to ever get control of our out-of-control budget. and our out-of-control plunge into deficit spending year after year after year and into debt ever-growing. just heard today that there were now $18.5 trillion of debt that's going to come back to haunt us and future generations. so the triage involves defining what is essential. is this an essential expenditure that only the federal government can do? and defense spending falls that category. we can't -- that's something we can't leave to the states. secondly, there's a whole bunch of things that we would like to do, may be necessary to do but not urgently or a priority or essential when we have the money to do it. and then there's a third category, and the third category is why in the world are we doing that in the first place? how can we define those items that are not necessary, take those funds and use -- they

either give them back to the taxpayer or, if it's essential, put it into that fund rather than continuing to just raise the funding and keep all the "why are we doing that stuff in the first place?" funded year after year after year? so we're not being given that opportunity to do it. it's -- it's beyond my comprehension, that having established the caps now with the agreement that passed last week, which i couldn't vote for because it kept adding more to our debt and didn't fully address the real problem, entitlement spending, but nevertheless, the decision was made. we have the caps. it's now simply a process of allocating the money within the limits of how much can be spent. and that's what we're supposed to be able to do, of course in committee but we're supposed to also have the opportunity, as members of this united states senate, to bring forward amendments, to bring forward policy issues and others to debate on this floor and to vote on this floor and hopefully improve a bill and make it better and make it more

cost-effective and efficient. well, okay, here we go. waste of the week. i think this is the 20-somethingth time i've been on the floor just during this week. every week the senate is in session i come and do the waste of the week. this week it addresses, as i said, the department of defense. and i want to highlight what a recent inspector general of the department of defense report found over $40 million of overspending by the department of defense to build one gas station in afghanistan. that's right, over $40 million to build one gas station in afghanistan. the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction found that the department of defense task force for stability and business operations spent actually $43 million on a single natural gas fueling station in afghanistan.

the station was originally projected to cost $3 million. and we'll talk about how did it ever get to $3 million let alone how in the world could this have gone -- gotten to a total of $43 million? according to the i.g. report, the d.o.d. spent this money -- and i quote -- "to fund the construction and to supervise the initial operation" -- the initial operation -- "of the station. specifically it spent approximately $12.3 million in direct costs" -- i guess that's building the station -- "and $30 million in overhead costs." we are doing in to find out what those overhead costs were but somebody came away with a pretty good profit margin just by submitting bills for $30 million in overhead costs, which

apparently was approved and spent and given to the contractors. now, to make matters worse, the inspector general's office found that the reasons for why the gas station needed to be built in the first place were not legitimate. they said there's zero evidence that the department of defense conducted the prior research necessary to identify potential obstacles before initiating this $43 million project. wouldn't you think somebody -- somebody -- would have said, now, wait a minute, what is this for? where's it going to be? how much is it going to cost? is it worth -- what's the projected spending? and is it going to be worth doing this? and does it make any sense? the i.g. office said zero evidence in the -- in the d.o.d.'s research that could be a potential obstacle to going

forward with this. one of those obstacles is the fact aafghanistan doesn't have the -- afghanistan doesn't have the pipeline infrastructure to get the gas to the gas station. another key obstacle is that on average, it would cost more to convert a vehicle in afghanistan to use compressed natural gas than the average afghan earns in a single year. so what all this means is that the department of defense built a gas station that doesn't consistently have gas or customers all for $43 million. and most outrageously, the original $3 million allocated to this project, even though over and above the international norm for building this kind of gas station, natural gas. the international energy agency analyzed global construction costs for similar fueling stations and found that

construction costs ranged from $200,000 to $500,000 per stati station. it did acknowledge that in the non-industrialized countries, such as afghanistan, costs would be on the high end. okay, the high end here is $500,000. it still raises the question of, if nobody's going to use it or we can't get gas to the station to put into the vehicles, why are we doing this in the first place? but it also raises the point that why did it cost $3 million in construction costs projected when the average high-end is $500,000 per station in places like afghanistan? $3 million? what do you get for $3 million, what they say you got for $3 million, ending up costing $12 million and a final bill of

$43 million, what do you get? here's what you get. you get one of these out in the desert in afghanistan -- it's a little bit blurry. there's the structure. you've got some pumps here. they actually did want to prove that some cars use this so there's -- there's a couple of vehicles here. out there's the desert. there's a telephone pole i guese out there. you can see we're not talking about the middle of the city here. so that's what you get. that's what you get, folks, for $43 million of expenditure. now, this is almost beyond the pale. it's almost something that you come down here and say, this can't be true. i mean, you can't make this stuff up. this is an example, though, i'm afraid, with a lot of other overspending, which we're going to dive into -- bu, but this one example alone illustrates that

someone is making some very, very bad decisions and that taxpayers' dollars were, t to nt say at the least, properly stewards by someone. americans deserves an answer to this fraud, to this waste. why did we pay $43 million to build this gas station when there was no research justifying building it in the first place? they want an explanation of why this particular project was $40 million over budget. and even the budgeted price was significantly higher, by 8 to 10 times higher, than the average projected costs of building something like this in a third world country. taxpayers need an explanation of how and why this could have ever happened and there needs to be a full investigation and we need and will demand answers. what i've illustrated here is a

perfect example of why my -- not only my constituents but the american public feels like washington can no longer be trusted and that no one in washington gets it. well, i guess it. i guess it and we ought to be all getting it. and we ought to be just as outraged as our constituents in terms of our performance here. this is totally unacceptable. and as i said, i'm one of the biggest supporters of a strong national defense that stands on this senate floor. but we are weakening our defense and not allocating money to the essentials that we need. to support our soldiers in the essential tasks that they have with the need. and we're doing this kind of stuff and it's got to stop. so here we are, in my 20-somethingth waste of the week, now totaling already over $117 billion -- that's not million -- over $117 billion of identified waste.

