been a lot of talk about the omnibus bill in the last couple days on the floor, but i just wanted to say a few words that sometimes it takes a reminder from home, a reminder from what's going on back home to ground us, to remind us what's really important in our lives. like family and friends and life itself. i'd like to talk briefly about an effort that's going on in alaska right now to try to recover one of our own. casey graham, an alaska native, a patriot. 24 years old. son of steven and lucy graham. brother of cheryl, michelle, megan and pauline. a veteran who served in the

marines and deployed to serve his country in afghanistan. a young man in the prime of his life. casey has been described as smart, hardworking, extremely intelligent, a shining light for his community, his state and his country. he lived in anchorage but was from mcgrath, alaska, about 200 miles from anchorage on the upper kuskekim river. about a week ago, he was visiting family when he decided to do what most alaskans do in the winter is go out on a snow machine ride. it's thought that he was on the ice, on the river, and hit open water. his snow machine and his helmet have been found but not casey.

and as i speak, the community of mcgrath is banding together for the recovery effort. now, it's a small town, only about 350 people live there, but, mr. president, it's a town with a huge heart. the community has dropped everything, every day dozens, as many as 50 alaskans have gone out to the ice where they think casey was to bring him home. remember, in alaska, it's cold right now. from december 10 when the search began until now, temperatures have ranged from about 22 degrees below zero to a high of about 16 above. there is a heated tent on the ice where volunteers go to warm

up and eat lunch before they go back out searching. they eat moose stew mostly, and of course a lot of salmon. the community is emptying their freezers and making sure that everyone, all the volunteers, are fed. mr. president, in the true spirit of alaska, in the true spirit of christmas, so many companies and individuals across the state, across the great state of alaska are donating goods and services, airline miles, freight services, food, hand and foot warmers, cold weather gear, you name it. everybody's pitching in to help. mr. president, something that this body, this country should be particularly proud of, although i'm not surprised by

it, is casey's marine brothers have flown in from thousands of miles away, all across the country, to help in the search. they served with him in afghanistan and they have now come to alaska from texas and pennsylvania and california and as far away from alaska as new york. there are 11 now and more on the way. in the marines, we don't leave our brothers or sisters behind. these marines are living up to that ethos. mr. president, i'm asking for the thoughts and prayers of this body, for americans, any americans watching all across the country on this effort. i'm asking that we pray to bring

casey home. semper fi to him, his father and his sisters and to those proud marines who are making sure that he makes it home. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president?

the president pro tempore: the senator. mr. perdue: on behalf of the majority leader, i move to proceed to calendar number s. 2232. cleric clark bill to require a full audit of the board of goamps and so forth and for other purposes. mr. perdue: on behalf of the majority leader, i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 289, s. 2232, a bill to rare full audit of the board of governs of the federal reserve system and the federal reserve banks by the comptroller general of the united states and for other purposes, signed by 1 senators, as follows: mcconnell, barrasso, blunt, cornyn, gardner, vitter, capito -- mr. perdue: i ask unanimous

consent that the reading of the names be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, this cloture vote occur at 2:30 p.m. on tuesday, january 12. the president pro tempore: is there objection? mr. perdue: i ask that the senate proceed to calendar number 303, s. 1115. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 303, s. 1115, a bill to close out expired, empty grant accounts. the president pro tempore: is there objection to proceeding? without objection. mr. perdue: i ask consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be withdrawn, the fisher substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill, as anded, read a third time and passed, that the committee-reported title

amendment be agreed to, and that the the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table. the president pro tempore: is there objection? without objection. so ordered. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 342 submitted earlier today. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 342 congratulating the women's volleyball team of wheeling jesuit university on winning the division i national championship. the president pro tempore: is there objection to proceeding? without objection. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the president pro tempore: without objection. mr. perdue: i ask that the chair lay before the senate h. con. res. 104 which was received from the house. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: h. con. res. 104 concurrent resolution providing

for the sine die adjournment of the first session of the 114th congress. the president pro tempore: is there objection? without objection. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider reconsider be considered manned awed laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 4188 which was received from the house. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 418, an act to authorize aeption pros for the coast guard for fiscal years 2016 and 2017 and for other purposes. the president pro tempore: sl objection to proceeding? without objection. mr. perdue: i ask unanimous consent that the thune substitute amendment be agreed to and the bill, as amended, be read a third time. the president pro tempore: without objection.

the clerk will read the title for the third time. the clerk: h.r. 488, an act to authorize aprongses for the coast guard for the fiscal years 2017 and 2018 and for other purposes. mr. perdue: i know of no further debate on this measure. the president pro tempore: if there is to further debate, question is on the bill, as amended. all in favor say aye. all in favor -- all against say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill, as amend, is passed. mr. perdue: i ask consent that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the president pro tempore: without objection. per i ask unanimous consent that the the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the president pro tempore: without objection. mr. perdue: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the upcoming adjournment of the senate, the president of the senate, the

president pro tempore, and the majority and minority leaders be authorized to make appointments to commissions, committees, boards, conferences, or interparliamentary conferences authorized by law by concurrent action of the two houses or by order of the senate. the president pro tempore: is there objection? without objection. mr. perdue: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the junior senator from arkansas and the junior senator from west virginia be authorized to sign duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions on friday, december 18, 2015, through monday, january 11, 2016. the president pro tempore: is there objection? without objection. mr. perdue: i understand that there is a bill at the desk and i ask for its first reading. the president pro tempore: the clerk read the bill for the first time. the clerk: s. 2434, a bill to provide that any executive action that infringes on the powers and duties of congress under section 86 article 1 of the constitution of the united states or on the second amendment to the constitution of the united states has no force or effect and to prohibit the

use of funds for certain purposes. mr. perdue: i now ask for a second reading and in order to places the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i object to my own request. the president pro tempore: the objection is heard. the bill will be read a second time on the next legislative day. mr. perdue: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate stand in recess subject to the call of the chair. the president pro tempore: the president pro tempore:

he could try to slow the legislation down the florida republican who is running for president was the only 2016 contender to miss the boat which is the senate's final vote of the year. senators ted cruz, rand paul and bernie sanders and three other presidential candidates all voted against the legislation and the senator lindsey graham backed the bill. again from the hill you can read more. with the resolution of the last matter both the house and the senate out of session for the holiday break prior to the final votes the chair and vice chair of the senate appropriations committee came to the floor to encourage their colleagues to vote for the measure. their comments run about 15 ms. kulski: ma

>> i rise to speak on the consolidated appropriations act of 2016 otherwise known as the omnibus bill. >> madam president, i wish to report to my colleagues in the house, house, excuse me, the senate, that the house has passed the bill with 316 to 113. madam madam president, the senate is not in order. >> the senate will be in order to but ask that conversations between and off the floor. madam president, three months ago it was unclear that we would

be at this point. we were uncertain if we could get a budget deal for the defense and nondefense spending. it was unclear if we could cancel and it was unclear if we could avoid a government shutdown. i am happy to say today that we have completed our work and we've done it in the traditional style from this institution and also from the appropriations committee working on a bipartisan basis. the chairman of the committee mr. cochran and i worked across the aisle to get the job done. i would like to thank him for the leadership he provided the committee, for his professionalism and for the ability of the fact we could work together and are staffed to work with civility and candor.

for the third year in a row we had no appropriations bill behind. the negotiated that capitulation of the principles. it's a strong tradition of the appropriations committee. as we bring the bill to the floor i urge all of my colleagues to vote for this bill. on the basis of content and on the basis of merit i want to tell you what this bill does. first of all it does a lot to protect the united states of america. we know that right now america feels on edge and needs to provide clarity and specificity but most of all we need to provide the resources to the institutions that protect the country with the resources that they need. in this bill we have

$606 billion in the national defense of the united states of america to support and train and equip our troops to deal with the new threats of bilateral security. we have a list to make sure that our troops have the best weapons and that the troops and families are supported. we look out for their healthcare and try care and the food they need to my inner commissaries. but protecting america is also of not only in the defense department, if lies in the important agencies that do that type work. they capitalize the state department provided money for embassy security. we've also funded homeland

security from the coast guard to protect the ports and waterways to close to $11 million new grants to counter violent extremism. make sure that we've given tsa the transportation security administration to protect travelers with over the airport screeners that have been requested. we've done a good job of root out terrorists and long to be co- blog rolls to be 56 low in both threats. i want to give a shout out to the fbi in the baltimore district that uncovered a had uncovered a plot in their own home state of maryland which someone was organizing and planning a willful effort i also want to thank my colleagues for what we do in the budget deal.

