says more than one in five african-american kids in cleveland has asthma. she connects it to what's happening in climate change. we understand that in rhode island because we have the same bad air days when we have to have kids stay indoors and elderly stay indoors all because of the air coming from the midwest that has been fouled by these power plants. out on lake erie, i met with some of the scientists from stone labs and a couple of lifelong fishing captains who have been out there on the lake. here we're looking at some of the water samples. this is what the water should look like. but back before when the climate change driven rain bursts were flooding lake erie with phosphorous from the watershed, from the farms in the watershed, there was this explosion of scionotic bacteria to the where these guys said driving the boats wasn't like driving

through water, it was like driving through pudding. and the wake who slurp over instead of way a norm am boat would. one of them had been doing this for 35 years and he said, i don't know this lake any longer, i don't know where the fish are going to be. 35 years i've known this lake and fished this lake and now it's like a stranger to me because of all these changes that are happening. and that's exactly what my rhode island fishermen are telling me, too, about fair i narragansett d rhode island sound. we're here with the senator from massachusetts also and she's hearing the same thing. sheldon, it's getting weird out there. sheldon, this is not my grandfather's ocean. we have some responsibilities here to pay attention to these people and to listen to them. one of the most impressive parts of the trip was this. at ohio state, ohio state is host to the bird polar research center, named after the famous polar explorer admiral bird. anyway, here these two

scientists, ellen moseley-thompson and loney thompson, have spent their -- and lonnie thompson, have spent their lives traveling all over the planet going to these incredible faraway places, going to the north pole, going to the south pole, going to the greenland ice cap, going to glaciers high in peru, going to glaciers in the faraway mountains of china. and they drill down and they take a core sample out of the glacier. going down and getting hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of thousands of years of data in that core sample. and then outer top of a glaisher in peru or china and -- glacier in peru or china and you've got to finger out, how do you get this core sample back to ohio and it's got to stay frozen the whole time so they have this huge logistical challenge. they've conquered all of that. they're two amazing people. these are all the core samples from glaciers all around the globe. some of them, because of the way climate has dissipated, the glaciers, where they drilled the core sample, the glacier doesn't

exist anymore. it's the last record of gone glaciers. here's a picture that they had. this is from the same site. this on this side is the picture of the glacier. you can see the triations from the seasons and the years going by. and they took this picture from the same place and you can see how the glaish hear that used to be right -- glacier that used to be right in front of them, now it's rock, rock, rock, and the glacier is way over here back in the distance. it has moved back as the glacier has warmed. they gave me me this.thi me thi. this is a piece of plant matter. you can hardly see it. it's plants that were unearthed as the glacier moved back and they can date them. those plants were last out 6,626 years ago. 6,626 years ago a snow covered those plants and snow piled on snow and it was buried under the glacier and it stayed and it stayed and it stayed.

and thousands of years went by and then after thousands of years had gone by, jesus came and walked the earth and then thousands more years came by and now the glaciers are melting so fast that here it is. and you can look, you can still see the leaves. it's squashed and it's old but it hasn't decomposed because of the way it's been preserved under the glaciers. but they're going now. but in this laboratory, they have this incredible treasure. you can go in and you can find air that was on this planet when jesus walked the earth. and it's still preserved just the way it was in the ice. you can can find dust from dust storms that were written about in egyptian hieroglyphics, and there's the actual dust held in the ice. and this is the record that the climate science is based on. and it truly is a marvel. the last thing i'll mention and that we also stopped by the ohio state automotive center, the

center for automotive research. here's a brand-new camaro in the background. they work with g.m. to get cars, brand-spanking new, high performance, american can marrow. these young students are going to brea take it apart and put ik together so it runs cheaper, faster and with less fuel. they're going to make a hybrid cahighhybridcamaro. pretty impressive what they're doing. but they know the climate is changing. that's why they're doing this stuff. i'll close cloaz ou out becausee other senators here. but die want to thank senator brown for taking me around cleveland and taking all those visits. i want to thank the folks at ohio state, stone labs out on lake erie is an ohio state facility. the bird polar research center is an ohio state facility. i met with the john glenn institute folks at ohio state university. look, if you're a buckeyes fan and you're out listening, pay attention to what ohio

university is doing about climate change. don't listen to the fossil fuel phonies. listen to what your home state university says. these guys are deadly serious. they know it's real. i don't think there's a home state university in this country that is denying climate change and yet this body is stuck in denial. it has nothing to do with the facts. otherwise the home state universities would say something different. you can't go home and root for the buckeyes on the weekend and then come here and deny climate change and pretend you're being true to your home state university. i don't care what your home state is. iowa, oklahoma, florida, georgi. you go to the big state universities, they understand that climate change is real. what prevents us from acting isn't information, it's the wall of special influence money that the fossil fuel industry has built around this place. and it's time we woke up and got on with our business. so i will close with that. but i'm really grateful to the people in ohio who showed me around and particularly to dave

spangler -- let me get the names right -- and paul patultsci, lifelong charter boat captains. they make their living out on lake erie. they know what it's like throughout and they know what climate change is doing to their beloved lake and their beloved way of life. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: oversight of the executive branch of government by the congress is as old as the constitution and it's a critical role and it's one that was intended by the writers of the constitution. i believe oversight leads to better government, better laws and actually saves the taxpayers money. that is why this senator works

very hard at oversight. i went after the reagan defense department for wasteful spending in the 1980's. i held up the department of justice nominees during the bush administration to get my oversight letters answered just as i'm doing now with the obama department of state. and i voted in support of giving the judiciary committee the authority to issue subpoenas regarding its inquiry into the firing of u.s. attorneys during the bush administration when a lot of republicans didn't want that to happen. my belief in and exercise of the oversight role by the congress is long-standing and nonpartis nonpartisan. yesterday the senate minority leader that said my investigation into the

department of state's use of special government employees and how secretary clinton's private e-mail arrangement interfered with the freedom of information act compliance is political. his speech yesterday inferred that i was doing all these things for political reasons. that's simply not true nor is it in accordance with my reputation of an equal opportunity overseer. the investigation referred to involves many things but it does not involve politics. my investigation into potential abuse of special government employee designations and secretary clinton's use of personal e-mail server and the potential spillage of classified information is not political,

it's evidence based and it's got something to do with our national security. unfortunately, the department has been largely uncooperative since june way back 2013. the department's lack of cooperation has caused me to place 22 holds on its nominees and these are not secret holds. i have placed, according to the rules of the senate, a statement in the record of why those holds are on. and to correct the senior senator from nevada, my holds do not include 600 foreign service officers and do not include individuals from iowa. there are 22 people that are held out. but with respect to my pending

request to the department of state, i am still waiting, not so patiently anymore, for a full production of documents from my june 2013 oversight request. the constitutional responsibility of those of us that pass laws and appropriate money. now, that happens to be 2 1/2 years ago and the state department has still not produced the materials i have requested. the department has implemented several clever strategies to delay the process and i can't -- i won't name all of these clever strategies but i'll give you some examples. the department routinely assigns new employees to handle different requests. each time a new employee is assigned, we get the same excuses why they cannot deliver

on requests. and these excuses go something like, i'm new so i don't know who to talk to and where to find the documents. for years the department has delayed in production productioh time seemingly more excuses, legitimate or not. for instance, the department still refuses to answer whether or not secretary clinton's private servers was approved. the department has failed to provide e-mails for department personnel communicating about secretary clinton's private server that we have strong reason to believe exists. the department took over two months to schedule a single interview with a former employ

employee. the department has refused to -- for over two months to provide instructioninstructions it gaven attorney david kindle to secure the thumb drives that contained classified information even though the department was quoted in the news as providing those instructions. the department has failed to provide travel reimbursements and leave documents for its employees. and on august the 5th of this year, i requested classified -- classification nondisclosure forms for secretary clinton from aberdeen and cheryl mills. on november the 5th, the department provided those documents to a freedom of information act requester but not to the committee.