and who knows what the tweetle be if we could comb through every agency? our former for colleague tom con used to come down here and say it's a good trillion dollars if you add it all u. i don't know if it reaches that way or not but, boy we're, well on our way. we're well over $117 trillion and these are just some of the things i've identified this year coming to the floor to address this. i hope my colleagues will pay attention to this. highway patrol we cathis.i hopee can't get the big things done. the president won't sign anything, won't engage in anything relative to the big guerrilla in the room here. the one thing that's going to take us down economically is the runaway entitlements. despite the many efforts, many of which are bipartisan, despite those efforts, the president has said, no, no, no, no, no, not on my watch. and so the spending just keeps going up. but the last thing we can do until we get somebody more responsible as our leader in the

white house and we have the will here and the courage here to take on what we all know we need to do to get our house -- fiscal house back in order, in the meantime, we can at least stop this egregious spending and waste of taxpayers' dollars through fraud and abuse. and i'm going to continue to do this. so i'll be back next week. we've got them lined up in our office. i could come down here virtually every day and do this and not run out of examples of how taxpayers' dollars are being wasted. you can tell i'm getting worked up about all thissomebody needs to get worked -- all this because somebody needs to get worked up about this. because it's not happening and the public is giving up and throwing up their hands saying you're dysfunctional. and they're right. and with that, madam chairman -- madam 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:

mr. udall: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. dawp dawp thank you -- mr. udall: thank you, madam president. i would ask to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: thank you very much today. i rise to introduce the hardrock mining and reclamation act of 2015. first i want to thank senator heinrich who will be here in a moment and be speaking for working with me on this bill. he's a dedicated conservation senator and really, really cares about this issue, and we've both

been working together on this. i so much appreciate all of his hard work and his commitment to this important legislation. and i also want to thank senator bennet and senator wyden, thank them for their support and hard work on this bill. i'd also like to thank our new mexico colleague, congressman lu juan for his efforts on the house side. we're proposing this bill for one reason, to reform the mining law of 1872. it is a matter of simple fairness. it is a matter of common sense. and it is a reform that is long overdue. the 1872 mining law played an historic role in the settling of the west. it encouraged mining for silver, gold, copper, uranium, and other minerals on public lands. it helped the west to grow. but there was a price, one we

are still paying. it did almost nothing to compensate the public. it did nothing to protect the environment. and it did nothing to require mines to clean up the mess. it did nothing to require those mines to clean up the mess. the legacy is clear, thousands of abandoned mines, contaminated land, polluted streams, costly cleanup, and taxpayers stuck with the bill. we have a 19th century law which is totally inadequate to 21st century challenges. the spill at the gold king mine earlier this year tells the story. with terrible damage in my state and in other states and in the navajo nation, this is a disaster on many levels to our water, our economy, and to our culture. mistakes were made at the gold king mine.

we have to do all we can to make sure they are not made again. and to make sure that our communities are fairly compensated for losses. that's why senator heinrich and i introduced the gold king mine spill recovery act of 2015. but the gold king mine disaster is also a wake-up call. the mine is still there, the owners are not. there are up to 500,000 abandoned mines in our country. they are a ticking time bomb. they are leaking toxins into our rivers and streams in the west and have been for decades. it will cost tens of billions of dollars to fix this. anywhere, the estimates say, from $20 billion to $54 billion, with a b, billions. a mining royalty will bring fairness to taxpayers and help pay for the cleanup. i pushed for and i will keep pushing for mining reform, first in the house and now in the

senate because i believe in a simple principle, the polluter pays. the polluter pays. but under current law, the mining companies do not pay, not for the minerals they take, not for the damages they have done. this cannot continue. they cannot continue to reap all the benefit and hundreds of millions of dollars while taxpayers continue to shoulder all the burden. this goes against every notion of simple fairness. working americans know this. middle-class families know this. both sides of the aisle know this. the 1872 mining law also basically gives away federal land. for $5, less than what a working american pays for lunch, mining companies can buy an acre of federal land if they discover a valuable mineral deposit. so there is no surprise here,

hard rock mining companies don't want reform. they've had a free ride for a long time. no wonder they want to keep it, but it is long past time for that ride to end. coal, oil and gas companies have paid royalties for many decades. hard rock mining companies including foreign mining companies should do the same. our bill will require that they do that. it's not a radical idea. the oil industry pays a small fee on every barrel of oil. the coal industry pays a small fee on each ton of coal, and the sky has not fallen in, and when disasters happen from oil spills to abandoned coal mines, these industries bear some of the costs. madam president, history may explain why the 1872 law was created, but it's hard to see now why it should continue.

what began as an effort to settle the west has become a gravy train for multibillion-dollar companies, and not just american companies, but foreign ones as well. we know the taxpayers are getting shortchanged. we just don't know how much. in 2011, i asked the general accounting office for the numbers. they couldn't say not only do the hard rock mining companies not pay, they don't disclose. and under current law, they don't have to. not how much they extract from federal lands, not where the minerals are sold, not the overall value, and at the same time oil, gas and coal brought in $11.4 billion in federal revenue. we need to get this done. we can't keep asking working americans and struggling communities to foot the bill while mining companies reap the profit. madam president, let's be clear.

the silver and gold on public lands are a natural resource. they belong to the american people. they should be an investment for public good, not a giveaway for private gain. after my father left office after eight years as secretary of interior, he was asked what was -- what were his big regrets, and he said mining reform was his greatest unfinished business. 50 years later, we still need to do this, and we still need to do it now. we have an outdated law, special treatment for the profits of large hard rock mining companies is not a reason to keep it, at least not to the taxpayers of my state. it's time to stop giving away the store. it's time to reform the mining law of 1872. it's the right thing to do. it's the fair thing to do. i urge my colleagues to support this bill, and let's get this done.

now, i was just in a press conference with senator heinrich and senator bennet where we talked, and one of the questions that was asked was how are you working at building bipartisan support and is there bipartisan support? i just wanted to say a word on that, because we have seen very solid bills pass here in washington with bipartisan support, and one of the ones i just wanted to point out, in 2007, in the house, nick rahall had a mining reform bill. he had republican cosponsors by the name of wayne gilchrest and representative christopher shays 24 republicans in the house passed that bill, 244-166. and paul ryan, who was in my class when i came into congress in 1998, we arrived here at the same time, paul's now the speaker over in the house, paul ryan voted yes for mining reform

back in 2007 on this rahall bill. and so i think there if you look at the history here, this is a bill where we need to work with both sides of the aisle, and i hope and wish senator ryan -- congressman ryan and speaker ryan the best, and i hope he will join us in this effort to reform this long outdated law. and with that, i see my good friend and partner in this, senator heinrich, on the floor, and so i would yield the floor at this time. mr. heinrich: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico.

mr. heinrich: madam president, i want to begin by just thanking my colleague and the senior senator from new mexico, tom udall, for the incredible leadership that he has shown on this issue. i know it's something near and dear to his heart and something he absolutely and truly cares about. we've had a good team working on this over the course of the last couple of months. senator michael bennet of colorado has been a great contributor to this effort. congressman ben luhan of northern new mexico has taken a leadership effort in the house. and today we are joined by senator ron wyden of oregon on this legislation as well. as many folks know, in august, a large plume of bright orange mine waste spilled into the animus river which leads into the san juan and polluted the four corners region from colorado to new mexico and through the navajo nation.

if you take a look at this photo, which was shared with me by the president and vice president of the navajo nation, this is not what you want to see when you look at the river that you take your drinking water from or the river that you use for irrigation or the place that you go fishing or recreate and kayak on. this is not how our mountain streams in the southwest are supposed to look. and i think visually this got the attention of people all around the country as to the scope and scale of this problem. now, after the mine spill, i toured affected communities in new mexico and the navajo nation. i met with impacted residents, including farmers in aztec and ship rock, san juan county leaders, vice president jonathan

nez and attorney general jonathan branch. in the southwest, madam president, water is by far our most precious resource, so you could imagine the kind of impact that this disaster had on our communities. now, my colleagues in the environment and public works committee and the committee on indian affairs have now held hearings to investigate the environmental protection agency's actions which led to this spill and which seek to bring proper oversight to the agency's response. last week, the department of interior released a report of its independent technical evaluation of the e.p.a.'s action. the evaluation found that the e.p.a. did not properly appreciate the engineering complexity of trying to clean up the gold king mine and that it could, in fact, have prevented what you see here. so i share that anger and frustration that not only my

colleagues but more importantly our constituents have expressed over this terrible accident. it is why senator udall and myself have introduced separate legislation specifically to make these communities whole, and we need to continue to demand that the e.p.a. act with urgency to protect the health and the safety of the affected communities and to repair the damage inflicted on this watershed. that is our first and top priority. but we are doing a disservice to the american people by not also taking action to address the thousands, thousands of other similarly contaminated mining -- abandoned mines that literally litter the west and are leaking toxins into our watersheds, into the watersheds that provide drinking water and irrigation to our communities all across the west. there are estimates that 40% of

western watersheds have been polluted by toxic mining waste and that reclaiming and cleaning up abandoned mines to make this right is going to cost tens of billions of dollars. this latest disaster was all too familiar for those of us from the four corners region and to many people around the west. back in 1975, in an even larger accident than the gold king blowout, a tailings pile near silverton, colorado, spilled 50,000 tons of tailing, laden with heavy metals, into the animus river watershed, the watershed that drains from colorado into new mexico into the san juan and through the navajo nation in arizona as well. in 1979, a breached dam at a uranium bill tailings disposal

pond near church rock in new mexico on the navajo nation sent more than a thousand tons of solid radioactive waste and 93 million gallons of acidic liquid into the rio puerto. disastrous blowouts and spills like these are easy to see. they get the media's attention. but the toxins leaking silently out of thousands of abandoned hard rock mines are doing even more damage to our watersheds each and every year. for decades before the spill, the gold king mine actually leached water laced with heavy metals and sulfuric acid into cement creek which is a tributary of the animus. over the last ten years, an average of 200 gallons of highly polluted water each and every minute or more than 100 million gallons per year

flowed out of this mine and into the animus river via cement creek. the gold king and other abandoned mines in the san juan mountains in southwestern colorado continue to pollute the animus and san juan watershed as we speak. beyond the immediate cleanup of the gold king spill, it's high time that we as a congress overhaul our abandoned mine cleanup policies to make future disasters less likely and to address the thousands and thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting our watersheds. the navajo nation, which was perhaps most affected by the gold king mine blowout, has more than 500 abandoned uranium mines. last month, i met with officials at the navajo abandoned mine lands reclamation and uranium mill tailings remediation action office and learned about their

efforts to clean up these literally hundreds of sites. i visited a large uranium tailings disposal pile in shiprock, in the town of ship rock, that sits close to the san juan river. if you look at the map here, this is the san juan river. this is the community of shiprock. we have the high school, the fairgrounds, the residential area all around a permanent tailings disposal site, something that is going to require stewardship for literally hundreds if not thousands of years. melvin yaze, a senior reclamations specialist with the department, also took me through an abandoned uranium mine site in the red valley chapter of the northern navajo nation. carrying a geiger counter, he showed me the abandoned mine and

a nearby home, house that was constructed using materials contaminated with radioactive materials. here you see mr. yaze with his geiger counter. now, this is obviously no longer occupied, but it gives you a sense for the impacts to members of the navajo nation, who some of which literally have their homes built with the spillover, the rock materials that came out of these mines and lived with that irradiation each and every day. now, the navajo government is doing its best to address this legacy, this legacy of uranium mining and milling. but i can tell you that they do not have anywhere close to enough resources or the funding necessary to clean up the waste from decades and decades of uranium mining. a large reason why the navajo

nation lacks adequate resources and why communities all across the indian country and the entire west are dealing with pollution from abandoned mines and lack resources is that we have not updated our federal laws on hardrock mining in 143 years. 143 years. now during the era of manifest destiny, the federal government encouraged americans to settle newly acquired lands in the west by passing laws, laws like the timber and stone act of 1878 and the desert land act of 1878, laws like the homestead act that my grandparents took advantage of. some of these laws gave away public lands and resources to private users with no strings attached and often no price tag attached. the general mining act of 1872 came along during this era of

unrestrained western expansion. it allowed individuals and companies to claim ownership of minerals in the public domain, minerals owned by us as a nation: gold, silver, copper, uranium, milindim and others by locating a mineral source, staking a claim and climb $5 for an -- claim $5 for an acre of land. miners did not have to consider environmental impacts or make plans to clean up the waste that they left behind, waste that has created the pollution and the contamination that we confront today. this law drew thousands of people to the west. my father, my mother's father, both made a living working in hardrock mining. but shortsighted policy also left behind a scarred legacy on

our lands. unlike other 19th century western settlement laws which have long since been reformed or replaced, the mining act of 1872 remains on the books today. while developers have resources like oil and natural gas and coal all pay royalties to return a fair value to taxpayers for our public resources, hardrock mining companies still mine publicly owned minerals for free. for free. and we still don't have a plan to address a century of pollution from abandoned mines. we desperately need to bring our mining laws out of the 19th century and into the 20th century. and that's why i'm joining my colleague from new mexico, senator udall; my colleague from colorado, senator bennet; senator wyden of oregon as well,

to introduce legislation to reform our outdated and ineffective federal policy on abandoned mines and on hardrock mining. our legislation will require that reasonable royalties and fees from hardrock mining be used to create a dedicated funding stream for cleaning up mine waste. a reclamation program that will allow states and tribes and nonprofit organizations to collaborate on projects to restore fish and wildlife habitat affected by past hardrock mining and to repair watersheds that are the very center of our economies in the west, the source of our essential agricultural and drinking water supplies for western communities up and down the spine of the rockies. this legislation will also reform the permitting process for new mines. hardrock mining companies will

need to protect water and wildlife resources and to provide financial assurance that they can actually fund reclamation, cleanup and restoration efforts after their mines close. so that in the future, we don't have this legacy of abandoned hardrock mines. these are simply commonsense reforms, reforms that, frankly, congress should have adopted decades ago. now i appreciate the value of the hardrock mining industry. my own family has benefited from it, and i recognize that the industry continues to provide good-paying jobs in states throughout the west. some mining companies are already stepping up to help clean up old waste sites. so i look forward to working with industry stakeholders to find practical ways to bring our policies into the 21st century. we cannot wait for more

disasters like the gold king mine spill for us to act. we cannot continue to do nothing while thousands of abandoned hardrock mines drain toxic metals into our rivers and our water supplies and our drinking water each and every day. we must come together and press forward for pragmatic reforms to our outdated federal hardrock mining laws. madam president, with that, i would yield to my colleague from michigan. mr. peters: thank you. madam president, i rise today to recognize the heroic efforts of amy jishe, a michigander who serves as a transportation inspector at detroit

international airport. i spoke to her a few moments on the floor and thanked her for her brave actions. recently while leaving work at the airport, amy observed an accident at a traffic light. she noticed that one of the cars was leaking gasoline and a fire had started underneath it. without hesitation, amy selflessly placed herself in harm's way to offer assistance and to warn others about the fire. and she worked to free the driver from the vehicle despite a stuck door and was able to free him shortly before the car burst into flames. afterward amy told a reporter, "when i saw the accident, the only thought that went through my mind was that i needed to help him." amy is a life long resident of dearborn heights and has worked with the transportation security administration in detroit for eight years. she and her t.s.a. colleagues across the nation work to keep the american people and the traveling public safe each and every day. as a member of the senate

homeland security committee it's a privilege to hear the stories of the men and women at the department of homeland security who work around the clock and around the world to keep our country safe. these individuals are dedicated to public service and willing to put america's safety and well-being above their own, and they deserve the recognition as well as the resources and policies that will continue to position them for success in the mission that they take so seriously and personally. i'd like to recognize amy's selfless action, quick thinking and dedication to her fellow americans. because of her actions, a young driver was able to walk away from what would have been a terrible tragedy. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts.