this provides $65 billion more to support the middle class. we make sure we kept promises kept to our veterans. we have a $1.3 billion increase to meet their health needs and the educational needs that we promised them and to deal with the backlog of the security benefits. we are looking to the future and make robust funds available in our innovation area whether it was the department of energy and in my own home state and national institute of health. we are not a committee across the aisle. senator patty murray the ranking member and senator blunt the chair of the committee with the national institute of health

because of what it does to find that you are in the breakthrough and which doubled the research to break the code on how we can find a cure or cognitive stretch out. they cognitive stretch out and with that we've added $2 billion because we worked together because we know that when you want to find a cure for cancer, alzheimer's, autism, we need to be able to do that. we look at also looking out for other compelling needs in the development grants which we have added more money and we make the first first payments to fund the payment to fund the programs for elementary, middle and high school. we also meet the infrastructure needs where we've increased our funding in the bill by close to

transit new starts to 2.2 billion increase the funding and the program instead of cutting it by 90% we have $50 million to $950 million we've also looked out for the ports creating jobs by keeping the goods moving in and the army corps of engineers. these are about jobs. in my own home state of maryland, the port of baltimore is an incubator for jobs. it keeps people going. whether it's the people that work to bring the ships in and whether it's for sure men who understand them and the tugboat operators were those who benefit from the goods and services coming into the port. it's the ports that create the

jobs and the new ships coming to the newly built panama canal. we know that this is a big deal that could help the states and communities all over america. i know many colleagues also want to know about the writers. we face hundreds of policy writers some of which are highly controversial. we did the best way we could but when they talk about this item or that i want to talk about some of the ones that we were able to deal with. we had a trailer truck from taking over the highways and protected women's health against devastating writers and we also made sure in the institutions so that we never have another meltdown like we had eight years ago and are taken care of and we looked out for the environment.

the appropriations bills are good bills and i could go over more items that i but i see that the chairman is on the committee i want to again reiterate my appreciation to the senator and his very able staff. i want to comment on the other side of the dome as a very professional relationship. i wish that's now with new leadership in the house but those could function like the appropriations committee. do we disagree, yes. the gentle lady presiding as a member of that committee. and you know that we are ready to duke it out when we have to, but we will put it all out on the table. discuss it and debate and have an open process in the committee

of the amendments. we have a method for resolving conflict by actually meeting and discussing this with each other. we keep the same thing with our colleagues on the other side of the dome. this is what we mean when we say we want to get back to regular order thanks to the budget deal that we have now i do hope that we could next year bring the bills up one at a time for debate, discussion and enrollment and i hope that we can do that but also, i hope the tone of the appropriations committee is adopted. we can make sure that we advocate for the states and viewpoints but we do it in a way that it gets done so i want to conclude by thanking my entire staff come and the staff on the other side of the dome and all of those that work for me. rachel, richard, marla and jean.

madam president, i yield the floor. >> the senator from mississippi. >> mr. president, i'm pleased to recommend approval of the senate of the omnibus appropriations and tax relief bill that will soon be considered by the senate. this bill is consistent in the budget act that was enacted in november with funds in the operations of the federal government for the remainder of this fiscal year. provides funding for the department of defense and the state department along with the fbi customs and border protection and u.s. immigration and enforcement revisions. it provides a 2 billion-dollar increase for the national institutes of health.

it also finds improvements to the nation's water and surface transportation infrastructure. i deeply appreciate the good work and active leadership of the committee's vice chairwoman of the distinguished senator from maryland. she has been a pleasure to work with and she has been very helpful in producing this bill. i also want to thank the very able with staff members of the committee who have been very diligent and professional throughout this process. madam president, i urge approval of the bill. >> the senate is in recess and will return at some point to wrap up the session of congress. the senate approving a bill that would provide $1.5 trillion to fund the federal government and related agencies for the rest of fiscal year 2016. also the extension of expiring

tax provisions was 65 to 33. following today's votes for senate leaders told several news conferences and we will show those to you now starting with the majority leader mitch mcconnell and then the senate democrats. >> good afternoon everyone. we come to the end of the first session and by any objective standard. we have a dysfunctional body in the previous congress is how do you measure dysfunction. as you heard us say on numerous occasions when measure

dysfunction is how many votes are having on amendments. one way to measure dysfunction is passing a budget that is required by law in the previous majority didn't pass the budget. that is at the beginning of ending this function and we've done that. the other thing that was important in ending this function was to quit the marginalization of members. how do you do that? you bring most of the bills through the regular order that work on the bills and the different committees.

responsible of the governing majority. one of my favorite former colleagues used to say never take a hostage door not prepared to shoot and it seems to me a pretty obvious lesson. it never produces a positive result anyway. we figured out how to get the senate working again. with the evidence working together again as the keystone pipeline trade promotion authority and the rewrite of no child left behind in the multi-year highway bill a lot of

things that have been languishing for quite a while. took credit for a number of things and let me give a followership on the democratic side. senator boxer and i found that we actually agreed on what ought to be done here. the democratic leadership schumer, reid and the white house tried to torpedo the way that we were doing the bill that senator boxer was knowledgeable of the issue and put together democrats that didn't follow the leadership. the way that the senate working is outside of the leadership level to begin to have confidence in each other to work on bills together to think that they are worth passing and to

help make it happen so as we ended the year by any objective it's been a year of significant account patient and i want to thank the democrats who did cooperate. they have the cooperation of the other side of the required 60 requires 60 to do most things is essential and that is the way that you get a good result in the senate. >> looking at the tax reform and 2016 d. you think that is a good idea or would you preserve a better package? >> the speaker can speak for himself. we need to do comprehensive tax reform and one of the conditions

under which you can achieve that i think that you have to have a bipartisan agreement is going to be revenue natural. that's what ronald reagan and tip o'neill had. the second principle is to treat all taxpayers as nearly as you can in a similar fashion. we want people to do any type of tax reform unless he changes as he doesn't want revenue neutrality to the government back during the highway debate the revenue produced was not to be used to buy down the rate that could be spent. the republicans think that the competence of tax reform is the revenue neutral for the government, it ought to -- whatever revenue produced by illuminating preferences often be used to buy down the rates to make america more competitive. so, i would be shocked if the

president had an 870 and decided to join with us and i say it must be competence is not just territorial. that is part comprehensive. the other principle is we need to treat american business similarly. most american business is not a corporation. most american businesses were escorp staff pay taxes as individuals. so you shouldn't have general electric and general motors way down here and all of the suppliers way up here. so, those basic principles i think we would have to come to an agreement on a bipartisan basis to achieve the tax reform next year. if the president wants to do it that way, i think it would be great. >> how does this change the starting point for the comprehensive tax reform?

>> helpful. the permanency that we achieved in the bill that we just passed downstairs is very helpful adjusting and in the way that would make the competence of tax reform were possible. the speaker may decide to do that in the house next chair. it would be difficult to do that with this president because you don't agree on the principles that we think are important and tax reform. >> you set up tax reform should be revenue neutral to the extent that you just passed today why is it okay for those not to be? >> we don't believe tax cuts ought to be paid for. that's been one of the great differences between republicans and democrats over the years. for example the number on the medical device side they were ready to get rid of it provided

that it was paid for. that's been something most republicans the lead was the article that given the american people their money back is a smart thing to do into the way that it can be revenue neutral is to reduce the spending if you choose to do so. ..

which is decided more conservative than those republicans want to be running. he's the front runner right now. so can you talk about that tension and how you manage it. >> well, the way you have a good election is nominate someone who is going to win. what we did in 2014 was we didn't have kristin donald. we would not nominate anybody for the united states senate on the republican side who is not appealing to a general election audience. so i'm competent we are going to have good candidates. we have five incumbents up. one in a blue state. we expect to be competitive in nevada and the f