can i highlight that? freedom of information request was made but the same information was sought by a congressional committee. one was granted, the other so far has been denied. now, and while the department provided the documents to that requester under freedom of information act, department employees told me that they had been unable to find those documents. not only has the judiciary committee experienced unacceptable department of state delays in receiving the information request. others inside and outside of the government have experienced

delays as well. the associated press sued the state department over the failure to satisfy requested documents -- satisfy -- and these were repeated document requests under freedom of information. related to these same issues. one of these requests, if you can believe it, dates back five years. judge richard leon of the united states district court for the district of columbia, the judge responsible for this case, scolded the department for its failure to produce documents on time -- and i quote -- "now any person should be able to review that in one day. one day. even the least ambitious bureaucrat could do this."

end of quote. let there be no mistake about this investigation. the investigation is centered on the freedom of information act, a law that is within the judiciary committee's jurisdiction. this investigation is centered on potential abuse of special government employee designation that allows government employees to be paid by outside employers -- in this case hundreds of thousands of dollars by a consulting firm run by a former clinton administration employee. this investigation is centered on potential violations of the federal records act and holding government officials accountable for their actions. this investigation is centered on whether public officials

properly handled classified information, and, thereby, is our national security protected as it should be? it eventually gets down to whether anybody is above the law senior government officials and regular employees should get equal treatment under the law. and that treatment should be fair and it should be objective. it should not depend on what your position is when it looks like the treatment is different for some people as opposed to others, we have to figure out what is going on. that can be investigated by congress under the constitution. for example, it looks like other government employees are subject to very different treatment when accused of mishandling classified information.

let me cite army lieutenant colonel jason emmer, a decorated war hero, contacted congress to try to warn about bureaucratic problems with u.s. hostage recovery efforts, problems that he believed were putting lives at risk. he was accused of improperly transmitting classified information to congress in the process. this war hero was removed from his job, was escorted out of the pentagon, had his clearances suspended, had his scheduled retirement delayed indefinitely, was fingerprinted and even had a mug shot taken. he was threatened with court-martial and was subject to extensive investigation.

now, merely for talking to the congress of the united states? after almost a year of being investigated, the army decided not to court-martial lieutenant colonel emmer. instead he was awarded the legion of merit for quote, unquote, exceptionally meritorious service. and he was finally allowed to retire. now, that's how one person was treated, but look at how differently he, a war hero, was treated when accused of mishandling classified information compared to the handling of the same by secretary clinton and her associates. where was the minority leader in trying to help this war hero from these attacks from this

administration? nowhere to be seen is the answer to that question. it's apparent that some have selective memory when it comes to putting value on constitutional congressional oversight and our constitutional congressional investigations. but this senator does not have that problem. i have been content, consistent in my oversight role my entire career, investigating republican administrations and democrat administrations. my oversight and my investigation unit is involved in many investigations. the vast majority of them have nothing to do with secretary clinton. looking out for the public interest is not a waste of time, and i'm going to keep at this constitutional responsibility of

oversight regardless of misguided attacks on my motivations andments characterizations of my work. i will continue this investigation because the american people have a right to the truth and government officials have an obligation to answer to we, the people. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: before long a highway bill and government funding bill will come to the floor. it is like ringing the dinner bell for wall street bangs. they want to roll back financial regulations and they're working every contact they can to attach these rollbacks to anything that moves. now it's a pretty neat trick.

they probably can't get a rollback of financial regulations passed out in the open where americans can see what's happening and see which senators and which representatives voted to gut the rules for wall street banks, so they slip these rollbacks on must-pass legislation which gives the financial industry's friends in congress a lot of cover. of course it's not just wall street that's trying this. lobbyists and their republican a allies want to weaken the rules protecting workers, retirees and our environment. they want to defund planned parenthood and attack civil rights laws and shove all kinds of other provisions that would be terrible for our country. but as in so many things, wall street is the true master of this strategy. it's been almost one year since citigroup lobbyists wrote a provision to blast a hole in dodd-frank and at the last

minute got it attached to a government funding bill. since the government would have shut down if the funding bill hadn't passed, that citigroup amendment made it through, tacked on the back of the funding deal. the provision that got blown up last year was called -- i'm quoting the title of the rule here -- prohibition against federal government bailouts of swap entities. the idea behind the rule is pretty simple. if a bank wanted to enter into certain risky deals h like the credit default swaps that had been at the heart of the 2008 crisis they had to bear all the risks themselves instead of passing it on to taxpayers. and that's the provision that congress repealed. because democrats weren't willing to shut down the government, wall street won that round. but this isn't over. congressman elijah cummings and

i opened an investigation, and today we released our findings. there are lots of details but here's the take-away. the fdic estimates that the provision written by citigroup lobbyists last year allows a few banks to put taxpayers on the hook for risky swaps with an estimated value of nearly $10 trillion. and what does it mean to load up on swaps like this? the fdic said generally speaking, large volumes of derivative activity conducted by a bank would be expected to increase its risk profile. and who's gobbling down most of this $10 trillion of risk? three huge banks: citigroup, j.p. morgan chase and bank of america. three banks, nearly $10 trillion. $10 trillion is a lot of risky

business. just remember, the whole tarm bailout was less -- the whole tarp bailout was less than $1 trillion. now a few banks, a few too-big-to-fail banks are going to keep another $10 trillion in risky business on their books. these banks will happily suck down the profits when their high-stakes bets work out and they will just as happily turn to the taxpayers to bail them out when there's a problem. all of this because the lobbyists persuaded congress to do just one little favor for them. earlier today congressman cummings and i asked the government accountability office to do more analysis of these issues, but where are the g.a.o. finds? congress now has ten trillion reasons to stand up to citigroup and bring back the swaps push-out rule to ensure that working families in this country, families with mortgages and student loans to pay and kids to take care of, aren't on

the hook again. this time for $10 trillion of the big banks' risky bets. congress has one job here. congress should strengthen, not roll back, financial rules before one of these banks takes down our economy again. but bills to hold the big banks more accountable aren't getting much traction around here. instead right now people in congress are talking about repealing more dodd-frank provisions. that's right. at this very moment lobbyists and senators are plotting new ways to take cops off the beat on "wall street journal" and to weaken, delay or dilute the rules that protect consumers and hold big banks accountable, and then to hook those rollbacks either to a bill to fund our highways or to keep our government open. now, republicans say if you want to get something done, if you

want to repair our roads or keep the government open, this is the price. help the big banks. to be fair, republicans are also getting help from some democrats. they say, wall street accountability is important but i just want to get something done around here for a change, so let's go along. well, yeah, i want to get something done too. who didn't? who doesn't? but i didn't come here to carry water for the big banks. if republicans think it's time to talk about financial reform, then let's put it all on the table and let's have everyone in congress, democrats and republicans, declare publicly where they stand. if the industry wants to push rollbacks, then i want to make it easier to send bankers to jail when they launder money for drug cartels or when they rig foreign exchange markets or when they cheat pension funds out of desperately needed money. if the industry wants to chip

away at financial oversight, then i want to have a serious, on-the-record conversation about breaking up the biggest banks. and let's start with the three that are taking $10 trillion in risky business on to their books : citibank, j.p. morgan chase and bank of america. yes, the american people want us to get something done. they're asking -- heck, they're begging us to do some real work. but i don't hear a lot of my constituents asking us to water down financial rules and to do more favors for the big banks. so let's put it to the american people, are you ready to weaken dodd-frank to give the biggest banks in the country more chances to take more risks and to leave you holding the bag? or is it time for a little more accountability, accountability for large financial institutions that month after month are in the headlines for breaking the

law? is it time to stop pretending and truly get rid of two big too fail, once and for all? we can let every democrat and every republican in congress vote on these questions. let's do it with the microphones on and the cameras rolling, but not behind closed doors and out of public view. we need to vote on a highway bill. we need to vote on a government funding bill. and if there's anyone in this chamber, republican or democrat, who thinks they can slip goodies for wall street into these bills without a fight, they are very wrong. thank you, mr. president. i yield. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: in commemoration, celebration and honor of veterans day, i'd like to share the story of two louisiana heroes who served in world war

ii. lucius forsythe and robert emmet stanley, two louisianaans who answered the call to serve and did so so honorably. lucius forsythe left his home to serve in world war ii in his late teens as a navy seaman. on february 21, 1945, lucius and the crew of the saratoga experienced the most concentrated assault of world war ii against a warship. the saratoga and her 3,500 sailors fought bravely as the japanese forces attacked the ship for three hours. bombs were dropped and five japs kamikazes crashed their aircraft into the saratoga. seven levels below the main deck, lucius knew that the impact of a bomb or kamikaze near his location would mean certain death. ignoring the danger, lucius continued to work in the

compartments adjacent to the ammunition stockpiles. 125 members of the saratoga lost their lives that day. lucius remained aboard the saratoga for the rest of the war after the japanese surrendered, he returned home, married rita bourgia of gonzalez, louisiana, raised five children and today is blessed with 21 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. the other louisiana veteran i'd like to recognize is robert emmett stanley. born in new or new or new orleae left shortly after high school to serve in the navy reserve. he served as a seaman first class on the u.s.s. lutz. on the morning. may 4, 1945, one day after emmett's 22nd birthday, japanese kamikaze pi pilots attacked the boat. shrapnel pierced his scalp

through a steel helmet. he still feels pain from those injuries today. emmett and the other crew members were soon given orders to an the u.s.s. lutz after more kamikazes struck. emmett swam 40 yards away from the sinking ship to avoid being sucked under by the waves, but a second explosion forced more shrapnel into his stomach. out of the 312 men on the u.s.s. lutz, 126 were killed in the attack. although eligible then, emmett did not receive his purple heart until october the 17th of this year when he was the honoree at the u.s. navy birthday ball. he was thrilled to be surrounded by his entire family. now, these are two stories about heroism and valor. there are many more. let me brag a little bit for a couple of the young men who work on my staff. one young man, chris anderson, enlisted in the army after completing his college educati

education. he could have pursued business or graduate school but chris wanted to serve our country on the war on terror. he did so bravely and honorably in afghanistan, clearly ordnances. can you imagine what his mother thought every night knowing the job he had? and now he's a tireless advocate for v.a. reform so that those he served with can get the care they need and deserve. another member of my staff back in baton rouge, michael ebby, served in the loose loose national guard for -- loose loose national guard for -- lose loslouisiana national guard to 0 years. to all of you who served and serve now, thank you for your service. this veterans day and every day, we remember your sacrifices, courage and dedication, ensuring that our children, their children, we all can live in freedom in the greatest nation in the world. may god bless you, your families and the united states of

america. thank you, mr. president. i yield back. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. casey: mr. president, i rise this afternoon to talk about a set of issues that we don't, frankly, spend enough time on that relate to our children. i've often said, and i think it's true throughout this chamber when we talk about these issues, that we come to this because we're concerned about the future of this country when we talk about what happens to our children. i've always believed, and i think this is a prevailing point of view here in this chamber and across the country, is that every child is born with a light inside them. the light or the full measure of their potential. some children don't need a lot of help along the way, they're born into circumstances or into families or parents or other factors that give them an advantage. they have a lot of ability and they don't need much in the way

of intervention from any part of our society, including government. but some children are born with a bright light but it doesn't -- may not burn as brightly or shine as brightly as some other kids and they need -- they need a little extra help. some of those kids if they get help when they're very young can thrive and succeed and grow without -- without any further help or assistance. but if we're serious about growing the economy, if we're serious about creating jobs and creating the kind of opportunity that we say we're concerned about and we say is part of the fabric of being an american, we've got to be concerned about what happens to our kids. and a lot of what i'll talk about today can can be i guess summarized in maybe one line. if kids learn more now, they're going to earn more later. we know all the data shows that. if a child has access to early learning, they will earn more

later in life. it also is essential that they have access to quality health care and the kind of security that comes when you have enough to eat, for example, food security. but if we want kids to -- want our children, i should say, to learn -- learn more now and earn more later, we've got to make the right investments. unfortunately that child or any child won't be able to learn more now and, therefore, earn more later if they live a life of poverty. maybe some will get through but that's very difficult. we've already -- if we don't take action against child poverty, we've already erected barriers in their path. today, as of 2014, the latest numbers for child poverty in the united states 21.1%. that number is up substantially since the great recession a couple of percentage points, and, therefore, millions more children. in pennsylvania, it's only a

little bit lower, 19.4%. no one here would try to make the case that that's acceptable. or 21% of children living in poverty is something that we can accept. we should all be not only outraged by it but take action and have a sense of urgency to combat it. so there's a couple of things we can do. first of all, we've got to know what's happening to children on a broad range of topics and that's why we have to rely upon public policy expertise. a whole group of folks out there and organizations, i'm holding in my hand just one example. you can't see it from a distance but this is the -- kind of the one-page summary by the annie casey foundation -- no relation to me -- a great foundation that has tracked child well-being for years. and they have three -- or, i'm sorry, they have four categoriec well-being, education, health

and then the fourth category is family and community. and if you could see it up close, you'd notice that some categories -- and there's 16 altogether, now each of the four categories -- if you look at the orange, wherever you see orange, that means the number's getting worse for children. if you see green, that means they're doing better. so it's a mixed report. some numbers are getting better over the last five years or seven years or time increments like that. but what has gotten worse since the great recession is the number of children living in poverty has gone up. children whose parents lack secure employment, that has gone up. and unfortunately two other indicators of poverty. children an in single-parent families is up, meaning the number has worsened. and children living in high poverty areas is worse. i won't go into those numbers for today but that's just an indication that childhood

poverty has been a challenge for a long time. it got a lot worse after the greatrecession, when the -- our -- great recession, when our economy began to collapse and folks across the country paid the price and a lot of children have paid the price. so what do we do about it? well, one thing we can do is to begin to say at long last, we can't just talk about reducing child poverty, we can't just nibble around the edges or hope a program here or a program there will help. we have to have a strategy. and in order to have a strategy, we've got to have a goal. and the goal ought to be that we reduce child poverty and take the same approach, frankly, that the united kingdom took a couple of years ago. so i'll walk through some of the background. but senator baldwin and senator brown and i introduced the bill just last week, the child poverty reduction act, to establish that kind of a target to reduce child poverty. under the legislation, child

poverty would be cut in half in 10 years. so child poverty cut in half in a decade. and the second goal would be to eliminate child poverty in 20 years. poverty would be eliminated in 10 years, meaning that the worst kind of poverty for -- for our children and for our families. to meet these goals, we would give an assignment to an interagency working group to reduce child poverty to develop a plan to include recommendations to improve coordination and efficiency of existing programs and initiatives because there are a lot of them. we can get to those in a moment. along with recommendations for new legislation, new strategies, new approaches to -- to focus child poverty. but here's what happened in the united kingdom. in 1999, the u.k. established a national child poverty target and measured in u.s. terms the

u.k.'s child poverty target and the policy changes made in conjunction with that effort reduced britain's child poverty rate by 50% in the first 10 years. a significant achievement. in comparison, between 2000 and 2013, a little more than a decade, in the united states, the child poverty rate increased by over 20%. so roughly in the same time period, as our poverty rate was going up for kids, the u.k.'s poverty rate for children was going down. one of the reasons -- not the only reason but one of the reasons for that is they set a target and both sides came together -- the labor party, the conservatives, the country made it a goal. we haven't done that yet and we need to focus on that kind of a goal. so one thing is to focus on a goal and to have legislation to enact part of the strategy. but then, of course, we can't just stop there.

we can't just assume that having a target and working towards it is enough. one of the -- one of the most powerful examples in my home state of pennsylvania over the last couple of years, of what it means to live in poverty and to have families, in this case moms, who are willing to tell their stories was the effort undertaken by witnesses to hunger. that's what this photograph here depicts. a child, one of the children who was photographed by her mother and by -- by other mothers taking pictures of their children, to tell the world and be willing to tell the world about their own circumstances and to give as living roof -- give us living proof of what it means to live in poverty, what it means to be a child living in poverty. it started at drex ler university where they gave cameras to a group of mom who

decided to open up their own lives courageously and generously to tell us more about these challenges. the first picture after that is a picture of a young woman by the name of monique on her way to her local w.i.c. clinic, the women, infants and children's program. the office in -- in this part of philadelphia. monique says -- quote -- "i love w.i.c." -- the women, infants and children's program -- "because it supports me by helping me nurse my baby." that's just a picture of her and her baby. the next picture is a picture of a group of classmates, and the mom's name is shereen. shereen's daughter joins her classmates in this photo. and here's what shereen says about her circumstances and what she hopes for the future. quote -- "my daughter and her classmates are symbols of chan change.

they have hope for a brighter future and faith that the adults in their lives will work together to make a change. we must do whatever it takes so that they can grow up and be strong, educated adults." well, i think shereen gave all of us as adults an assignment, not just -- not just speak to herself. i think she gave us all an assignment, that we have to make sure that we're taking the steps necessary and essential to do all that we can to give that bright future and to -- to validate that nate those children have in us, whether we're going to meet our obligations to help those children, every single one of those children in that picture, in that class picture. and then finally, the last picture is of a young boy giving his mother, gayle, a great smile. in this photo, gayle captures her son's happiness as he hold

up bananas, nutritious bananas. gooded to have that in the picture. so when we -- gooded to have that in the picture. so when we talk about child hunger, it's not some policy issue or some issue for a think tank to analyze. child poverty is depicted here in just some of these pictures but it's also on our -- in our newspapers every day of the week. it's in our midst. and i think we've got to be i hope more -- i hope more of us will be summoned by our conscience to do something constructively about this issue. we've got a lot to do in the next couple of months. we've got the child nutrition reauthorization. that's a great opportunity for us to be able to in fact at long last begin to take steps in the right direction. the women, infants and children's program, for example, that i mentioned before, is one of those. one of the reasons i'm so concerned about where we are at the w.i.c. program is that some

children literally are caught in a, a nutrition gap. they turn -- they reach a point in their development where because they are, because they are age five, they may be caught in a gap where they're not getting school meals and they're not getting nutrition any other way. some children can experience this nutrition gap of almost 12 months. it's almost a year being caught because they turn five. the time in this nutrition gap is the time that they're neither supported by w.i.c. nor supported by the school meals program. we had the privilege recently of talking to a constituent from western pennsylvania. her son is currently four years old. just four years old now. he will enroll in kindergarten fall of 2016.

and when he will -- as he's enrolling in school he'll get healthy meals. but in just five months -- i'm sorry -- in the next month he will turn five. when he turns five, he'll be cut off -- cut off from the w.i.c. program, or the opportunity to benefit from the w.i.c. program. so the, this child loves yogurt and he loves to eat fruit and vegetables and whole grains that are provided by the w.i.c. program. but he will not benefit from that, from that because of this glitch in the law. so what i proposed is a new bill, the wise investment in our children act, the w.i.c. act, to close the nutrition gap by allowing states to increase the age limit for w.i.c. to age six. we also have to be concerned at the same time we're focusing on making changes to the w.i.c. program to focus on another support for our children and for

our families. the child and adult care food program, so-called cacfp. as a quality source of nutrition. for many children, the meals that they, in child-care programs are the most nutrition dks -- nutritious meals they'll eat all week. as working families shuttle between home, child care and work, little time remains for food shopping, healthy meal planning or sitting down to eat a healthy meal. so this program, the child and adult care food program provides healthy nutritious meals to more than three million children each day who are either in head start or early head start or child-care programs in both centers and family child care homes. so i've introduced a bill as well to focus on this program to

improve and strengthen this program. i've introduced the child and adult care food program improvement act which would enhance several aspects of this program, including allowing child-care centers and homes the option of serving a third meal for children who are in care for eight or more hours a day. so we have a lot to do, but we cannot get there, we cannot get to the goal of reducing child poverty by 50% or reducing poverty overall in the near term, in the next decade unless we have a strategy, set a goal and then begin to strengthen what works and improve the existing programs, whether it's w.i.c. or the child and adult care food program, or whether it's the snap program, we used to call food stamps. whatever the program is, we've got to strengthen it and invest in it because we can't talk about all those lofty terms like

g.d.p. growth and job growth and a growing economy and all the wonderful things that get discussed in this chamber without a strategy for our kids. so we've got a ways to go, but i believe that this commitment to our children is not just the right thing to do and it's not just something that we ought to focus on as a, as something that's consistent with what our conscience tells us, but it's in fact a great economic strategy for the country. kids learn more now, they're going to earn more later. they can't learn more now if they don't have access to early learning, if they don't have access to healthy, nutritious foods, if they don't have access to quality health care, and if we don't protect them from people that would do them harm. so if we do at least four of those things well, if we have early learning opportunities, opportunities to invest in food security strategies so they get

that healthy, nutritious food, and if we make sure that they have quality health care in addition to early learning, we can, we can move forward in a direction that gets us to the goal of making sure that every child in the country has an opportunity to grow and to learn and to move into the future together. can't do that if all we talk about here in washington is use phrases like job creation and economic growth without a strategy to get our kids there. and we should make sure that every child in this country has the same opportunity to learn and to grow. they can't do that if we as the adults don't give them that opportunity. so i think when we look at some of the real lives that were depicted in these photographs, i think shereen gave us a very powerful message today, where she said -- and i'm quoting --

they, meaning the children in that picture in the classroom. "they feel hope for a brighter future and faith that the adults in their lives will work together to make a change." shereen is right. she's given me an assignment. she's given 99 other senators an assignment and a lot of other adults across the country. this is, i believe, a mission worthy of a great nation, just like every other major undertaking we've confronted and dealt with over many generations of great, greatness in our country. and when we talk about american exceptionalism and what it means to be an american, part of being an american is making sure that every child has the same opportunity to learn and to grow. we can do this. we can do it in a bipartisan fashion. if the united kingdom can reduce child poverty, the united states can do the same. mr. president, thank you, and i would yield the floor and note

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

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, i'd like to point out to our colleagues we now have received trans-pacific partnership agreement, and it amounts to 5,554 pages, three times a book i know the presiding officer knows. the the bible. three times the length of the bible and several times the length of obamacare. it's just been delivered to us with all kinds of promises for good things that might result

from its affirmation. no american has the resources to ensure that his or her interests are being protected in this document. it's so long and the ramifications are so broad that congress cannot do its job to ensure that the people's interests are safeguarded by such an agreement. we already have trade deals with all the major t.p.p. countries, except japan, and we have trading agreements with japan. so i would say with real confidence that this is much more than trade. if it was a bilateral agreement with japan, we'd simply fix it. we have agreements with australia, chili, canada and other countries.

the t.p.p. is about a goal of creating a new global regulatory structure, what i have called a pacific union, transferring power from individual americans and power from congress once more, eroding congress to an unaccountable, unelected international bureaucratic committee. because president obama has been given fast-track powers unwisely, i think, by this congress, congress cannot amend this deal, strike one offending provision, apply a filibuster to have a supermajority of 60 votes like we have to have for most legislation, or to apply the two-thirds treaty vote. additionally, the white house writes the implementing legislation which in turn necessarily supercedes any

existing american law. so this is what we mean by fast-track. today i'd just like to share a few thoughts about one aspect of the, this agreement. the commission, trans-pacific partnership commission. it's a particular chapter in the mammoth agreement, chapter 27, and it's entitled innocuously enough, administrative and institutional provisions, and deals with the creation of a trans-pacific partnership commission. section 27-1 outlines the creation of this commission and who is a member. the agreement states that -- quote -- each party shall be responsible for the composition of their delegation. in other words, we are empowering the trans-pacific partnership countries to create really a new congress of sorts,

a group with delegates that goes and meets and decides important issues that can impact everyday life of americans. so the american representative in this commission, which will operate in many ways like the u.n., will not be answerable to voters anywhere. how long will their terms be? how many will they be chosen? will there be any restrictions on lobbying, any requirements of transparency? can they always meet in secret? are there any ethics rules? the answer is it will be whatever the t.p.p. countries decide it will be. the fact that they negotiated this in secret for months, years, really, indicates that transparency is not a quality they value very highly. it is an entity untethered above

and outside the constitution of the united states. all our government agencies in the united states are answerable to the congress and the president and the chief executive. this institution will not. so we need to be cautious. all i'm saying, why do we have to do this? why do we have to create a commission in which vietnam or the sultan of brunei gets the same vote as the president of the united states? section 27-2 lists several powers of the commission which should be expected in any regulatory body it is granted the power to oversee the implementation of t.p.p. and the power to supervise the work of relevant working groups under its jurisdiction. however, then the section states

this -- under the commission rules, the commission shall, one, consider any proposal to amend or modify the agreement to change the agreement. they get to change the agreement. we can ratify this, but they get to change it whenever they deem appropriate. two, to seek the advice of nongovernmental persons or groups on any matter falling within the commission's functions and to take such other action as the parties may agree while considering input from nongovernmental persons or groups or parties. and it also says they will consider the findings of international forum through the health advisors. i guess one forum they won't be considering is the international group of independent business, small business agencies.

none of these terms are defined in what constitutes a nongovernmental person or group. what is that? just remember now, when our founders of our country negotiated the constitution, they worried about every word. they thought about what it would mean and could mean decades, centuries later. they talked about creating a new form of government on this entire continent. they actually believed that that could be possible, and it certainly has become a reality. have we given that kind of thought to the power we're delegating to this commission? how will the agreement be amended or modified? just as we, the secretary of state, secretary kerry, was in kazakhstan. and he told the television station in kazakhstan that he's

interested in seeing china and russia be headed to the t.p.p., and that they would consider the philippines a prime candidate for joining in the future. well, that's an interesting thing to announce, particularly in kazakhstan. it might be nice for him since it impacts the people of the united states to be talking more to the people of the united states. so this thing would create a situation in which new countries can be added, it appears, most any different way. so the point is this doleful government authority is open-ended. the agreement states that. quote -- "the commission and any subsidiary body established under this agreement may establish rules of procedures for the conduct of its work." close quote. it even covers climate

regulations, a lot about climate regulations. quote -- "the parties acknowledge that a transition to a low emissions economy requires collective action. well, having been a proud cold warrier, i have never -- cold warrior, i have never been happy with the people that use the collective. it makes me nervous. the t.p.p. is a living agreement, according to the united states trade representatives' own web site, the living agreement provision is in the t.p.p. quote -- "to enable the updating of the agreement as appropriate to address trade issues that emerge in the future as well as new issues that arise with the expansion of the agreement to include new countries, to include new countries. so it says it's to deal with trade issues and new issues.

are those nontrade? are they environmental issues? are they labor agreements or other kind of things that unrelated directly to trade? i think it's clear this will allow that to happen. so regardless, after the t.p.p. is passed and congress has blessed the union, the senate will have no say in how the commission is established or the rules by which it is governed. it's untethered to the congress. currency manipulation. this is a serious issue. it is impacting our ability to trade effectively today in a very large way. paul volcker, the former chairman, chairman emeritus now at the federal reserve during a time when he and president reagan transformed the american economy from raging inflation and interest rates to a sound

economy, he said that currency manipulation could wipe out decades of trade negotiations in a matter of minutes. and we've seen that happen. currency is huge and impacts so many companies. if you read the financial pages, you'll see that companies are worried about their bottom line in large part because there are going to be more -- it will be harder for them to compete with foreign competitors who have devalued their currency deliberately to gain trade advantage. but there is no enforceable currency mechanism in this agreement, although it was fought for in both houses of congress and came close but it's not in it. "the wall street journal" on november 5 wrote -- quote -- "mexico, canada and other countries signaled they were open to the currency deal when they realized it wouldn't include -- include currency

rules that could lead to trade sanctions through the t.p.p." this caused ford motor company to immediately reject the t.p.p. the day it was released. their spokesman argued that they could not support a deal in which currency rules -- quote -- fell outside of t.p.p. and failed to include dispute settlement mechanisms to ensure global rules prohibiting currency manipulation are enforced." close quote. this is a huge matter. ford says that when they're selling an american-made automobile or truck in a foreign country, we're talking about thousands of dollars. i think per vehicle that they have lost as a result of currency manipulation by many of our trading partners. it's hard to sell an automobile if you have got in effect a

competitive advantage on currency alone of several thousand dollars. the administration has zero interest in preventing foreign market manipulations and currency manipulations, and there the t.p.p. will cause massive -- and thus the t.p.p. will cause massive job losses. it just will. it will be less able to compete. well, let's just be frank. i supported the korean trade agreement. we've got great allies in japan and korea and others in the pacific. but they are tough trading partners, competitors, if you want to know the truth. they're competitors, and they're mercantilists. they have a goal, and their goal is to sell as much as possible to foreign countries and particularly to the greatest market in the world, the market

to gain even more access to. they want to sell to us. and through a whole lot of mechanisms, they resist purchasing anything from us. have we sold anything to japan or korea lately? nothing much. and it's not going to happen because these barriers are nontariff currency being one of the most noteworthy. foreign workers and governments under the t.p.p. are not legally prohibited from cutting government workers through currency manipulation in order to export their unemployment to the united states. the way this happens is if you've got a business in a foreign country and the world market has slowed down and your exports are slowing down, if you devalue your currency, your market -- your product becomes cheaper and can be sold in the united states or other countries at a cheaper price, and you keep your people working manufacturing those widgets, whereas the country that imported your product, lays off

its workers because it can't compete at that price of widgets. it's an artificial way to gain market advantage. in may of this year, i wrote the president asking him simple questions. this is important, colleagues. i asked him to state whether the t.p.p. would increase or deocracy our -- decrease our trade deficit. he refused to answer. i asked him whether the t.p.p. would increase or decrease the number of manufacturing jobs in the united states. he refused to answer. i asked him how the t.p.p. would affect the average hourly wages of the american middle class, and he refused to answer. he never wrote back. all the proponents in the white house have said about this deal is that it would increase production in jobs in the export industries, but exporting is such a small part of the

american industry, production. they don't mention how much jobs would be lost by the increased imports into our country. van dimico, the c.e.o. emeritus of new court steel operates steel plants all over. he won't in his recent book -- "the world says one thing about open markets and free trade but it does another. whatever sharp cultural or political language differences may separate the japanese from the chinese or the germans from the french, this much they all have in common -- they know how to advance and protect their economic interests." mr. president, has my time elapsed? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama, there is a ten-minute time limit. mr. sessions: all right. i would ask for two minutes. and wrap up. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i know -- they

know how to advance their interests. we have not been effective in ours. it's time to take t.p.p. off the fast track, take this off the fast track and get busy defending the interest of the american people. damico writes -- quote -- in principle, any industrial policy would begin by saying the business of creating, making and building things must be at the heart of any overarching economic strategy. this agreement is not just about promoting trade. it's about creating a framework for a transnational union which supersedes the authority of congress. and finally, if it were truly about opening markets to u.s. producers, the u.s. would simply have negotiated bilateral agreements with the countries that we need to talk to. so we are the world's greatest market for worldwide products that are made, and we give right

now open act assess incredibly to foreign imports. just look at those container ships on the pacific coast stacked to the top, and it's not working for jobs in america, not working for wages this america, not working for manufacturing. we have to make things. the services idea, that we can move to a services economy has failed. of course we won't trade. of course we want to purchase things from abroad. i'm not saying we shouldn't. what i'm saying is are we in negotiating this trade agreement giving even broader access to our markets without getting enough in return? that's what i think is the problem. america must make things. consumption in america should be for americans and for export. our competitors want the opposite, and they've been winning. but they need us more than we need them. thus, we have great power to

reverse this course. the american people know, if the politicians don't, that -- and, figuratively speaking, some of our politicians will be pushing up daisies if they don't listen to what the american people are saying to the sound, common sense of the people who hold ultimate power. they expect us to make sure that their interests are legitimately defended. i don't believe this trade agreement does that, and we'll talk more about it as time goes by. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i have the sad duty today to report to the senate the passing of first lady of north carolina dorothy dodd helms. she was known to many in this body as the wife of my predecessor senator jesse helms. i have chosen to desk to stand

at today because it is a desk he stood behind for many, many years as he served the united states and the great state of north carolina in the u.s. senate. for 66 years, dot helms was the ledge upon which the helms legacy was built. she was a trailblazer in north carolina. she was the first woman to graduate from the university of north carolina school of journalism in 1940, where she rubbed elbows with the likes of fellow tar heels edward r. murrow and her friend and classmate david brinkley. while a reporter for the legendary/editor of the rally news and observer, mr. daniels, she met a young man on the sports desk named jesse helms and the rest is history. ms. helms was a leader in christian causes such as her sponsorship of the children's camp willow run. while in washington, she taught at gallaudet university and

wrote a book on great americans who happened to be blind. anin the senate, she was the leader of the senate ladies bible study and the u.s. chapter of the red cross. she was a confidant and pillar of many friends in -- on both sides of the aisle, including elizabeth dole, erma byrd, and lynda johnson robb. politically, she was a close friend of ronald and nancy reagan. in 1976, she took the unusual step of campaigning tirelessly across the state of north carolina in support of then-governor reagan's insurgent presidential candidacy. the governor carried the north carolina primary against a sitting president, in no small part due to the work of dot helms. two years ago the governor awarded dorothy helms the order of the long-leaf pine.

fittingly, the governor honored her with the official north carolina state toast. here's to the loondz d land of the longleaf pine, the summerland where the sun does should i, where the wheat does shining and the strong grow great, here's to the down-home old north state, where the strong grow great. dot helms and north carolina are one in the same. for her family and friends and a grateful nation, we can turn in comfort to the second book of timothy. i have fought the good fight. i have finished the race, and i have kept the faith. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the obituary of ms. helms from the foundation in north carolina be placed in the record at the conclusion of my remarks. and, mr. president -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tillis: thank you. mr. president, i'd also like to close by saying, i hope we all remember another great north carolinian he was buried just

today, congressman coble, served 15 years in the north carolina house. he was a great american and will be missed. thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. carper: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. carper: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. carper: thanks, mr. president. tomorrow is veterans day. it is a privilege for all of us who serve here. for all of us, veterans across the country and around the world, and a lot of americans mo value the service and sacrifice of our veterans -- veterans day is not memorial day. memorial day we mourn and salute those who have given their all in service to our country. veterans day is for -- really for all veterans, not just those who've been willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice. i was privileged to go to a college -- i won a navy scholarship. study add little economics. my professors would say, not enough. but i graduated and went off to pensacola and became a naval flight officer in the late 1960's and ended up with patrol squadron 40 out in california,

joined my colleagues there for several tours of duty in southeast asia during the vietnam war. we came back to the states from overseas, i resigned my regular commission, took a reserve commission and moved from california to delaware to enroll in the university of delaware's business school and earn an m.b.a. the first week i was in literalladelaware, literally tht week, i got in my advocacy weighingen and drove up from newark, delaware, to the v.a. hospital, about halfway between newark and northern delaware. i took my dd-214 in with me to present to the folks at the hospital to see if i was eligible for any veterans benefits, and, as it turned out,

i was eligible for benefits, some benefits actually which have their root going all the way back to the end of world war ii when f.d.r. signed, i think in 1944, legislation creating the original g.i. bill. among the things i was eligible for was a home loan, where the v.a. would guarantee a portion of my loan so i could buy a house sometime later. i did. but also i was eligible for some medical benefits, including dental benefits. i didn't realize it at that time, but the v.a. hospital there was a world war ii relic of a hospital. the morale was not good, the quality of service was not good. people in the central or southern part of our state needed access to a v.a. medical facility. if they didn't have it there. they'd have to somehow make

their way up to northern delaware. it is not like traveling from one end of california to the other, but it is a hike. but we didn't have any community-based outpatient clinics in delaware. frankly, w we didn't have them n any other states either. those of us who were enrolled that fall who were veterans from the war were eligible for some benefits. so the g.i. were eligible for a g.i. benefit of about $2k50 a month, -- about $250 a month. may not sound like a lot of money today. i was happy to get every penny of it. i flew, continue to fly with a new squadron up in pennsylvania, p-3 squadron and continue to track nuclear submarines all over the world. mr. president, i am one after number of people in my family

who have benefited from the g.i. bill, and my father's generation served in world war ii, was chief petty officer, and his brother, my other uncle, served in world war ii. one of them never made it home. he was signed to -- he was 19 years old, in 1944 was on the u.s.s. suwannee which came under attack by japanese kamikaze planes. he lost his life. body never recovered. and a number of other people who were on the deck of the carrier when the attacks occurred. but other people of my dad's generation were able to take advantage of the very first g.i. bill, signed into law -- again, i think it was 1944 by president roosevelt. what happened in -- on the wake of world war ii -- it was a very generous g.i. bill. at the time you could go to

harvard on the g.i. bill and basically it was fully paid for, plus you had a housing allowance and a living allowance and kind -- it was an incredible deal, and a lot of people took advantage of that, which is good. a lot of the folks who went to college and universities, but others went to trade schools. and i'm told -- i never really talked to my dad about this, but i'm told that he learned how to do body work on cars, repair cars that had been wrecked. went to some kind of private school, tried schoo trade schood learned how to did that. and worked at the oldsmobile facility in pennsylvania. ended up working as a claims adjustor for nationwide insurance and ending up rumping- ended up running a trade school.

helped by the navy and g.i. bill and heed upped with a wonderful career at nationwide insurance. he's sort of a poster child for others who were able to take that benefit and do something very positive with it for the lives and t for their families. in the wake of world war ii there was also an emergence of for-profit colleges and universities and for-profit trade schools, proprietary trade schools they called them, who did not always have the best interests of the g.i. at heart. they were not always interested in making sure that the g.i., man or woman, got the training that they needed, the help that they needed to qualify for jobs throughout that day and age so they could be gainfully employed and provided for themselves and their families. sonsome of thenonprofits that oa great job. others not so much. and they took advantage of the

g.i.'s and ultimately they took advantage of taxpayers. over a period of time -- back then and the years since then ons heels oonthe heels of the k, there emerged efforts by the federal government to put in benefits -- college or university -- college our university, that this college or university would treat the g.i. fairly, the way we wanted to be treated, and to make sure that they got the benefit that they wanted and that the taxpayers deserve. one of the ways they harnessed market forces was by saying that initially i think on the heels of world war ii there was a rule -- 85-15 rule that said, if you happened to be a proprietary

school and you were using the g.i. bill to pay for benefits for somebody, at least -- let's say you had 100 students. out of the 100, no more than 85% -- 85 of them could be there on the federal dime. the other 15 g.i.'s, if you will, had to be there on their own or paid for it by some way other on by the federal government. that was an effort to try early on to introduce market forces into the benefits that were being provided, so that we could end up with schools that were working and providing either training certificates or degrees that were worth the paper they were written on. more recently something emerged called the 90-10 rule and the g.i. bills have come and gone, as we've gone into wars, korea, vietnam, and more recently the persian gulf and then iraq and now afghanistan, and the benefits that are offered to folks who are literally -- who have literally served and aplayeappliedfor the g.i. bill,y

generous g.i. bill. we an offer of 300 delaware guardsmen and women from delaware to go serve in some cases in afghanistan, other cases maybe in kuwait and different duty stations around the world. but i told them when they went off to deploy that they, when they came back at the end of their six months, seven, a et months, whatever it would be, that they would come back to the best g.i. bill in the history of the country. and here's what they come back to if they have served for, i think, three years. they served the time in various parts of the world, they come back to a g.i. bill that if they went to a public school, college, university, technical community college or a public college or university in other parts of the country, they could go to the schools for free. pretty good, huh? they could go for free.

tuition paid for, books paid for, fees paid for, tutoring paid for, and they got a $1,500 housing allowance. pretty good, huh? very good. and just to make sure that we have some market forces in place to ensure that these for-profit colleges and universities are really doing a good job, not just taking advantage of the g.i.'s or taxpayers, have in place something called the 90-10 rule. it's been around for a while. the 90-10 rule says no college or university, for-profit proprietary school, for-profit training school can get more than 90% of their revenues from the federal government, but the 90% does not necessarily cover cover -- it can cover pell grants and things other than g.i. bill, but the g.i. bill,

the school can get all their money from pell grants, students that are on the federal dime, and -- and -- mr. president, i'm not sure what's wrong with the public address here or not. try another one? test, test. that's better. there we go. is that right? but today we have a loophole in the 90-10 rule that allows the college or university or proprietary for-public school to get 100% of their revenues from the federal government. it doesn't count the money they get from the g.i. bill. it covers pell grants and other federal aid but not the g.i.

bill and not something called tuition assistance to active duty personnel. i would just suggest, mr. president, that that's something we need to fix. that's a loophole that needs to be plugged. no college or university should make 100% of their revenues off the federal government. we have a 90-10 rule, well intentioned to make sure the market forces ensure the people getting their education from a source other than the federal government would ensure that the diploma they're getting, the certificate they're getting was worth something and were able to translate that into gainful employment. several of us have offered legislation to close the 90-10 rule and really to go back to the original intent, say that no for-profit college or university, training school can get more than 90% of their revenues from the federal government. you can add in the g.i. bill,

you can add in pell grants, tuition assistance for active duty personnel. that cannot exceed 90%. and educational entities, revenues. we need to restore that market force, that government, if you will, to better ensure the integrity. so i would just say to my colleagues as we approach this veterans day it's great that we're able to offer a benefit that provides free -- i don't care whether you're in north carolina or utah, you go to college free. any public college or university there, get a housing allowance for $1,500 a month. but i want to make sure when a g.i. -- i don't care if it's army, navy, air force, marine, whatever, i want to make sure when they get their certificate or diploma, that it's worth the paper it's written on. that they will be able to in some cases go on to graduate school and further their learning, but almost in all cases to go on to a job that

enables them to be self-sufficient. with that, mr. president, i am going to yield the floor to the chairman of the finance committee on which i am privileged to serve and to say to both of my colleagues on the floor here, my best wishes to you and your constituents for a happy veterans day, a wonderful veterans day. i will see you all next week. thank you. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: i thank my kind colleague and appreciate his work on our committee. he's one of the good people around here. mr. president, i rise today to speak once again on the topic of religious liberty. this is the fifth in a series of addresses i have given on this vitally important subject. in my previous remarks, i have discussed why religious liberty matters, why it's important and why it deserves special protection from government interference. i have also detailed the history of religious liberty in order to show that the desire for

religious freedom was central to our nation's founding and to the very idea of america. from the beginning, religious liberty has been a preeminent value in american life. government accommodates religion, not the other way around. lastly, in my previous remarks, i have sought to explain how religion has always had a robust public role in our society and to rebus the wrong-headed, ahysterical view that religion is a purely private matter that should be kept out of a public domain. today i turn to the status of religious liberty in contemporary american life. my argument is straightforward in ways that are both surprising and unprecedented. religious liberty is under attack here in the united states. i speak not merely of attacks on particular practices but also of attacks on the very idea of religious liberty itself, on the idea that there should be room for society, for believers to

live and to worship in ways that differ from prevailing orthodoxy. the campaign against religious liberty has three prongs. the courts, the obama administration and state legislatures. my goal today is to explain how each of these institutions is undermining the vitality of religious life in our country and why what they are doing is wrong. many americans are unaware of the substantial threats religious liberty faces here in the united states. they look abroad to the middle east or to africa where islamist regimes are killing christians and other dissenters. from religious orthodoxy. and suppose by comparison things are not so bad here in the united states. while it is true that religious minorities in america do not face death or serious physical harm for choosing to live their faith, we must not blind

ourselves to the ways in which our government institutions are undermining religious liberty itself. we must instead come to recognize that powerful forces in our society are working actively to restrict the ability of religious believers to live out their faith and to foist upon them government mandates that are flatly inconsistent with their most deeply held beliefs. i begin with the courts which i have identified as the first front in the fight against religious liberty. for a number of years now, there has been a steady stream of cases in which everyday americans have been sanctioned, sometimes severely, for adhering to religious tenets that conflict with current political orthodoxy. the examples are myriad. a photographer in new mexico was fined $7,000 for declining to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony on the grounds that her

religious beliefs teach that marriage is a union between one man and one woman and that she could not in good conscience lend her services to the event. a florist in washington state was fined $1,000 for declining to provide flower arrangements for a same-sex wedding. and a couple in oregon who owned a cake shop were ordered to pay $135,000 after telling a same-sex couple that they could not provide a cake for their wedding ceremony because the shop owners adhere to the traditional bishop lickally based view of -- biblically based view of marriage. the message these court cases send is clear -- if you are an individual with different religious views, that differ from the policies of the state, follow your beliefs at your own peril. even those that don't endorse that view that it is appropriate for businesses to deny service to customers on the basis of deeply held beliefs must concede that the fines and other

sanctions in these cases present a direct threat to religious liberty. note that there was no suggestion in any of these cases that the defendant's refusal to provide service actually prevented the same-sex couple from obtaining the desired items. in each case, other florists, photographers, bakers without religious or moral objections stood ready to assist. the state was not stepping in to ensure that the couple had access to needed goods and services. rather, the injury to the couple in each case was that the defendant would not sanction their ceremony. the state did not like the message the defendant's religious beliefs conveyed and so ordered the defendant to pay a potentially ruinous fine. the notion that the government could override or punish individuals for deeply held religious beliefs merely because those beliefs deviate from

prevailing views strikes at the very heart of religious liberty. religious liberty is the right of an individual to practice his or her beliefs even in the face of government, social or community opposition. if all that is needed for government to override a person's deeply held beliefs is a disagreement over whether the person's beliefs send the right message, then religious liberty is weak indeed. it is no longer a preferred value that government must make room for but rather a common run of the mill interest the government can override essentially at will. recent court cases that undermine religious liberty and threaten the integrity of our religious institutions in other ways as well. one case decided by the supreme court about five years ago held that schools can require student religious groups to accept nonbelievers as leaders, even though doing so could undermine the group's mission and install

as leaders individuals who do not share the group's core beliefs. other cases have sewn confusion about students' ability to express religious conviction in school settings. teachers and school administrators have barred students from wearing religious imagery, from affirming their faith and essays and speeches and from performing religious music because they fear running afoul of judicial prohibitions on state establishment of religion. other officials have denied religious groups access to state facilities to worship or to hold meetings, again during potential lawsuits. the courts are not the only place where religious liberty is under attack. i'm sorry to say, mr. president, that the current administration has done much to weaken religious freedom and to undermine the rights of conscience. certainly the most notorious instance of the administration's efforts to undermine religious liberty is the obamacare contraception mandate.

this provision requires employers to provide their employees access to contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, even when the employer has profound moral objections to such drugs. there is a narrow exception for exemption for houses of worship, but countless other religious employers, including religious schools, hospitals and charities, must either comply with a mandate in violation of their religious beliefs or pay sub stangs financial penalties -- substantial financial penalties. the administration has also stripped funding from religious groups that refuse as a matter of conscience to toe the administration's line on abortion and contraception. in a remarkable and shortsighted move, the administration revoked funding for the u.s. conference of catholic bishops relief program for victims of human trafficking because the

conference declined on religious grounds to refer victims for abortion or contraceptives. so not only is the administration using the threat of financial loss to pressure religious groups to violate their beliefs, but it is also harming trafficking victims by hindering the ability of religious groups who differ from the administration on matters of con shens to aid victims. the administration, too, has put out federal contractors that subscribe to traditional views -- that has put federal contractors that subscribe to traditional views on marriage and sexuality on the horns of a terrible dilemma. last year, the president issued an executive order prohibiting contractors from taking into account sexual orientation or gender identity when hiring employees. the order contains no exemptions for contractors with religious

affiliations. under the president's order, the contractor with a religious mission may be forced to hire an individual who holds views that run counter to that mission in order to remain eligible for federal contracts. the president's order thus creates the very real possibility that religiously affiliated contractors who to choose between impairing the integrity of their organization and competing for federal funds. in addition to pursuing these troubling policies, the administration has also taken extreme and unsupportable positions in court filings that if adopted would undermine religious freedom. before the supreme court, the administration made the remarkable claim that federal law authorizes the federal government -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired.

mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to finish these remarks. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. hatch: okay. before the supreme court, the administration made the remarkable claim that federal law authorizes the federal government to involve itself in the hiring and firing of church ministers. specifically, the administration said the federal antidiscrimination laws override the first amendment right to churches to select whom ever they wish as ministers and instead allow the administration to actually sue a church if it believes a particular hiring or firing was improper. this ra radical position would allow the federal government to inssert itself into some of the most important decisions churches make regarding religious doctrine an governance. thankfully the supreme court rejected the administration's position unanimously. in a striking rebuke, the court called the administration's claim that the first amendment

provides no more protection to a church than selecting its leaders than it does to a -- quote -- "labor union" or a social club. remarkable -- unquote. but the fact that the administration felt comfortable making this argument and apparently thought that it was a correct argument speaks volumes regarding this administration's dim view of religious liberty. more recently, the administration has signaled that the forced legalization of same-sex marriage will present religious schools and institutions with significant challenges in reconciling school standards with federal antidiscrimination laws. at oral argument in the overefel case, one of the judges asked the solicitor general whether a religious school that opposed same-sex marriage would lose its tax-exempt status.

the solicitor generalresponded -- quote -- "it's a certainly going to be a issue." with those words, the solicitor general made clear the religious institutions that h. adhere to traditional views regarding marriage and sexuality such as providing housing to opposite-sex only couples will face potential financial staggering consequences. the third fight against religious liberty happens to be the state legislatures. in many ways what we're seeing at the state level is a mirror of what the administration has been doing at the federal level. just as the administration has stripped funding from religious organizations that refuse to follow the administration's liberal social policies, states have withdrawn funding and licenses from groups that adhere to traditional religious views. massachusetts, for example,

passed a law requiring state-licensed adoption agencies to place children with same-sex couples. as a result, catholic charities, which had operated adoption services in the state for over 100 years, was forced to shut down its adoption program. that's outrageous. catholic charities affiliates in illinois were similarly forced to close after the state announced that it would -- no longer provide funding to adoption agencies that declined to place children with same-sex couples. other religiously affiliated groups and schools have lost contracts, faced loss of accreditation, and been denied permission to use public facilities because of their views on family, marriage, and sexuality. the mayor of houston even went so far to subpoena internal church communications as part of an intimidation campaign against

churches that opposed the city nondiscrimination ordinance. far from treating religious liberty as a preeminent value, many states and localities have thrusted aside in favor of other goals. another disturbing trend at the state level has been the growing opposition to state religious freedom laws. over 20 years i helped lead a broad bipartisan effort in congress to pass the religious freedom restoration act, or rfra. rfra sought to undo a misguided supreme court decision that authorized congress and the states to abridge religious freedom as long as their actions did not specifically target religion. rfra says the government may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion unless doing so is necessary to further a compelling government trvment the coalition that helped pass rfra, including members as

diverse as senator kennedy and phil graham, groups such as the aclu, the traditional values coalition strongly supported the bill. given this broad cross-ideological support, rfra passed the house without recorded opposition and passed the senate 97-3, nearly unanimous. for a major piece of legislation like rfra to pass congress with only three recorded "no" votes was nearly unprecedented and indicated the pred breadth of st at the time that the view religious liberty deserves special protection. 20 years later, however, the consensus in favor of robust protections for religious liberty has splintered. whereas the federal rfra was able to pass congress almost without opposition, the whole congress that is, recent efforts to enact state-level rfras have

run into substantial resistance. efforts in indiana and arizona, to name two examples, ignited media firestorms and generated strong pushback from groups who mistakenly viewed the measures as discriminatory. both bills, it should be emphasized, were modeled after the federal rfra, but the political dynamics have changed so dramatically over the last 20 years that protecting religious freedom has gone from being the rare issue on which all sides can agree to becoming a political hot potato. some groups that supported the federal rfra have evening taken the position that -- have even taken the position that future rfras must contain carve-outs for particular groups or issue areas. many of these same groups endorse an effort by senate democrats last year to exempt from the federal rfra all federal laws and regulations related to health care. of course, any carve-outs in religious liberty protections undermine those protections because they limit the field in

which religious liberty has full effect. for this reason, the federal rfra contains no such carve-outs. indeed, opposition to carve-outs was a key element in both assembling and maintaining the rfra coalition two decades ago. even if members had varying views on merits of certain practices, the one thing all could agree on is that religious liberty is a fundamental, universal value that should apply equally to fen. -- to everyone. but the price of admission to many groups today is a willingness to cut back on religious liberty in instances where religious belief conflicts with progressive social goals. 20 years ago this sort of hostage-taking was nowhere on the agenda. religious liberty has now become a secondary goal, or, works an impediment for many liberal groups who value what they call progressive social policy over protecting the rights of believers. i hate the use of that word

"progressive" because it's anything but. this backtracking by many formerly stalwart defenders of religious liberty represents one of the most serious ways that religious freedom is under attack in this great country. i'll note one other political seed change that is undermining religious liberty here in the united states. for many years, groups on the left have been advocating for laws to prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation. i am in general agreement with such laws and do not believe that sexual orientation should be grounds for discrimination or mistreatment. many of the groups advocating for these laws have previously been willing to include exemptions for religious organizations that hold traditional views on marriage and sexuality. i believe that such exemptions are appropriate and strike the right balance by protecting rights to nondiscrimination while enabling religious organizations to hold true to their beliefs.

indeed, i believe it is essential for nondiscrimination laws to properly accommodate religious liberty, and i would actively oppose any such law that fails to account for the rights of religious believers. unfortunately, many groups that were previously willing to support religious exemptions in nondiscrimination laws have reversed course. for example, many groups have supported last congress' non-jim nation act or enda which would prohibit discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation, have withdrawn their support for the act because it contains a robust exemption for religious organizations. this congress they are instead supporting the equality act, which contains no religious exemption at all. i supported enda because i believed it reflected the right balance between nondiscrimination and religious liberty, and i took some criticism for doing so. i still believe that it does

reflect the right balance, but many united states if o groups e indicated that they're willing to cast religious liberty asaid in furtherance of -- liberty aside in furtherance of other goals. religious liberty is no longer a preeminent value. it should be accommodated only so far as it is convenient and does not interfere with their other objectives. this is a seed change and one that bodies ill for the future vitality of religious freedom. i said at the outset that religious liberty is under attack in america in ways that are both surprising and unprecedented. certainly the willingness of former defenders of religious freedom to turn their backs on believers is both. i would like to close by returning briefly to the new mexico photographer case i mentioned he recall earlier. that case consequencetains the most surprising and unprecedented feature of all.

in a concurring opinion, one of the judges in the case called the requirement to violate one's religious beliefs when they conflict with state social policy -- quote -- "the price of citizenship" -- unquote. that statement represents a complete inversion of the relationship between government authority and religious liberty here in america. when we are born or become american citizens, we do not surrender our rights of conscience to the government. we do not pledge our allegiance to a secular god. we retain our right to religious liberty. indeed, not only do we retain our right, our government guarantees our right to freely practice our faith in accordance with the dictates of our own conscience. as the declaration of independence instructs, all men and women are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable

rights, as the fundamental purpose of government to secure those rights. if there is a price we pay as american citizens, it is not that we give up our god-given rights first and foremost, of which is the right of religious liberty. it is key to work together to promote the common good of our country. mr. president, subjugating religious imleefs t beliefs to t decrees is not the price of citizenship. respecting and honoring the fundamental rights of all americans is the price that our government pays in order to enjoy the continued consent of the american people. those who attack religious liberty and seek to devalue its place in society fundamentally mis-ed understand the key point. too many in america today, from the courts to the obama administration to the state legislatures, undervalue religious freedom and view it, at best, as a secondary goal.

people of good will here in congress and acrossing our nation -- ac'across our nation d to realize that religious liberty is under attack. we will find much of what we have fought for and much of what our forebearers fought for swept away unless we stand up. we must fortify the rights of believers to follow their conscience, even when their fellow citizens or elected officials would prefer a different course. i will have much more to say on this topic in future remarks. with that, i yield the floor. mr. brown: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. this week we honor tomorrow the men and women who serve our nation with honor and those families who also sacrifice, whom we do not remember enough, who've sacrificed so much for the service members they love and for all of us in our country. the sacrifice of our veterans demands that we fulfill the promises that we've made.

this body is very -- always willing to spndz more dollars in -- spend more dollars in armaments and weapons, but when it comes time to fulfill our obligations to veterans, too many in this -- too many in this body are not generous enough. i'm the only ohioan ever to serve a full term on the senate veterans' affairs committee. i take that duty very serious. i know the presiding officer, senator tillis from north carolina, does too. it means working to end the v.a. gac log. it means putting a better system in place. it means ensuring that our veterans have a roof over their heads and a place to call home. it means providing veterans with health care and the educational opportunities they deserve and which they have earned. too many veterans face mental health challenges that can end in tragedy. 8,000 veterans each year take their own lives, 154 a week, 22 a day. hundreds of thousands