ms. warren: madam president, exactly three weeks ago the social security administration made a very quiet announcement. next year for just the third time since 1975, seniors who receive social security won't be getting an annual cost-of-living increase. two-thirds of seniors depend on social security for the majority of their income. for 15 million americans, social security is all that stands between them and poverty. but not one of these americans -- not one -- will see an extra dime next year. and millions of other americans whose benefits are pegged to social security, millions who receive veterans benefits, disability benefits and otherex. tough times. but not for everyone. according to most recent data from the economic policy institute, c.e.o.'s at the top 350 american companies received on average a 3.9% pay increase

last year. that's a lot of money because the average c.e.o. pay at one of the top 350 american companies was a cool $16.3 million in 2014. and on average, they got more than $500,000 each in pay raises. so c.e.o.'s get huge pay raises while seniors, veterans, and others who have worked hard -- 70 million of them -- will get nothing. why? it's not an accident. it's the result of deliberate policies set right here in congress. now social security is supposed to be indexed to inflation so that when prices go up, benefits will go up too. but congress's formula looks at the spending patterns of only about a quarter of the country, and the formula isn't geared to what older americans actually spend. projects for costs, core goods

and services, projections that remove the cost of prices tharts most uncertain and erratic show that inflation is up about 2%. but seniors who usually get a boost on january 1 won't see an extra dime next year. mostly because of falling gasoline prices, which just don't mean as much to millions of seniors who don't commute to work. meanwhile, seniors who are trying to cover things like rent and exploding prescription drug prices are just left out in the cold. and it's all federal policy. and what about those huge c.e.o. bonuses? they are also the consequence in part of congressional policy. a report released just last week from the center for effective government and the institute for policy studies details how taxpayers subsidize c.e.o.'s huge pay packages through billions of dollars in give-aways, including subs --

subsidies and a c.i.a. did -- cy loophole that allows them to write off obscene bonuses as a business expense. companies can make their own decisions on how much to compensate executives but because of the laws congress has passed, american taxpayers are forced to subsidize these multimillion-dollar pay packages. it is time for congress to make different choices. if we do nothing on january 1, more than 70 million seniors, veterans, and other americans won't get an extra dime. and while congress sits on its hands and pretends that there's nothing we can do for seniors or vets, while congress claims that there just isn't any money to fix the problem, american taxpayers will keep right on subsidizing billions of dollars workt -- worth of bonuses for

highly paid c.e.o.'s. it is a choice. congress can spend taxpayer money, subsidizing billions of dollars of bonuses for corporate executives. or congress can use that very same money to help 70 million people who live on social security, veterans benefits and disability payments. congress makes the choice. and that's why i'm here today along with a number of my colleagues to introduce the senior and veterans emergency benefits act. the save benefits act will give seniors on social security, veterans, those with disabilities and others a onetime payment equivalent to an average increase of 3.9%. the same tax subsidized pay increase that top c.e.o.'s received last year. now, we can pay the increase for seniors and vets without adding a single penny to the deficit

simply by closing one of the many tax loopholes that subsidize these giant pay packages for executives. in fact, according to the chief actuary of the social security, closing this loophole will create enough revenue to help seniors and vets and still have enough money left over to help extend the life of the social security trust fund. you know, this should be a bipartisan effort. nobody wants to see seniors struggle to pay their grocery and utility bills. everybody should want to extend the life of social security. and both democrats and republicans have expressed contempt for this tax loophole. back in 1993, congress passed section 162-m, a tax code provision designed to rein in excessive corporate compensation, but the provision includes so many loopholes, most

corporations just get around it. in 2006, in fact, republican senator chuck grassley said -- quote -- "sophisticated folks are working with swiss watch-like p devices to game this swiss cheese-like rule." in 2009, republican senator john mccain and democratic senator carl levin introduced a bill to shut down access to this loophole for corporate stock options, and just last year the republican chairman of the house ways and means committee, including reform of this loophole as part of his flagship tax reform bill. so let's just do it. let's close the loophole and let's use the money to give seniors and vets the support they need. think about what this change would mean.

that 3.9% is worth about $581 a year, a little less than $50 a month. now, i know that's just rounding up for those top executives that are pulling in an average of $16 million each. but social security payments average only about $1,250 appear month, and millions of seniors who rely on those checks are barely scraping by. a $581 increase could cover almost three months of groceries for seniors or a year's worth of out-of-pocket costs on critical prescription drugs for medicare beneficiaries. that $50 a month is worth a heck of a lot to the 70 million americans who would have just a little more in their pockets as a result of this bill. in fact, according to the analysis of the economic policy institute, that little boost could lift more than a million people out of poverty.

