to block

funding for our troops. i urge our democratic senators to put politics aside. let's do what's right. join me in supporting the department of defense appropriations bill. our heroes deserve our utmost respect and the security to carry out their missions without threats, without threats from our commander in chief. congress has a constitutional duty to provide for the funding of our troops. this body needs to uphold that responsibility. let's do what's right. let's pass the national defense authorization act. i yield back my time. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: