one of the things that i am really intent on is challenging you all to tell us where past congressional decisions at the time may have made sense or not made sense, and in times have changed, the sorts of things that we place on you, particularly in dealing with this, well-intentioned policy that do not add value, they add cost or constraint, we cost are constrained, we need your feedback so that we are not only adding some do good ideas that may be take the edge off of some of the old ones that are still in place but really help us to reform. so if you have a changing environment, your understanding of ptsd how to treat it, how to transition, how to keep track of our vets change over time. i want to committee where they come in here and they tell us we need to change this or this.

give us an opportunity to look at some of the things that you are currently doing that are no longer value added. i could deploy resources to better use in your professional opinion. >> thank you. >> anything else? >> i am moving all outside statements of the record be received in advance of the hearing should be included in the official record. without without objection, the hearing is adjourned, well done. >> [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation]

[inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation]

[inaudible conversation] >> the senate armed service committee meets tomorrow to consider to military commander nominations. they'll question the nominees to head the u.s. military's european command and northern command. you can watch that confirmation hearing live and 930 eastern time on c-span three and c-span.org. >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up on thursday morning, alec reporting for political will join us by phone to discuss this week's republican national committee meeting in florida. they will address the rules and rnc convention taken place in july. also ryan costello, cochair of the 21st century

skills will join us to talk about the reestablishment of the skills pocket. it's to identify the best methods to promote 21st century skills of the nation's schools. he will also preview next tuesday's primary and he is running to become a delegate for the rnc convention. also marilyn senator will be on, his ranking member of senate foreign relations committee and will discuss obama's trip to saudi arabia. he will share views on a bill that will allow the saudi government to be held responsible in american court for any role they've all played in the role of the 2011 attack. >> watch live 7:00 a.m. eastern on thursday morning. during the discussion. >> madam secretary we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the united states.

>> today, the senate passed the energy modernization act which mandates energy efficiency and government buildings. they then began big date debate on the first of 12 spending bills for energy and water preparations. they will continue work on that bill when the senate gavels in at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. as always, we'll bring you live coverage here on c-span2. here is some of today's debate on that spending bill with republican amar alexander and democrat, diane feinstein. this is 35 minutes,.utes s

>> mr. president, the next few minutes senator feinstein and i will submit for the senate's consideration the first appropriations bill of the year. this will be the energy and water appropriations bill, it will be the earliest that any appropriations bill has been united submitted since the budget act was passed in 1974. this four. this is a good sign for the united states senate. it means that we are serious about our most basicpe constitutional responsibilitiesi which is the oversight of the spending of the money, the setting of priorities, and doing it in a way that allows senators to participate. i'm privileged to be able to work with senator feinstein who is able to come tn a result after we have examined an important piece of

legislation. she has a background as a manager, manager, mayor, and chairman of import th committees. min i'm very privileged to have the chance to work with her, whether whether we are in the majority or the minority. before i talk about the bill say specifically since this is the first bill, i like to say a few words about the money we are spending. this year the budget control act which the united states senate adopted in 2015, which is the law passed by the senate by a vote of 64 - 35 on october 30 of last year, this year the budget control accepts the amount of money that we are to spend at $1,000,000,000,000.700 -- $1,000,000,007,000. $1.07 trillion. our bill, the energy and water bill will be 37.5 billion.

however, the entire federal as budget is a lot more than 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. in fact, in fact, it is four times as much. so we're the entire federal budget this year is $3.9 billion. so we are talking abouts appropriated dollars of about 1,000,000,000,000 dollars plus about 3,000,000,000,000 other dollars that will spend this year through the federal government. those dollars are iose dollars are what we call mandatory or automatic spendingt plus interest on the debt. federal health care spending is an example, that is about $1 trillion. about the same amount of all the 12 appropriation bills that will be considering. the senate for medicare and s medicaid services is in charge of spending about 88 6,000,000,000 dollars dollars every year.

almost all mandatory spending. s so the part of the budget that weird talking about today and we will be talking about for the next 12 weeks is one fourth of the total federal spending. for i want to thank senator and the majority leader for making this a priority. i want to set thank senator reid the democratic leader for suggesting that the democrats that they too wanted to see us move through the process. this gives the american people a chance chance to see how we spend their money. the american people care about how we spend their money because we have a big debt. there's a lot of talk about that that which is $19 trillion. this you the total revenues ofhe the federal government are about about 3.36 billion, but the spending is about three-point nine. so elementary school mathematics which way that we are adding

about 53 4,000,000,000 more more to our 19 trillion-dollar debt this year. other mr. president, it's important to point out that the spending wery are talking about in this bill and the other 11 discretionary bills is not the problem. i like to ask the chair to look at the bottom line in front, the bluels line, that is what we call the discretionary spending, that is the money the appropriations committee works on. that is the 1,000,000,000,000 dollars we trillion dollars we are appropriating in these bills, it has been flat since 2008 and it's rising at about the rate of inflation over the next ten years according to the congressional budget office. so the entire budget following the path of the blue line on the bottom, thus the money were in charge of the new preparations committee. we would not have a debt problem. look where's the debt problem coming from. thus the automatic mandatory spending. that red line.

that does not even include thehe interest on the federal debt. so i suggested in our confidence that maybe what the united states senate would want to do is turn the entire budget over to the appropriations committee because we are doing our job. apparently the rest of the senate or all of us as a whole are not doing our job in running up a big federal debt. senator feinstein and i have been presented and the of moneye by the committee and by the senate that we allocate. we have done that through four hearings. i'll be talking about those. we have set priorities, cut weeds with spending, and beginning to get big construction projects under control. we have eliminated projects under control. we have eliminated funding for a project in france that saves $125 million in one year which put under other

priorities. we've got the uranium processing facility in oak ridge tennessee now on a project where it's 90% design before it's built and it will be on time and on budget before it's finished. were working with the armed services committee to try to do a similar a similar kind of thing with the south carolina. we have a red team kinda right team that helped us in oak ridge and south carolina working on a mexico construction project. bu so our oversight, working together is saving the taxpayerg money, staying within the budget and i'm glad to say, that we are not part of the debt problem. now, sometime we as a full senate will start working on that top line. senator and i have a bill that b would reduce that top line growth by 1,000,000,000,000 dollars dollars over the next ten years. the problem is senator and i are the only cosponsors of the bill. so not be talking about that much today. i understand there may be an attempt to change theo level of funding that we make

now will talk about that at the time this afternoon when the amendments,. just so everybody is thinking about that before and, number one we are following the law that's where budgeting this, number two, the budget committee of the senate has begun to start its budget process based upon the number mo that the law sets, and number number three, our appropriations bills are not the debt problem. it is the mandatory's bending and interest on the debt and sooner or later we need to deal with it. mr. president, last thursday senator feinstein and i am a senator appropriations committee approved the fiscal year 2017 energy and and water development appropriations bill by unanimous vote, 30-zero they all voted to for. us this bill includes items very familiar to the american people, things like they would like for us to fund properly. such as flood control, such as navigation on our rivers, such as deepening harbors whether

it's in california, mobile, charleston, or savannah. such as rebuilding lots whether it in ohio, kentucky, or tennessee. such as the 17 national labs which are secret weapon and job growth acrossto growth across our country.ith super computing where we seek to lead the world, another great source of job growth. in a big part of our bridge it has to do with nuclear weapons in national defense. in a time when our world is so unsafe, americans would americans would hope we would deal with that. we worked together in a fair and accommodating manner under challenging fiscal constraintsnc million it is 37.5 billion, reaching bipartisan consensus was not easy. we received and