now, we all know someone who lives on social security, every single one of us. we know family members, a friend, a neighbor, people who worked hard all their lives and who now rely on social security checks to get by. giving seniors a little help with their social security and stitching up their corporate tax write-offs isn't just about economics. it is about our values. for too long, we have listened to a handful of powerful folks who had just one message -- cut taxes for those at the top, cut rules and regulations that keep businesses honest and let everybody else fight over the scraps. we've tried that approach and now we have a retirement crisis. guaranteed pensions are gone. 401-k's and i.r.a.'s have been decimated by the stock market. and fewer and fewer people can afford to save for the future. we've tried it and it was a

complete failure. these same powerful folks will tell you there's nothing we can do to help 70 million seniors, veterans, americans with disabilities and others who won't see an extra dime this year. they'll say we can't afford it. they'll say we can't do anything to expand social security. they'll say we need to gut social security in order to save it. they'll say all of this exactly at the same moment that we continue to shovel billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies out the door for corporations to boost pay to their highest paid executives. and that's the problem. the money is there. only right now it goes to a handful of c.e.o.'s because that's where the laws written by congress sends it. but congress can make a different choice, a choice that reflects our deepest values, a choice to give a boost to

70 million americans who have earned one, a choice to lift over one million people out of poverty, a choice to extend the life of social security. it's all about choices. millionaire and billionaire c.e.o.'s or retirees, vets and disabled americans. i ask my colleagues to support the save benefits act. january 1 will be here soon, and we need to make a choice now. thank you, madam president. and i yield to my colleague from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you very much to the senator from massachusetts. you know, we spend a lot of time here on the floor of the senate talking about how our states are different. that happens in the house of representatives where i served as well, but there is one thing that certainly unites all of our states and frankly one thing

that unites all of the front desks of our senate offices, and that is this -- we have been all flooded with phone calls from the thousands upon thousands of constituents in each one of our districts who are furious that they are going to get no increase in social security at the beginning of next year. despite the fact that prices for virtually everything that fixed income seniors are paying for going up, they're getting absolutely nothing to try to compensate them for those costs of living increases. and so we're hearing from people like kevin in bridgeport who said dear senator murphy, i'm a lifelong resident of bridgeport. i'm 63 years old. i'm living on ssdi due to a rare disease of the spinal cord. since my only source of income is ssdi, i am concerned about the recent announcement that there is going to be no cola

increase for 2016. if there is anything you can do to reverse this decision, millions of americans like me will be greatly helped and greatly appreciative. or fred from wilcott who said i understand the lower gas prices have kept the c.p.i. lower, with the result being no social security increase for 2016, but many of us do not drive or drive a limited amount, and the lower gas prices do not place additional funds in our pocket. meanwhile, the cost of beef, chicken, eggs and milk, the things we live on, have risen and have reduced our purchasing power. many of us have no other form of income. or add line in new -- add a line in new fairfield, connecticut, who said my husband and i are very concerned that we will not receive a cost of living increase in our check. please let this be the last time. with all the medical deductibles, food, clothing, taxes all going up, it just gets discouraging. we are up in age, not the best

of health. because of that, we are unable to get a job. social security is what we depend on. these stories can be multiplied millions of times over in all of our districts. what are we going to do about it? are we going to just sit here as we do with issue after issue and offer no response to the millions of our constituents who are telling us that they're going to have trouble making ends meet or are we going to make a choice, are we going to make a choice to end an unjustifiable loophole that allows corporations to hand over millions of dollars to their c.e.o.'s virtually tax free, or are we going to invest in the millions of seniors and disabled across this country who are going to have a hard time living, making ends meet if we don't make the change involved in the piece of legislation that we're announcing today. the save benefits act is going

to save the lives of seniors who without a cost of living increase are going to have trouble affording medication and food. and it really comes at no cost to the corporations that are right now receiving an unjustifiable tax benefit, one that congress really never intended. congress passed and has accepted as part of our tax law for 20 years this provision that doesn't allow companies to take a tax benefit for incomes over -- for salaries over a million dollars. not surprising that companies found a way around that provision because it exempted performance-based pay. so bonuses and stock options could be handed out without full tax benefit, and that became the standard for compensation packages. all of a sudden it wasn't about salary any longer and it became about this performance-based pay. and so you live in a world today in which there is this perverse

system. the more corporations pay their c.e.o.'s, the lower their tax bill. it's not going to hurt corporations to simply have to pay taxes on the bonuses above a million dollars that they send to their c.e.o.'s and big executives. they're going to continue paying their c.e.o.'s a lot of money. a lot of them live in connecticut. i don't have any fear that there is going to be a rapid diminution in the amount of money that c.e.o.'s are making, but at least those companies will pay taxes on those exorbitant salaries. we'll be able to use that money to make sure that their customers, the people that are buying the goods that these big companies make, actually have the purchasing power with which to enter and be active in the economy. and i guess that's the piece of economics that i'll end on here. by putting $50 more a month into the hands of frail, poor seniors

and disabled, you are providing an enormous economic benefit to the economy because all of that money is going to go into the economy. let me tell you what a senior living at or below the poverty line is going to do at $50 a month. they're going to put it into food. they're going to put it into medicine. they're going to put it into main street businesses. the fact is when you instead decide to subsidize salaries of above a million dollars, that money isn't going back into the main street economy. maybe a portion of it is but a lot of it is ending up just in giant accrued pensions and savings accounts or in offshore investments, not in main street economy. so this is not just the right thing to do for these seniors that are crying out to every single one of our offices to do something about this unjustifiable lack of a cola, but it's the right thing to do for the economy at large because the money is going to find its way into all sorts of crevices and corners of this economy that

badly need that kind of infusion. so i thank senator warren for introducing this legislation. i just wanted to come down to the floor to lend my voice to it and for it on behalf of the hundreds and hundreds of seniors in connecticut that are contacting and calling our office asking for the senate to do something. with that, let me yield to my colleague and friend from connecticut, senator blumenthal. mr. blumenthal: thank you,. madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, madam president. i'm grateful to my colleague and friend from connecticut for quoting some of the literally hundreds of letters that both of our offices have been receiving from social security recipients and also from veterans in my state and i suspect my colleagues from massachusetts have been receiving the same letters and i want to thank senator warren for her leadership on this issue but also to senator reid who joined

with me some years ago in seeking to close the loophole that is fundamentally undermining not only the fairness but the effectiveness of our tax code. let's understand what this loophole means to us as taxpayers. the performance pay loophole means that effectively unlimited corporate tax deductions are provided for executive pay. now, put aside the issue of whether this pay makes sense or is fair, whether you agree or disagree with these gargantuan amounts. who should pay for those extraordinary amounts of compensation? this loophole means that you and i as taxpayers are the ones who shoulder at least part of the

burden. we do it because the money loss to the federal government as a result of this tax deduction must somehow be gained some other way. and guess where it comes from. from you and i. not from those corporations who can deduct it. it comes from you and i. so we have sought over the years, senator reid and i, to close this loophole to make sure that the tax-deferred compensation for corporate executives and the performance pay loophole are effectively closed and the tax code is made fairer, but senator warren has introduced a new and profoundly important element to this fight, and that is how should we use the proceeds from closing this loophole? and the answer is in recognition

of the reality that current economic burdens are falling hardest on people who can least afford them, seniors and veterans and families who depend all or in significant part on benefits through social security and v.a. they should be given the benefit of closing this loophole. why? well, first of all, because it's the right thing to do. the current measures of the cost of living fail to measure the cost of living for them. that's because we don't all buy the same thing. and the index or the formula that is used to calculate costs of living increases fail to measure the real economic burden on certain groups, namely our seniors and our veterans. you've heard very eloquently and powerfully from my colleagues,

from senator warren and senator murphy about the impact on our social security recipients. i'm here as the ranking member of the senate affairs committee to say those benefits affect 25,000 veterans in connecticut who receive v.a. compensation for a service-connected disability and more than 2,000 survivors or dependent children who receive v.a. compensation, and 4.3 million veteran beneficiaries nationwide -- nation. all of them earned their benefits -- earned their benefits -- through their service to this country. this issue is about keeping faith with our veterans and making sure that we leave no veteran behind.

they earned those benefits through sacrifice as well as service, sometimes unimaginable sacrifice, through injury and wounds on the battlefield, and those benefits are necessary to ensure a smooth transition into civilian life for service-disabled veterans and their families who often face enormous, staggering additional costs. and reduced ability to work. to ensure that these vital benefits correspond to the actual costs of food, housing, clothing, gas and other basic elements of daily life, the v.a. is authorized to adjust them, adjust them for inflation. and the index used is the one that social security relies on as well. that's the connection to veterans and that volatile

formula, as i've said, too often fails to reflect the actual cost of living for this group of people leaving millions of our veterans as well as our seniors without a realistic chance to keep pace. so our disabled veterans really deserve better. it's that simple. they deserve better than what is happening to them right now. they deserve real compensation that recognizes rising real-world costs, escalating living expenses that are painfully squeezing them as well as our seniors and they deserve a fair raise and a fair choice. so i urge my colleagues to join with us. close this loophole, make the tax code fairer to all taxpayers and also make sure that our

seniors and our veterans get what they need and deserve to live with the basic necessities that are essential to them and to keep faith with our veterans and make sure that the greatest nation in the world recognizes the greatest of our nation's heroes, our veterans. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor to my colleague from hawaii and great friend, senator hirono. ms. hirono: thank you very much. madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: last month the social security administration announced some disappointing news. for only the third time in 40 years, social security beneficiaries will not receive a cost-of-living or cola increase in january 2016. in hawaii, one out of four

seniors relies on social security as their only source of income. they're struggling to keep a roof over their heads, pay for medicine, buy groceries -- basic necessities. many hawaii seniors have told me their stories about costs for essential goods keep rising while the social security checks do not. meanwhile, by contrast -- and you heard this from my esteemed senator colleague from massachusetts -- meanwhile, by contrast, c.e.o.'s of our wealthiest companies in america are doing great. the average c.e.o. at america's top 350 companies saw a raise of 3.9% just last year. since the economic recovery of 2009, these c.e.o.'s have seen their pay increase by a whopping 54.3%.

i have nothing against hardworking people, including c.e.o.'s getting a raise. if c.e.o.'s came up with a good idea and they're managing a successful company, that's great for them, for their companies and one hopes for the company's employees. but did you know that taxpayers are partly footing the bill for c.e.o. pay raises? the tax code today has a quote, unquote, performance pay loophole that provides tax subsidies for high-level corporate executive compensation packages. this is why i'm proud to join senator warren and others in introducing the save benefits act. our bill would provide a modest cost-of-living increase next year, the same 3.9% increase that our nation's top c.e.o.'s received this year.