allocations for the defense spending that was higher than last year by aboutnon-defense 1.163 billion, about 808 million lower. the funding include several federal agencies that do important work including the u.s. department of energy, the nuclear regulatory commission, the army corps of engineers, the engineers, the bureau of reclamation, the national nuclear security at the ministration. it also started with an unrealistic budget proposal with the president which cut the corps of engineers by 1.4 billion and propose 2.3 billion in new mandatory funding for the department of energy. the bill that senator feinstein nine negotiated supports our waterways, puts us one step c closer to doubling basic energy research, helps to resolve the nuclear waste stalemate, cleans up hazardous material and

maintains our nuclear weapons stockpile. we also conducted extensive oversight of the president's budget request and the department of energy and as i mentioned earlier we eliminated at least one low priority program to reduce waste and saved about $125 million. that was the international and a reactor in france started in 2005 with initial cost of 1,100,000,000. we have already invested that much in the project and not likely completed until after 2025. and as i mentioned earlier we work together to keep the uranium projects on time and on budget.d it is now on time and on budget. it it will be 90% design before it is constructed. it will also working to getth under control the facility in new mexico. seventy-seven senator's limited request to to us and we worked hard to accommodate requests of every senator. we have had many other senators we have come to a sense than with amendments theyy would like to offer.

most senators, i would say in the 80s have something they think is important in this bill. so senators decide that we need to spend less money i guess they need to be prepared to send us letters to tell us what to take out of the bill since we put letters into the bill based upon what the law said we should spend. the last time time the united states bennett passes to bill, under the regular order was 2009.sed to i look forward to a regular appropriations process and would briefly highlight a few of the parts of the bill. one is waterways waterways infrastructure. the bill restores 1.4 billionav that the president proposed to come from the core of engineers such a low record level of funding than the regular perforations bill. many senators are just to dodo this for there's not a fundingig line in the bill that has more support than the army corps of

engineers. rebuilding lots and dams, dredging our rivers building environmental restoration req projects. it was simply approved the request to receive last then fund 2006 setting us back more than one decade. in tennessee we provided enough to continue building a new -- in fiscal year 2017. up to 37,000,000 will be available to the united states army corps of engineers to continue work. last month the court reiterated its most recent study that it continues to be the fourth highest priority of the central american waterways to be rebuilt. we rebuilt. we also also included 1.3 billion from a harbor maintenance trust fund. this is the third consecutivered year that we funded the harbor maintenance trust when consistent with the funding level that congress recommendedw

in the water resources development act. this will permit us to deepen harbors including gulfport, charleston, mobile, texas, louisiana, anchorage, savannah, and harbors on the west coast. and i basic energy research is supported and is one of the most important things we can do to unleash our free enterprises. senator durbin and i have worked together on an amendment for the energy bill that increases the authorized funding levels of the office of science by about 7% per year. that would delve double the office of science a budget from a little over 5,000,000 today to more than 10,000,000,000 in ten years. ten years. that is the money basically that the united states government spends on energy research. the senate adopted our amendment which you demonstrate how much support there is. they propose to spend even more in energy research including the mission innovation program the pledge laws by the united states and other countries at the

climate senate in paris.y the problem is, mr. president that president obama's budget request proposed budget request proposed 2,259,000,000 in new mandatory funding for the department in new mandatory funding for the department of energy. however his commitment to doubling clean energy research with mandatory funding comes a it is and other and at worst misleading, it's wishful thinking and everyone knows it's not going to happen. so instead we focused on priorities where discretionary funding annually approved by c congress. that is the line, the bottom line that is under control and is not the source of our federal debt problem. our top priority was the office5 of science which includes 5,400,000,000 to support basic energy research, 50,000,000 more than last year, the second year

we have been able to increase funding for the office of science which sets a new record level which sets a new record level of funding for that office in a regular appropriations bill. this puts us one step closer to doubling funding for basic research. it also includes 2.92.7 million, for an agency that invest in high-impact energy technologies, little more than last year, 1.7 more, the bill also supports the department of energy's continued efforts to advance go xo scale computing to produce abundanc of our electricity, 60% of our carbon free electricity. were going to have the abundance of clean, cheap reliable energy that we want to need we are going to have that we need to unleash nuclear power by removing obstacles in its way. our legislation sends us a strong signal about our support and new technologies in the next generation of their power plants. we included 94.5 million for advanced reactors.

21 million more fruit the president's budget request. request.or we have included 95 million for small reactors, 32 500,000 over last year. one way our bill helps is by taking important steps toward solving our countries stalemate over what to do with nuclear waste. a bipartisan issue. a bipartisan issue and a goal that senator feinstein and i agree on and have been working hard to accomplish. ouril legislation, this was senator feinstein's suggestion suggestion three years ago for i consolidated nuclear wastes. storage. what she and i have introduced the past four years. the new site would not take the place, we have more than enough to villa to but it would complement it..

it also provide funding to restore nuclear waste in private facilities approved by the nuclear regulatory commission such as the one proposed in west texas. we are also supporting research in this bill to help continue the work that's necessary to safely extend nuclear power from 60 - 80 years. in my view the simplest, easiest way to have a large amount of new carbon free electricity in the near term. for the finally mr. president this legislation provides a total of 12.9 billion the national nuclear security administration and fully funds the warhead life extension program recommended by the nuclear weapons council and the design of the ohio class replacement submarines. it also supports crucial facilities related to our national security. the bill provides 57 5,000,000 for for the uranium processing facility in oak ridge. it keeps the project on track to be completed by 2025 at a cost

of no more than 6.5 billion. to the legislation also advances our efforts to clean up hazardous material at cold war sites, a total of 5.4 billion to support cleanup efforts. mr. president this bill adequately funds our nation's energy and water priorities. fully complies with the spending limits established by the budget control act, the budget control act continues align spending for the appropriated dollars that is the bottom line there, the blue line there that is been flat since 2008 and only grows with the rate of inflation for the written next ten years according to the congressional budget office. that blue line is not not the source of the federal debt ae problem. for t it's the rest of the line which spends three times as much is the amount of money that we are spending the 12 appropriation bills we will be doing voting

for the next two weeks. i think senator feinstein for her leadership and cooperation. i urge senators to support the bill. we are already working with senators on amendments that they seek to offer. we hope to begin voting on some this afternoon in an open process. >> mr. president. >> senator from california. >> mr. president i rise today to speak in support of the fiscal a year 17 appropriation bills. firstly i would would askhe unanimous consent that tim dykstra, detainee to the subcommittee have full floor privileges during thee consideration of this bill. mr. president. >> without objection. >> thank you very much mr. president.

th i want to begin by thanking my friend and colleague senator alexander. we have served served together as chairman or ranking member of the subcommittee for the past five years. i know no one in this body who is more intelligent, or has a greater sense of fairness. i i just want you to know senator y alexander, what a great treat it has been to work with you for these five years. diffe i think we have a bill that will stand the test of time. if each each of us has had differentt views on different parts, but that is part of what makes this a great country. t i just want to say thank you for being who you are and thank you for being the kind of united states senator that you are. thank you very much. now if i may mr. chairman, as chairman mentioned, this bill has reach the floor floor for the first time since 2009.

it is also being considered as an appropriation bill on the floor of the quickest time since the budgeting process began in 1974. i just want to say thank you to our leadership on both sides for the desire to get us back to regular order and particularly on appropriations bill. i would like to thank all of my colleagues on the appropriations committee for supporting this bill during last week's workup. as as a chairman said the vote was 32 nothing and that's a pretty good vote. g so thank you very much i believe this is a good bill. it's a fair fair bill. it does contain trade-offs in the hard choices. we have worked together toir settle differences. c obviously the chairs the chair and the views come number one. but in the case of this chair,

he has been eminently fair and i'm very grateful for that. as he said, our allocation is 37 and a half billion. that is a 350 million increase over fy 16. given the tough line budget restraint, this is a good allocation. let me first first talk about the defense portion of the bill. defense spending in this bill is $20 billion. a 450 million increase over fyfo 16. our defense spending includes funding for cleaning up the environmental legacy of the cold war. maintaining our nuclear nuclear deterrent, supporting our nuclear navy, and partnering with allies to keep nuclear materials out of the hand of terrorists. funding for nuclear deterrent this year is 9.3 billion, 438 million above last year, and

equal to the presidents budget request.t. the science and engineering activities needed to maintain the nuclear stockpile without explosive testing are fully funded at 1.8 billion. the life extension program for our nuclear warheads are also fully funded including for the new cruise missile warhead which i will speak a little bit on it a little bit. i would like to take a moment now to discuss my concerns with i or the l rso. i believe the defense department is wrong when it argues this is in a new nuclear weapon. i think it is. and it carries with it powerful ramifications. the l rso would carry an

upgraded w80 warhead, capableew capable of immense destruction. it would be fitted onto a new missile, specifically specifically designed to defeat the world's most advanced missile defense system. i firmly firmly believe that the l rso id unnecessary, the united states f has already developed and fielded a conventional cruise missile specifically designed to do the same job as the l rso. furthermore, the united states has a variety of nuclear ballistic missiles that can reach any target anywhere in the world. now why do i feel so strongly about this? it's very personal with me. i am one of the few who have seen this. i was 12 years old when the united states of america, my country dropped a nuclear weapon

on hiroshima and nagasaki. to me, just as the hundreds of thousands of bodies were steered with burns as the radiationand h spread, i have never quite gotten over white happened. i have reached the concept that nuclear weapons are really bad this world. i won't go into it when you see countries like north korea practicing tests and otherf countries struggling to get a nuclear weapon and the high likelihood of terrorists also seeking off radioactive am materials. the so, i am very concerned about the probable use of this missile. in a letter sent two years ago under secretary of defense frank kendall wrote the following and i quote. beyond the term, and l rso armed

bomber force provides the president with a uniquelyuggesto flexible option in an extreme crisis.onld this suggestion that nuclear weapons should be a flexible option is alarming. we should never lowered the threshold for using nuclear c weapons. in fact, i believe we can further reduce the role of nuclear weapons while still maintaining their deterrent effect by terminating the l rsor and instead relying on conventional non- nuclear weapons. so obviously this is a point of disagreement between the two of th us. commi this is why i'm very thankful to the chairman. he has has agreed to include language in the committee report requiring energy secretary and the nuclear weapons counsel to provide more information on this warhead.

including its military justifications and the extent to which conventional weaponso systems can meet the same objective. i i think we should have that material. i am also grateful for senator alexander for his commitment to hold a subcommittee hearing on the new nuclear cruise missiles. i believe this issue has not received the attention itcu deserves and it requires some public discussion so i want to say thank you to him. i've yielded to his point ofort view and exchange, i actually am happy with the report language and the hearing. thank you very much mr. chairman. going back to the nonproliferation account it is founded at the presidents request level of 1.8 billion but this is $120 million decreasee from last year. i would hope that we can do

better next year. work with russia on securing material and facility in that country has slowed but other threats remain at home andting abroad. i believe we should be investing more. funding for the environment cleanup of legacy cold war sites is the highest it has been in many years. that is very good. that is 5,400,000, that's a million, that's a 126 millionle increase above last year. this reflects the importance the subcommittee has placed on a, nw just dressing of our mental contamination at washington, new mexico, south carolina, andman tennessee. i want to thank the chairman for what he said about putting a pilot nuclear waste facility, reference in our bill.

nuclear waste is piling up all over this country. ediso with no good place for it to go. i can can give you my state alone, southern california, a huge utility serving over 16 million people has had two big nuclear reactors, each 11100 megawatts. they are now are now in the process ofy decommissioning those reactors. this facility sits in the heartu open urban urban area that there are now 3300 plutonium lots at that facility site. we need a place for nuclear waste in this country. ove because it is very dangerous to have it spread all over.aste and to have decommissioned i reactors with hot plutonium t

waste and spent fuel pools right on the coast of the pacific rim where we see earthquakes happening not the least of which which was ecuador in a recent quake in japan.on, a so now let me turn to the non-defense half of the bill. our nondefense allocation allocation this year is 17.5 billion. that is roughly a willalies 100,000,000 decrease from fiscal year 2016. mr. president, one of the anomalies of this portfolio is the fact that as the expense goes out it crowds out the nonsense. important things like the army corps of engineer, important things like the office of science. $ so, our nondefense allocation nondefense allocation is that 17,500,000,000. the bill maintains despite this, funding levels for basic scientificf

research, energy technology development, and water infrastructure. funding for the department of energy for the office of science sees a modest increase of 50 million to 5.4 billion this year.hat. now, the office of science is the largest single funder of physical science research in the united states. think of that. it supports research at 300 universities in all 50 states.se it is experimental facilities host more than 24000 researchery each year funding for the officd renewable and renewable energy is 2.1 billion. equal to fy 16. that program funds activities to develop the technologies that makes our homes, cars, factories more efficient. it lowers the cost of renewable

energy sources like solar and geothermal. coll funded the presidents propose mark, mission innovation of climate change, i want my colleagues to know that we did the best we could but we were simply unable to make it work with the allocation we receive. the chairman mentioned the army corps of engineers. with the highway program in the army corps this is really the federal infrastructure program.g it is funded at 6 billion. the this is an historic high, it it maintains level funding for the bureau of reclamation at 1.276 billion. in particular, the bill bill provides an estimated 1.3 billion from the harvard maintenance trust fund. that is the highest level ever. while users of our nation's does harbors imports pay into the funds, the money does not get

dispersed by itself. it is up to us to appropriate the money out of the fund, this is been a challenge under current budget. it has been a challenge to me because my state, california paid approximately 30% of the funds received each year but gets shortchanged by the disbursement for new. i am very pleased that the chairman and the members have agreed to provide an additional 50,000,000 for energy ports and donor ports like l.a. longom beach, seattle, could toma that otherwise see little benefit trust fund. the bill once again includes 100 million for the bureau of reclamation's western draw response program. are ten of the 17 reclamation states

are currently suffering from severe to exceptional drought conditions. these have devastated thehout a agricultural industry that rural communities without any water for drinking or bathing and killed tens of millions of trees that could lead to yet another catastrophic wildfire season in these ten states. we, in california had hoped that el niño storms would refill california reservoirs. but the drought persists and will persist. it is estimated that we need a snowpack just for the point of interest of 150% of the average by april 1 in order to end the drought. the snowpack was only 87% of the historical average. therefore, this 100,000,000 is critical to operating water

systems, more flexibly systems, more flexibly and efficiently and restrain critical wetlands and habitatre and ensuring the best observational techniques are being brought to bear. the bill also makes critical investments in new water supply technology that help mitigatee the current drought and lessen the impact of future drought such as water recycling and groundwater recharge. floor, as members begin to bring amendments to the floor i very much urge my colleagues particularly on the side to exercise restraint particularly with policy amendment.d the senate has just completed a broad energy authorization billl and i understand the environment and public works committee will soon be drafting a water resources development act. i want my collects to know that the subcommittee has had to make some tough choices.

these decisions were made in a bipartisan member and have led us to draft a balance bill, one that i believe and hope should satisfy members on both sides of the aisle. i thank you mr. chairman, i think think you mr. president, yield the floor. >> book tv has 48 hours in nonfiction books and authors every weekend. here some here some programs to watch for this weekend. this saturday at noon eastern, book tv is live at the folger shakespeare library in washington, d.c. to mark the 400th anniversary of william shakespeare's death. the program. the program includes speakers in your phone calls. at ten, afterwards with sue cleave bold and the columbine shooting. in her book, a mother's reckoning. it traces her journey to understanding the junction between violence and mental illness. she is interviewed by mary,. >> if we look at a