this would mean an average payment increase of about $580 for our seniors. but this is money that makes a huge difference to all of our seniors. this one-time cola payment would also apply to veterans benefits, as my colleague, richard blumenthal, just focused upon, federal disability insurance and equivalent state or local retirement programs. to pay for this one-time cola, our bill would close the tax giveaways to the wealthiest c.e.o.'s. closing the performance pay loophole is a bipartisan idea even supported by the former chair of the house committee on ways and means in his tax reform proposal. in the long-run, we should also modernize the formula that social security uses to calculate the cola each year. and that's why i introduced the protecting and preserving social security act which would base

cola on a more accurate formula of what seniors actually buy. the consumer price index for elderly, or cpie. the cpie gives more weight to things seniors actually buy, like medicine, housing and home energy costs, rather than electronics or clothing that younger workers buy more of. my bill would pay for the cpie by requiring millionaires and billionaires to pay the same rate into the social security trust fund that everybody else pays year-round. otherwise under the current law, once workers earn past $118,500 in the year, they stop paying the payroll taxes that supports the social security trust fund. i was on the senate floor last month and shared the story of one of my constituents from what

whaila and it bears repeating. she wrote to me and said -- and i quote -- "i find it believe that there are actually people that believe that social security is too generous. the average social security benefit is a whopping $14,000 a year and we've only seen an average 2% cola over the past five years. i can assure you my health care costs have far exceeded that tiny increase." congress needs to listen to seniors like her and act to provide this modest one-time increase to help seniors make ends meet. in 2016 and to change the way cola is calculated. i urge my colleagues to join me in letting seniors in hawaii and seniors all across the country have this one-time boost to their social security payments. i urge my colleagues to cosponsor the save benefits act as well as the protecting and

preserving social security act. i yield the floor. i yield the floor to my colleague from massachusetts. senator markey. mr. markey: i thank my colleague from florida and for her excellent statement on this very important issue. and i thank the senator from massachusetts, senator warren, for once again, as usual, putting her finger right on the heart of a huge issue in our country. we have seniors, veterans, s.s.i. recipients across our country who this year are going to receive zero in terms of an increase in their benefits that they have so rightly earned by

their service to our country. and so what senator war ven wars saying essentially is, who really built this country? who made it into this great country that we live in today? and the truth of the matter is, is that grandma and grandpa built this country. grandma and grandpa got up every single day, went to work, built this incredible economy and now that they're in retirement, grandma and grandpa are being told for the next year, they don't get a raise, they don't get anything. they don't get a cost-of-living adjustment, they don't get any increase at all. they built this country. the veterans who are seniors, they protected this country. the veterans who are disabled, they built this country, they protected this country.

now, what senator warren has done so accurately is essentially point out that there is a big loophole in our laws. and that loophole is a corporate compensation loophole that allows unlimited, unlimited corporate deductions for executive performance pay. so what have we learned over the last 0 years in america? the rich are getting richer but the people at the bottom are not. and all that this bill says, quite simply, is that for one year, let's have the raise go to the seniors. let's have the raise go to grandma and grandpa. let's give them the reward for the incredible benefits that

have been flowing disproportionately to the upper one percentile. let's give them the 3.9% raise. let's give them the kind of the comfort, the thanks of the our country for all of their work. but what happens too often here in congress is that grandma and grandpa, they've just been forgotten. there's a constant debate over whether or not grandma and grandpa are getting too much, too much in medicare, too much in medicaid, too much in social security benefits. we must solve that problem, says too many people here and around the country. no, grandma and grandpa are not the problem. they are the ones who created this incredible wealth that we have in our society by their hard work every single morning

for their entire lives by getting up, going to work and creating these great families that make us the greatest country on the planet. and so i think we all owe an enormous debt of gratitude to senator warren because she has found a quite brilliant way to frame this debate on the senate floor and for our country because it really does then force us to all step back and ask the question, of who contributed the most to our country over the last generati generation? a small handful of people at the top or everyone in the country who got up every single day who are now people we call grandma and grandpa. i don't think we should be shortchanging them. i think that senator warren's bill is just the right way to solve that problem to make sure they get what they deserve as well. and i thank you, senator warren, for your great leadership. i yield back -- or i yield to

the senator from montana. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: i want to speak on the milcon-v.a. bill that we're going to take up at the top of the hour. we're going to take a giant leap of faith here in a minute that the majority is going to do the right thing by our veterans and our country.i will vote to proceed to this bill in the hope that members of this body are finally able to honor the commitment that our veterans have made to this country. the senate appropriations committee has been crafting appropriation bills that spent under disaster spending caps put forward by the majority's budget resolution. as ranking member of the v.a.'s appropriation says subcommittee, i was especially concerned because of the budget resolution we were underfunding the v.a. by over $850 million. this shortchange to our veterans would have been a disgrace. but back in may, when i introduced an amendment in the committee to provide an additional $857 million to the v.a., $857 million that the v.a.

needs to do its job, every republican on that appropriations committee voted against my amendment. i find it troubling that there are some that are so quick to send our troops into harm's way but neglect to care for them when they get home. but that's exactly what happened in our veterans appropriations bill that funded v.a. health. the good news is this veterans appropriation bill that we voted on and senators this body fixed that problem and we're going to vote it. it's now time to show the american people that we can govern responsibly by standing for our veterans. mr. mcconnell: i know of no further debate on the motion to proceed to h.r. 2029. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not, the question is on the motion. mr. mcconnell: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: you is -- is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: