>> ms. mikulski: good afternoon, mr. president. the presiding officer: good afternoon, the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i rise to speak on behalf of the inhofe-mikulski amendment to the national defense authorization act, but before i proceed in my remarks, i ask unanimous consent that jessica armstrong, my legislative fellow from the department of defense, be allowed floor privileges during the consideration of the defense authorization bill. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: thank you, mr. president. so, mr. president, i rise today to offer a -- today to offer a

bipartisan inhofe-mikulski amendment to the national defense authorization act. what does our amendment do? it stops the privatization of commissaries which are an earned, earned benefit for our military and their families. every year when the senate debates this bill, we talk about how we love our troops and how we always want to support our military families, but if we really love our troops, we need to make sure that our troops have the support that they need. one of the earned benefits that does that is the commissaries, and if we love our troops, why would we want to proceed in the direction that we are? our troops don't view commissaries as a subsidy. they view it as do i as an earned benefit. i'm fighting here to preserve this piece of the earned benefit

compensation package. now, what are the commissaries? since 1826, military families have been able to shop at a network of stores that provide modestly priced groceries. the commissary system is simple. if you're active duty in your family, reserve or national guard in your family, a retired member of a military family, you have access to more than 246 commissaries worldwide. it gives military families -- military members and their families affordability and accessibility. now, senator inhofe spoke earlier about the -- where these commissaries are. some are located in our country and some are located in remote areas in our country, and over 40% are either in remote areas

or overseas. last year, senator inhofe and i stood up for military family benefits to stop privatization. congress adopted our amendment, but in doing so required a d.o.d. study assessing privatization which would affect commissaries. we needed to understand how privatization would affect levels of saving, quality of goods and impact of families. well, d.o.d. finally gave us the report. june 6, 2016. so they dropped the report on d-day. and guess what? it reaffirms what senator inhofe and i have been saying. we should not privatize commissaries without additional study. the report is simple and straightforward. we should not proceed with the privatization or a pilot on

privatization until further study. first d.o.d. has demonstrated that privatization cannot replicate the savings that the current commissary system provides. second, privatization significantly reduces the benefits available to commissary patrons. and privatization would dramatically reduce the work force, which is where so many military families work. the d.o.d. cannot move forward with privatization with a large number of loans. we must honor the d.o.d. requests and fully evaluate the implications of privatization before we make drastic changes that hurt our military families. that's why everyone should support the inhofe-mikulski amendment. our amendment is straightforward. it strikes bill language authorizing a pilot program privatizing commissaries. it's supported by 41

organizations -- the american logistics, the national guard association, the national military family association. privatizing commissaries is penny-wise and pound-foolish. if we care about the health of our troops, we must reject this. now, i've got more to say here, and i ask unanimous consent that my full statement be in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: but, mr. president, you know, when you -- i have been to the commissaries in maryland. you go to the one at fort meade. fort meade is just a tremendous place. we might not deploy troops like fort bragg or camp le jeune, but what we do there is just phenomenal. there are 58,000 people who work at fort meade, some uniformed personnel, some defense contractors and so on, but we

are in the heart of maryland which has such a strong military presence, both army and navy, and i can tell you if you came to that commissary with me, you would see it as a nutritional settlement house. you would really like it, because you see people there, first of all, of all ranks, so there is a mingling there of all ranks, so you might see some young lady who's married to an enlisted member of the military that has never been out of a barrio, and she is learning a lot about food and nutrition and so on that she had never seen in her hometown. she is getting advice, she is getting direction in addition to saving money. this is very different. also, if you go there, you see old-timers there that are also, although they are counting their pennies, they are counting their blessings that they have this commissary to be able to go to. it is one really -- when i say a settlement house.

it is a gathering to learn about food, about nutrition, about doing a lot of things. it often offers healthier food at cheaper prices. when i talked with our garrison commander about something he and i worked on together called the healthy base initiative, he said the fact that what we were doing there was so phenomenal, we worked to bring in things like salad bars and some of the more modern kinds of things, this was just phenomenal. so we need commissaries. second, if we're looking at how to make them budget neutral -- and i won't argue with that point -- the d.o.d. study itself says we need to explore two things -- other ways of achieving budget neutrality, and they had some suggestions, and also explore with the private sector who would be interested in privatization and would they result in cost savings without

costing the benefits, meaning what is really sold there in nutrition. there are a lot of new and wonderful ideas. you know, my father ran a small grocery store. he would be amazed at what grocery stores are now. but things like going to private labeling, better management, the d.o.d. has some other tool kits to do before we go off on this approach to privatizing without analyzing. so i am for analyzing and then looking at the next step. we had the report this year, just arrived. i know the authorizing committee didn't have the benefit of it, so i would hope you would stick with senator inhofe and me, reject this amendment, look out for our troops. let's explore other ways for achieving budget neutrality, but let's not just arbitrarily single out this earned benefit for cost savings.

mr. president, i know the chair of the armed services committee looks like he is eager to speak, but i also want to say that i support the durbin amendment that we will be voting on later on this afternoon. i'm a strong supporter of the d.o.d.'s congressionally directed medical research program, and i was very concerned about the language. i understand the need for regulation, but not stragulation , and this congressionally mandated research has done so much good in so many areas, and we have large numbers of goods from the breast cancer coalition to the disabled veterans themselves who support the durbin amendment. in the interest of time and i know my colleague is anxious to speak, i ask unanimous consent that my statement on the d.o.d. medical research durbin amendment be inserted into the record after such time as

senator durbin has spoken. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: thank you very much. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, we will probably discuss this some more, this issue of the -- quote -- privatization later on before we actually vote on the amendment, but this is a classic example of a distortion of an issue which could save the taxpayers a billion dollars that we subsidize the commissary system. it's not privatizing, i say to the senator from maryland. it is a pilot program of five, count them, five military bases where we would allow them -- and there are companies and providers of food and services that are ready to try and

establish. we're not taking away a single commissary. we're not closing a single one, not one. but what we're trying to do is what -- if you want to have a hamburger at burger king or mcdonald's or dunkin' donuts or use u.p.s., you can go on a military base and they'll provide you that service. the government doesn't do it. they don't make hamburgers. they don't send -- carry mail. and all of a sudden now we have to have more studies. the real study would be a pilot program which proves successful. and by the way, if you talk to the men and women who were in the military, would you like to -- would you like to shop at walmart or safeway or one of these others if it was convenient, do you know what the answer is? of course, yes, because there's more variety and there's more -- and there's lower prices.

do my colleagues, does the senator from maryland know that we're spending over a billion dollars of taxpayers' money on these commissaries every year where we could probably do it for nothing or even charge these groups that want to come -- commercial enterprises that would like to come on a pilot program to a military base. this is crazy. the fort belvoir commissary right here, the highest grocery store in the whole commissary system, loses ten cents on every dollar of goods it produces and sells, and guess who covers those losses? the taxpayers of america. i mean, it's not an attempt to take away the commissary benefit. it's an attempt to see if the men and women in the military and all the dependents around the bases might get a better product at a lower price. that's what five, count them, five privatizations is

attempting to try. yesterday, we received the department of defense report on its plan to mod earpize the commissary and exchange systems. in that report, d.o.d. stated that private sector entities are -- quote -- willing to engage in a pilot program. d.o.d. has told us that at least three major private sector entities are interested in testing commissary privatization. this has led d.o.d. to publish a request for the information industry to give feedback on how a privatization pilot program could work. so why would my colleagues support an amendment that delays what needs to be done? now, let me mention a point. do you know what this is really all about? this is an outfit called the grocery brokers, and that industry has been working overtime to stop this pilot program because if it's successful, privatization would destroy their successful business model, because they

wouldn't have to use the grocery brokers. that's what this is all about, my friends. so rather than pay over a billion dollars a year to be in the grocery business, privatization might provide -- i'm not saying it will but it might provide the department of defense and the men and women in the military and our retirees an alternative method of giving patrons high-quality grocery products, higher levels of customer satisfaction and discount savings while reducing the financial burden on taxpayers. we need to have a pilot program for sure. now, this is not five pilot programs, it is not the end of civilization as we know it. it's not a burden on the men and women who are serving. i have talked to hundreds of men and women who are serving. i say how would you like to have safeway out on the base? how would you like to have walmart? gee, i would really like that, because they get a wider and

diverse selection from which to choose from. and not to mention, although it doesn't seem to matter around here, it might save a billion dollars for the taxpayers. but what's a billion dollars? we're going to spend a couple of billion dollars just on medical research, ich the senator from maryland obviously is in favor of, calling it in the name of defense when it should be done absolutely by -- it should be funded by other branches of the appropriations committee rather than the willie sutton syndrome and taking it out of defense. all i can say to the senator from maryland, all we're talking about is give it a try in five places. let's not go to general quarters about an attempt to see if we can save the taxpayers a billion dollars a year. and we're not going to close any commissaries, any remote bases. we're not doing anything but a five-base pilot program. and that's all there is to this

amendment. and to portray it as anything else is a distortion of exactly what the legislation has clearly stated its intent to be. ms. murkowski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. murkowski: first of all i rise to say despite what was just said, i'm not in -- ms. mikulski: first of all, i rise to say despite what was said, i'm no the in the pocket of gross require brokers. i'm knot in the pocket of grocery brokers. i'm not for something called grocery brokers. i'm here to stand up for military and military families. so i want the record to show that. i don't even know what grocery brokers are. i know what a grocery store is because my father ran one and i worked in one and learned a lot from the kind of values that my father ran his business on. now, let's talk about a d.o.d. man dated report that we did last year when we discussed this.

the report acknowledges the privatization would not be able to replicate the range of benefits, the level of savings, and the geographic reach provided by the commissaries while achieving budget neutrality. d.o.d. is continuing its due diligence on privatization. it's still assessing the privatization of all or portions of the commissary system. what i worry about is cherry-picking. oh, we're going to privatize. they're going to do it in the lucrative markets where there might be in the baltimore-washington corridor where there is this. but right now commissaries, our commissaries owned by the united states of america for the troops defending the united states of america are required to operate where the service members are, even when it would not be

economically beneficial from a commercial standpoint. so go ahead with this privatization myth, fantasy, or delusion that they're not going to cheary pick -- cherry-pick. more than two-thirds of the commissaries serve military populations living in locations that are not profitable for private secto sector grocers. these commissaries are made possible by the appropriated funds subsidy and by operating efficiencies in volumes of the large state wied stores. -- statewide stores. it's not only taxpayers that are subsidizing. well, over 40% of commissaries appropriated budget provide commissary services overseas and in remote locations. you think they're going to be part of privatization? they're going to take what they want where they can make money

and then these others are going to be defunded because, yes, you might talk about what the taxpayers subsidize but large, more profitable commissaries are also across subsidy to those that are in the more remote or overseas. commissaries provide a benefit to service members in the form of savings, proximity, and consistency that in some ways the commercial grocery sector which must operate for profit might find difficult to sustain. so, you know, business is business. we know how the defense contractor game works. if we're talking about grocer brokerages, you know how the contractors are. they go where they can make money. that doesn't necessarily mean they go where they serve the nation. i'm a great respecter of our defense contractors. many of them are either headquartered in maryland or certainly serve maryland, but let's face it.

their business is to make money. not necessarily to serve the troops. if they can make money serving the troops, they'll make money and want to have stores where they can make money. that doesn't deal with the remote area. let's hear it from our alaska people. let's hear it from the overseas people and so on. so all i'm saying is while we continue on the path to explore either complete budget neutrality or to achieve budget neutrality, the department of defense says it needs more analysis on what it could do with itself and what is the private sector talking about? there are four major private sector companies that have expressed interest. well, i would want to know are they going to cherry-pick? are they going to be like little jack horner waiting to get their

hands on a plum? em's for the whole fruit stand and i want the commissaries. so, mr. president, this has been a good exchange and i so respect my colleague from arizona in the way he has stood up for defense. i know he wants to serve the troops as well. so let's see where the votes go and we look forward to advancing the cause of the national security of our nation. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: could i thank the senator from maryland, i always enjoy spirited discussion with her. she's a wonderful public servant and i'm going to miss her in this institution because she has an honorable record of outstanding service. and i always enjoy doing combat. i yield the floor. mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority whip.

mr. cornyn: mr. president, earlier today the senate judicial committee on the constitution convened a hearing on a piece of legislation i introduced with several of my colleagues called the holocaust expropriated art recovery act or the hear acialg r act. it's -- hear act. it's long overzoo and straightforward -- overdue and straightforward. during the holocaust nazis confiscated private property, including art work. today, the day after d-day or the a anniversary of d-day and decades after world war ii ended, there's still families who haven't been able to get their stolen artwork or family heirlooms back. the hear act will support these victims by giving them a chance to have their claims decided on the merits in a court of law and hopefully facilitate the return of artwork stolen by nazis to their rightful owners. that's why we called the --

called the hearing reuniting victims with their lost heritage. it's true that hitler's final solution in world war ii was not just the extermination of the jewish people but erasing their culture. and this was part of the overall plan in hitler's final solution. this legislation will help those who had vital pieces of their family and cultural heritage stolen to find justice. i should say that this legislation is also consistent with our country's diplomatic efforts and long-standing congressional policy. i'm grateful of my colleague from texas, senator cruz as well as the senior senator from new york, senator schumer and contract, senator blumenthal for joining me in introducing this bipartisan piece of legislation. and i hope the senate judiciary committee will mark this up soon and the full chamber will consider it soon.

separately, mr. president, as we continue our work on the defense authorization bill, i just want to talk for a moment about how important that is. yesterday i spent some time talking about the threat, threats not only to our troops overseas who are in harm's way but those of us here at home are experiencing as a result of a more diversified array of threats than we've ever seen in the last -- certainly in the last 50 years. i say 50 years, that's because the director of national intelligence james clapper has served in the intelligence community for about 50 years and that's what he said. we have a more diverse array of threats today than he has seen in his whole 50-year career. and that includes, of course, here at home.

because it's not just people traveling from the middle east to the united states or people coming from the united states over to the middle east training and then coming back. it's also about homegrown terrorists, people who are inspired by the use of social media and essentially instructed to take up arms where they are and kill innocent people here in the united states and as we've seen, unfortunately, in europe as well. and as we think about the legacy of this president and his administration when it comes to foreign policy, i'm reminded of the comments by former president jimmy carter, a democrat, commenting on another democratic president's foreign policy. when he was asked, he wan diddley add -- candidly admitted i can't think of a single place in the world where the united states is better off or held in higher esteem than it was before

this administration. he called the impact of president obama's foreign policy minimal and i would suggest that's awfully generous. if you look around the world, the threats of a nuclear armed north korea, which is -- has intercontinental ballistic missiles which it has tested creating an unstable environment there with our ally and friend to the south, south korea. if you look at what's happening in europe as putin, newly emboldened has invaded crimea and ukraine with very little consequences associated with it. i've said it before and i'll say it again that weakness is a provocation. weakness is a provocation to the world's bullies and thugs and tyrants and that's what we've seen in spades. in the middle east, president obama caulked about a red line

in syria when chemical weapons were used. but then when bashar al-assad saw there was no real follow-through on that, it was a hollow threat and indeed he just kept coming. barrel bombing innocent civilians in a civil war which has now taken perhaps 400,000 lives. and then we've seen it in the south china sea where china, newly emboldened is literally building islands in the middle of the south china sea, one of the most important sea lanes to international commerce and trade in asia. so i'll just quote on north korea again. former secretary of defense leon panetta said we're within an inch of war almost every day in that part of the world. we're within an inch of war almost every day in that part of

the world talking about asia with the threat of china and the south china sea, north korea. well, as far as north korea's aggression is concerned, this administration has basically done nothing to counter that aggression. and under the president's watch this regime has grown even more hostile and more dangerous because it's so unstable. in fact, when she was secretary of state, secretary clinton testified in her confirmation hearing that her quote was -- her goal was to end the north koreaian -- north korean nuclear program. her goal was to end the north korean nuclear program and she even promised to embark on a very aggressive effort to that effect. but we know what happened. instead she adopted what was later called iew take mistically

strategic patient. that's another way of saying doing nothing. in other words, this more laid back approach is simply lost on tyrants like we see in north korea and it certainly didn't punish the north korean leadership for its hostilities. well, we can't continue down the reckless path of ignoring challenges around the world or retreating where people are looking for american leadership. that's why it's so critical that we demonstrate our commitment to our men and women in uniform by passing this important defense authorization bill this week. we have an all volunteer military, and that's a good thing. we have many patriots who join the military, train, and then are deployed all around the world as directed by the commander in chief.

but the idea that we would not follow through on our commitment to make sure that they had the resources they need is simply unthinkable. so, mr. president, i hope we will continue to make progress on the defense authorization bill and make sure we provide those resources, equipment and authorization that they need in order to defend our country, and let's get the ndaa, the defense authorization bill, done this week. mr. president, i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: while we are waiting for others who are coming to the floor, i think it's important to take a moment to talk about the editorial -- lead editorial in the -- thank you very much. to mention the events that are transpiring in syria as we speak, and it's best described in "the washington post" editorial this morning, lead editorial which says empty words, empty stomachs. syrian children continue to face

starvation as another obama administration promise falls by the wayside. this is a devastating and true story. it's been nearly six months since the u.n. security council passed a resolution demanding an end to the bombing and shelling of civilian areas in syria and calling for immediate humanitarian access to besieged areas. it's been four months since secretary of state john f. kerry described the sieges as a -- quote -- catastrophe of a dimension unseen since world war ii and said all parties to the conflict have a duty to facilitate humanitarian access to syrians in desperate need. those are the words of secretary of state john kerry back in february. by monday, there still had been no food deliveries to daria in the damascus suburbs, the al-war district of homes, several other besieged areas with a population

of more than 500,000 identified by the united nations, nor had there been air drops. none have been organized and u.n. officials say none are likely in the coming days. another deadline has been blown, another red line crossed, and children in the besieged towns are still starving. mr. president, this is heart breaking, it's heart breaking, it's heart breaking. children in the besieged towns are still starving. and to add to it over the weekend, russian and syrian planes, our allies, the russians, the russian and syrian planes heavily bombed civilian areas and rebel held areas. the civil observatory for human rights said 500 civilians including 105 children have been killed in 145 consecutive days of bombing in aleppo.

the quote, cessation of hostilities quoted by mr. kerry in february which was never fully observed by russia and syria has been shredded. has been shredded. and the obama administration's response, it's still waiting patiently for the regime of bashar assad to stop dropping barely bombs from helicopters on hospitals and allow passage aid to convoys. it's still asking politely for russia to stop bombing rebel-backed units and have the assad regime to follow suit. we expect the regime to live up to its commitments said a state department official monday. quote, we ask russia to use its influence to end this inhumane policy. as for air drops -- quote -- that's a very spectacles question, said a spokeswoman. the promise of air delivery as it turns out was entirely rhetorical.

on may 26, two senior u.n. officials publicly warned that a u.n. air bridge could not be established without permission from the assad regime. the same regime that was blocking food deliveries by land. they called on the united nations and russia to -- quote -- find a way to begin the operation, but neither the united states nor britain, the original proponent of the air drops acted to make the operation possible. instead, they as usual issued appeals to the russian government, the same government that is systematically bombing civilian neighborhoods of aleppo and itla. the british ambassador to the united nations hinted on friday that if the assad regime kept preventing land and air deliveries, his quote would -- quote -- consider other actions. the french ambassador to the united nations said the syrian regime is continuing to systematically starve hundreds of thousands of civilians.

these are war crimes. there is strong momentum here in the security council to say enough is enough. strong words. those are a kerry specialty, too. people in besieged towns are -- quote -- eating leaves and grass or animals of one kind or another that they manage to capture. mr. kerry declared humanitarian access, he said, has to happen not a week from now. it ought to happen in the first days. that was on february 2. february 2, the secretary of state declared humanitarian access where 500,000 people are starving, he said on february 2 that the humanitarian access has to happen not a week from now, it ought to happen in the first days. it's disgraceful. shocking, disgraceful and we should all be ashamed. we should all be ashamed.

and by the way, the people that we are training to fight against isis are prohibited from fighting against the guy that's barrel bombing and killing these thousands of men, women and children, bashar assad. it's insanity. it's insanity. history will judge this administration and its actions not only with anger but with embarrassment. this is a shameful chapter in american history. i note the presence of the senator from illinois on the floor. i yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: mr. president, is there an order of business that's been agreed to by unanimous consent? the presiding officer: the time until 4:00 p.m. is equally divided. mr. durbin: thank you very much. mr. president, i find it hard to understand why anyone would want to eliminate funding for militarily relevant defense medical research, research that offers families hope, research that improves lives, research

that saves lives, especially now. when you look at the body of medical research across all federal agencies, we are getting closer to finding cures for certain cancers, closer than ever to understanding how to delay the onset of neurological diseases like alzheimer's and parkinson's, closer than ever to developing a universal flu vaccine. now is not the time to be ramping -- pardon me. now is the time to be ramping up our investment in medical research, not scaling it back. yet there are two provisions in this defense authorization bill which would effectively end the department of defense medical research program. these two provisions are dangerous, they cut medical research funding, they will cost lives, military lives and civilian lives. that is why i filed a bipartisan amendment which will be considered by the senate this afternoon together with senator cochran, republican chairman of the senate appropriations

committee. it would remove chairman mccain's provisions so that life-saving research at the department of defense can continue. senator mccain's two provisions found in section 756 and 898 worked hand in hand to end the department of defense medical research program. his first provision requires the secretary of defense to certify that each medical research grant is -- quote -- designed to directly promote, enhance or restore the health and safety of members of the armed forces. members of the armed forces. not veterans, not retirees, not spouses of military members, not children of military families. in my view, they are all part of our national defense, and they all should be covered by the d.o.d. health care system and research. senator mccain's second provision, section 898, would require that medical research grant applicants meet the same accounting and pricing standards that the department requires for

procurement contracts. this is a dramatic change in the law. it is the imposition of miles of red tape on every medical research grant. the regulations that he is subjecting them to apply to private companies that sell the department of defense goods and services like weapon systems and equipment. among other things, it would require the defense contract audit agency or dcaa to conduct at least one and probably several audits on each grant recipient. do you know what that means? 2,433 more audits each year by defense contract audit agency. how are they doing with their current workload? they are behind on $43 billion worth of goods and services being procured by the department of defense, and senator mccain would send them to at least 2,433 more audits next year. now, taxpayers deserve to know that their money is well spent.

the existing system does just that. a grant application now is carefully scrutinized, and throughout the 24-year history of this defense research program, there have been only a handful of instances where serious questions have risen. no grant makes it through this process without first showing clear military relevance. if an applicant fails that test, it's over. if they clear it, we're going to be subject to a host of criticism and scrutiny by researchers. and then representatives from the national institutes of health and the department of veterans' affairs sit down and measure each grant against existing research. these rules are in place to protect taxpayers' dollars, and they do. senator mccain is now seeking to add miles of red tape to a program in the name of protecting it. his provisions go too far. the coalition for national security research which represents a broad coalition of research universities and

institutes wrote these sections, referring to chairman mccain's sections, will likely place another administrative burden on the d.o.d. scientific research enterprise and slow the pace of medical innovation. we asked the d.o.d. themselves to give us their analysis of chairman mccain's provisions, here's what they said. i won't read it in its entirety, but they concluded after looking at all of the red tape created by senator mccain -- "these issues would lead to the failure of the congressionally directed medical research program." that is clear and concise and sadly it's accurate. so what senator mccain has proposed is a new administrative bureaucratic burden on medical research at the department of defense is not fiscally responsible, it doesn't protect taxpayers, it is not in pursuit of small government by any means. these provisions are simply roadblocks. let's talk for a minute about

the medical research funded by the department of defense. since fiscal year 1992, this program has invested $11.7 billion in innovative research. the u.s. army medical research and material command determines the appropriate research strategy. they look for research gaps, and they want to fund high-risk, high-impact research that other agencies and private investors may be unwilling to fund. in 2004, the institute of medicine, an independent organization providing objective analysis of complex health issues, looked at the d.o.d. medical research program and here's what they found. they said this program -- quote -- has shown that it has been efficiently managed and scientifically productive effort. the institute of medicine went on to say this program concentrates its resources on research mechanisms that complement rather than duplicate the research appropriations of major funders of medical research such as industry and the national institutes of health. this has been a successful

program, dramatically successful program. i'd like to point to a couple things that need to be noted in the record when it comes to the success of this program. this morning, senator mccain raised a question about funding programs that relate to epilepsy and seizures when it comes to the department of defense medical research program. in a recent video produced by the citizens united for research in epilepsy, they share heart breaking stories of veterans suffering from post-traumatic epilepsy and the recovery challenges they face. they share the story of retired lance corporal scott crochton. his team of five marines on a routine patrol drove over an i.e.d. he was the only survivor. he suffered severe brain injury. lance corporal crochton suffered his first seizure inside the helicopter transporting him to baghdad for surgery. he has been on medication ever since. in fact, seizures set back all the other rehabilitation programs that injured veterans participate in and greatly slow

their recovery. since the year 2000, over 200,000 active duty military service members have experienced an incident of traumatic brain injury. many of them are at risk of developing epilepsy. post traumatic ep phrep is i compromised 20% of all seupl tow mattic. -- those with penetrating head injuries from korea and vietnam develop post traumatic epilepsy. the research we're talking about is relevant to the military, relevant to hundreds of thousands who face traumatic brain injury. i don't know why chairman mccain pointed that out this morning as an example of research unnecessary through the department of defense. it is clearly unnecessary for the men and women who have served our country. let me say a word about breast cancer too. in 2009, after serving in the air force for over 25 years, senior master sergeant sheila

johnson glover was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. she says the breast cancer cut her military career short. she was treated with herceptin, a drug developed with early support from the department of defense research funding. according to sheila -- and i quote -- "it is a full circle with me giving 25 years of service to the d.o.d. and the department of defense giving me back my life as a breast cancer patient." sheila is not alone. one out of every eight women are at risk of developing breast cancer in their lifetime and 175,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with the disease each year. with more than 1.4 million active duty females and female spouses under the care of the u.s. military health system, breast cancer research is directly related to our military and our military community. breast cancer research started this medical research program at the department of defense. it was given a mere $46 million

to start. over the span of a life of medical research programs at the department of defense, a little over $11 billion has been spent, almost a third of it has gone to breast cancer research and they have come up with some dramatic positive results such as the development of this drug herceptin. the point i'm getting to is this, if you believe our military consists of more than just the man or woman in uniform but consists as well of their families and those who have served and are now veterans, if you believe that their medical outcomes are critically important to the future of our military, then you can understand why medical research programs such as this one which will be virtually eliminated by chairman mccain's language is so important for the future strength of our men and women in uniform and the people who support them. let me tell you about a constituent who wrote me last month. linda and al hallgren, al is a

u.s. air force veteran, survivor of bladder cancer. linda wrote to me. she said when my husband was diagnosed in 2013 our only options were bladder removal followed by chemotherapy. prognosis was months to a year or so. there were so many questions that came to mind, primarily around how did i get this. but as she pointed to me, al's a fighter. he's a survivor. two years later -- here they are, the two of them enjoying a ride on a motorcycle. when she passed along this photo, here's what she said. we continue to fight the battle and take moments out to enjoy life out to the fullest one day at a time. she noted in her letter there are many risks for bladder cancer associated with military service. smoking is the leading cause and the incidents of smoking among military members is entirely too high. the institutes of medicine took a look at the age of agent blue from 1961 to 1971 in the vietnam war and its linkage to bladder

cancer. it is the 27th highest recipient of federal research. the story of this family and what they have been through raises an important question. do we have an obligation to this individual who served our country, served it honorably, came home and suffered a serious medical illness? do we have an obligation in medical research to try to find ways to make his life better and to make sure we spare him the pain that's associated with many of the things that are linked to the service in our military? of course we do. so why would we go along with this language that the chairman puts in his authorization bill that eliminates these medical research programs? i mentioned earlier the advancements that were made in breast cancer research, 1993 the department of defense awarded dr. dennis slayman two grants totaling $1.7 million for tumor tissue bank to help study breast cancer. he began his work years earlier with funding from the national

cancer institute but researchers lacked breast tissue from women. that's when the d.o.d. funding made a different. dr. slayman's d.o.d.-funded work helped to develop that herceptin. at lunch a few minutes we heard from senator barbara mikulski. she talked about the battle she fought for years for women to get medical research. research was being done only on men. thank goodness senator mikulski spoke up. they went to the department of defense and said we want you to focus on breast cancer, if you will, for the emerging role of women in our military and they did with dramatic results. now comes a suggestion from chairman mccain that we should put an end to this research. we should burden it with more red tape. i don't think that makes sense. it certainly doesn't make sense for the many women serving the military and the spouses of the men who serve the military who

certainly understand the importance of this research. d.o.d.-funded research developed the leading neurocognitive tests for diagnosing parkinson's disease. department of defense research. that research also identified additional genetic risk factors tor developing the disease, including two rare variants we now know connect the risks for parkinson's with traumatic injury to the head. what we find when we look at the list of research like parkinson's and question why that has any application in the military is they knew there was an application. they knew there was a connection, and it was worth seeking. here's the bottom line, people have lived longer and more productive lives because of d.o.d.-funded medical research, and we have an opportunity to help even more people if my amendment passes and we defeat the language which is in this defense authorization bill. 63 senators from 41 states, both sides of the aisle requested increases in medical research for our next fiscal year. you can't earmark where that research is going to take place.

that goes through a professional process. but you can certainly point out to the department of defense areas where they might have some interest, and they make the final decision. if the mccain provisions become law, they put an end to research programs requested by a supermajority in the senate. mr. president, how much time have i used and how much is currently remaining? the presiding officer: 22 1/2 minutes remaining. mr. durbin: i'm sorry? the presiding officer: 22 1/2 minutes remaining. mr. durbin: i will yield the floor at this point and see if others are seeking recognition. mr. graham: mr. president, how much time? the presiding officer: 30 minutes for the majority. the senator from south carolina is recognized. mr. graham: when it comes to senator durbin there is no stronger voice for medical research in the senate.

we're cochairing, senator durbin and myself the n.i.h. caucus, national institutes of health to make sure we take the crown jewel of our research at the federal level and adequately fund it and try to make it more robust in times of cuts, budget cuts, sequestration across the board. i want to compliment senator blunt, senator durbin and others for trying to find a way to increase n.i.h. funding. i think we'll be successful and a lot of credit will go to senator durbin. as to the military budget, we're on course to have the smallest army since 1940. we're on course to have the smallest navy since 1915, the smallest air force in modern times. modernization programs are very much stuck in neutral. the wars continue. they're expanding. and by 2021, if we go back into

a sequestration mode, we'll be spending half of normally what we spend on defense in terms of g.d.p. so do those who want to reform the military, count me in, this will be one of the most reform-minded packages in the history of the department of defense. we're trying to address the top-heavy nature of the military where things have exploded and make sure we have a leaner military at the top and put our emphasis on those out in the field fighting the war. we're dealing with the explosion of contractors. we're looking at our medical delivery systems anew. it's all been bipartisan. senator reed deserves a lot of credit with his democratic colleagues to find ways to preserve the military not only to save money but to improve the quality of life of those in the military. there's an obligation on all of us who are considered defense hawks to make sure the military

works more efficiently. this bill drives contracting into the -- away from cost plus to fixed price. you see a lot of overruns in terms of big-ticket items, billions of dollars over what was projected in terms of the cost of the f-35 and aircraft carriers. one of the ways to change that problem is to have the contract have skin in the game by having a fixed price rather than cost-plus contracting. so i want to compliment senator mccain and senator reed for really looking at the way the military is being run and try to make it more efficient. understanding that reform is necessary. but having said that, 50% of the military's budget for the most part goes in personnel. and i believe we need more people in the army, not less. so you can reform the military to save money -- and we should. you can bring better business practices to the table. we should. you can modernize the way we

deliver health care to get outcomes rather than just -l spending money. we should. you can look at every part of the military and put it under a microscope and make it more efficient and make sure it's serving the defense needs of the country. but having said that, giving the number of ships that we're headed toward -- 278 -- 420,000 people in the army, we need more people to defend this nation, and we have an obligation to the people defending the nation to give them the best equipment and take care of their families. i'm not looking for a fair fight. i want to rebuild the military and make sure that our military has the weapons systems that would deter war. and if you had to go to war, to win it as quickly as possible. so that gets us to medical research. there's about $1 billion spent on medical research within the department of defense. what we're suggesting is that we look at this account anew. and what the committee has decided to do, k senator mccain, is to say that the secretary of defense has to certify that the money in the

medical research budget and department of defense is actually related to the defense world, that there are a lot of good things being done in the department of defense in terms of medical research. the question for us, that $1 billion, how much of it is actually, applies to the military itself because every dollar we spend out of the d.o.d.'s budget for things unrelated to defense hurts our ability to defend the nation. and it's not a, it's not a slam on the things that they're doing. i'm sure they're all worthwhile. the question is should they be done somewhere else and should it come out of a different pot of money? two things we're doing, to continue medical research in the future the secretary of defense would have to certify that the program, the medical research program in question is related to the department of defense's needs. and there is a pretty broad application of what need is. traumatic brain injury, all kinds of things related to veterans. of the $1 billion using the criteria i just suggested where there's a certification, some of

the money will stay in department of defense, but some of it won't. because if you look at that $1 billion, a lot of it really is not connected to what we do to defend the nation. the second requirement is that if you're going to get research dollars, you have to go through the same process to get money from the department of defense as any other contractor. that's -- you're in the same boat as anybody else who deals with the department of defense. if that's a red tape burden, then everybody who deals with the department of defense will share your burden. so rather than just writing a check to somebody, there is a process. you have to apply for the money and the contracting rules will apply. these are the two changes. a certification that the money being spent on medical research benefits the military, department of defense, and that if you get that money, you have to go through the normal contracting procedures to make sure that there's competition and all of the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.

i think that makes sense. i think some of the money we're spending under the guise of military department of defense research has nothing to do with the department of defense. and we need every dollar we can find to defend the nation. and most of these programs are very worthwhile, i'm sure, and i'd be willing to continue them somewhere else. iimp -- i am supporting a dramatic increase in n.i.h. funding. i am very much for research. but if we're going to bring about change in washington, and if people like me who want a stronger military are going to advocate for a bigger military, i think we have an obligation to have a smarter, more reformed system. so i'm not trying to have it both ways. i'm looking at how the pentagon works at every level, along with senator mccain, and we're bringing structural changes that are long overdue. i want to compliment senator reed. he's been a great partner to senator mccain. we don't always agree but i think senator reed has bought

into the idea that the pentagon is not immune from being reformed and the status quo just has to change. with all due respect, senator durbin, i think the amendment that, the provisions that senator mccain crafted makes sense to me. to get research dollars in the future, the secretary of defense has to certify that the money in question helps the department of defense. and if you're going to bid for the business, you've got to go through the normal contracting process to make sure that it's done right. those are the only two chaiption and those departments that will not be part of the national defense, i am certainly willing to keep them funded somewhere else. that's a long overdue reform. with that, i would yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i would like to respond to my friend from south carolina -- and we are friends. we see this issue differently today. .2% -- .2% of the department of

defense appropriation will go for medical research. about $1 billion. in a budget of $524 billion. it is not an outrageous amount. we're not funding medical research at the expense of being able to defend america. hardly anyone would argue that that small percentage would. but i can make an argument -- and i tried effectively here -- that when this comes to medical research that's being done through the department of defense, it is extraordinary, and we've achieved so much for a minimal investment. in so many different areas -- i could go through the list, and i will, of those areas of research that have made such a big difference. i also want to say that there are 149 universities, veterans or,s, and medical -- organizations, and medical advocacy groups that support the amendment i offer today. the reason they support it is because the reason that's been suggested -- that this is just

another procedural requirement being placed in front of these institutions that want to do medical research -- really understates the impact that it will -- it will have. the department of defense itself, after analyzing the mccain language that comes us to on this bill, sthaid it will create a burden, a delay, andditional overhead -- additional overhead costs. the one thing we have not heard what is the reason for this? why are we changing a process that's been used for 24 years? has there been evidence of scandal, waste, abuse? out of the thousands and thousands of research grarchtses that have been give -- grants that have been given, only a handful have been given and only a few go to the integrity of the process. so if we're going to impose new bureaucracies, new red tapes, new requirements, new audits, why are we doing it? if there is a need for it, i'll

stand up with everyone here in protecting the taxpayers' dollars. but that's not really what's at stake here. chairman mccain this morning on the floor made it clear, he just doesn't want medical research at the department of defense. it wants it limited strictly to certain areas and not to be expanded to include the families of those serving in our military, our veterans, through the department of defense. and that's his position. he can hold that position. i certainly disagree with it. but if we take an honest look at this, what we've done in creating this new bureaucracy and red tape is simply slow down the process and make it more expensive. for one thing, each one of these universities and each one of these organizations has to go through an annual audit, at least one. and the agency within the department of defense responsible for these audits is currently overwhelmed. before this new mccain requirement comes in for even more audits. so it means the process cellulose down -- slows down. research doesn't take place in a

matter of amongsts t might -- research doesn't take place in a matter of months. it might take years. when i go through the long list of things that have been done through these defense research programs, it is amazing how many times they've stepped up and made a serious difference. let meet give you one other illustration. the incidence of blast injuries to the eye has risen dramatically amongst survivors in iraq and afghanistan due to explosive weaponsic i.e.d.es. glasses and goggles and face shields are designed to protect against high-develop loss city pro-johprojectiles. eye injuries totaled more than 197,000. one published study covered 2000 to 2010 indicated that eye

injuries have cost a total of $25 billion. eye injury service members have only a 20% return to duty rate compared to 80% for other battle trauma. since 2009, $49 million in this department of defense medical research program has gone to research to prevention and treatment of eye injury and disease that results in eye degeneration and impairment or loss of vision. from the afghanistan and iraq conflicts, a published study covering 2000 to 2010 estimated that these injuries have cost a total off $25 billion. eye-injured soldiers have only 20% return to duty rates. research at johns hopkins where they receive grants to study why eye injuries make up such a high percent of combat tragedy, they found that the blast causes eye tissue to tear and goggles can

actually trap eye reverberations. a handheld device was designed to test for eye damage. if you look at that time and you say why would we do vision research at the department of defense, here's the answer. what our men and women in uniform are facin facing with te i.e.d.'s and the blast reverberations, damage to their eyesight and even blindness wasn't being protected with current quivment is this worth an investment by the united states government of less than .2% of the department of defense budget? i think it is. i think it's critically important that we stand behind this kind of research and not second-guess people who are involved. we are not wasting money in this research. we are investing money in research to protect the men and women in uniform and make sure that their lives are whole and make sure they're willing and able to defend this country when called upon. this idea by senator mccain of eliminating this program is at

the expense of military members, their families, and veterans. we have made a promise to these men and women who enlisted in our military that we'll stand by you in the battle and when you come home. and that should be a promise we keep when it comes to medical research as well. i retain the remainder of my time. mr. graham: mr. president, how much time is remaining on our side? the presiding officer: 22 minutes. mr. graham: ail just take a couple of minutes to keep everybody awake. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: the history of this program is prettyin pretty interesting. in 1992 by mandate, the congressional-directed medical research program began within the department of defense with an earmark of $20 million for breast cancer. so back in 1992 somebody came up with the idea that we should put some money regarding breast cancer research in the

department of defense bill, and everybody that i know of wants to defeat breast cancer and fund research at an aappropriate level -- at an appropriate level. why did they do it in the defense bill? because the defense bill is going to pass. it is the one thing around here that we all eventually get done, because we've got to defend the nation. so that idea of a $20 million earmark for breast cancer fast-forward from 1992 to now is $900-something billion of research at the department of defense. went from $20 million to $900 million. it's been about $1 billion a year for a very long time. the reason that these programs are put in the department of defense, that some of them are related to the department of defense and veterans, many of them are not, and the ones that can make it in this bill, they're going to get their

funding apart from their traditional research funding because the department of defense will get funded. all we're saying is, given the budget problems we have as a nation and the constraints on our military to defense cuts, shrinking budgets, now is the time to reevaluate the way you do business. it's not that we're against medical research in the defense department's budget. we just want it to be related to defense. i know that's a novel idea, but it makes sense to me. and all the things that senator durbin identified as being done in the department of defense, i'm sure most of them are very worthy. let's just make sure they're funded outside of the department of defense because the money is being taken away from defending the nation. taking money out of the defense department to do research is probably not a smart thing to do

now if it's not related to defending the nation, given the state of the world and the state of the military. so business as usual, even if it's just $900 million -- which is still a lot of money -- i think it's time to relook at the way we fund the defense department, how it runs, and try to get it in a spot that's more sustainable. so what have we done? we've said you can still do research at the department of defense, but the secretary of defense has to certify it's related to our defense needs, and a pretty liberal interpretation. and if you're going to do research, you have to go through the normal contracting procedures that everybody else has to go through. i think those two changes really make sense to me. and here's the point. if you applied the test, it's got to be related to defending the nation in a fairly liberal

interpretation, probably two-thirds, three-fourths of this account wouldn't pass that test. so that means thi there's goingo be $600 million, $700 million, maybe more that will go to defense needs, not research needs. that doesn't mean that we don't need to spend the money on research. moves it we probably -- most of it we probably do. the person delivering this speech is also the cochairman -- myself -- of the n.i.h., which is the part of the government that does medical research. i want to increase that budget tremendously because the dividends to the taxpayer and to our overall health are real. i just don't want to continue to use the defense department as a way to do research unrelated to the defense needs of this country because i don't think that's the right way to do it, and when you're this far in debt and the military is under this

much pressure, it's time for change. that's all this is, making a commonsense ching change -- change to a practice that started at $20 million is now almost $1 billion. with that, i will yield. mr. durbin: how much time do we have remaining? the presiding officer: almost 16 minutes. mr. durbin: let me respond to my friend from south carolina. i keep giving examples of medical research in this program that relates directly to members of the military and their families and to veterans. and all i hear back in return is, well, we ought to be doing this research someplace elimination. why? -- splice else? why? don't we want the research to be done in a place responsible for the military veterans and their families? research which is jeopardized by the mccain language in this authorization bill -- joan gray graduated from west point in the first class that included women. she was commissioned in the u.s.

army as a platoon leader, commander, staff officer. after five years of service, she sustained a spinal cord glir -- injury in a midair tactical jump. her vertebrae required fusion. she is now a paraplegic. spinal injuries sustained from trauma impact service members deployed overseas and in training. over 5% of impot evacuation -- combat evacuations in iraq and afghanistan were from spinal trauma. spinal injuries require specialized care and support from acute injury, disability adjustment, pain management, and quality of life. since 2009, congress has appropriated -- has ppropriated in this account, which is going to be eliminated by this amendment, congress has appropriated over $157 million to research the entire continuum of pre-hospital care treatment and rehab needs for spinal cord

injury. the amount and extent of bleeding within the spinal cord can predict how well an individual will recover from spinal cord injury. researchers at ohio state university, university of maryland at baltimore examined why some injuries cause more or less bleeding. they studied early markers of injury and found an f.d.a.-approved diabetes drug that proved to reduce lesion size in spinal cord injuries. at the university of pennsylvania, researchers have studied thousand facilitate survivorring nerve axons after spinal cord trauma to improve nerve generation and functionality. is this research important? i would say it is. it is important certainly to those in service. it is foreign their families as well. -- it is important to their families as well. it should be important to all of us. why are we cutting corners when it comes to research for our military veterans? why is this klt, which is less than .2% of this total budget,

the target they want to cut? medical research for the military and the veterans. every -- every single grant that is approved has to go through the test of military relevancy. it isn't a question of dreaming up some disease that might have an application in the world. a panel looks at the research that's requested and says does this have relevance to our military today, their families and veterans as well? and if it doesn't pass this test, it's finished. that's why i'm fighting to protect this money. so much has come out of this that it's a value to the men and women in uniform and veterans that putting this new procedure in here, making them go through the procurement requirements that we have for the largest defense contractors in america is unnecessary, burdensome and will delay this process and make it more expensive. i would like to hear from the other side one example of abuse in these research grants that would justify changing the rules that have been in place for 24

years. come up with that example. you're going to be hard pressed to find it after more than 2,000 of these grants a year for years, gone on for 24 years, i'm waiting for the first example. what i think is at stake here is an effort to make this more difficult, more cumbersome and less appealing to universities to do this kind of research, and we'll be the lesser for it. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: how much time is remaining on this side? the presiding officer: 17 minutes. mr. alexander: mr. president, i ask consent that i be allowed 9 minutes and that senator johnson then be allowed 5 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: and the remaining time be allowed to the senator from south carolina. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: could you let me know when 8 minutes have elapsed? the presiding officer: yes, i can. you will be notified. mr. alexander: thank you. i'm here to introduce a

congressional review act, resolution of disapproval on the administration's so-called overtime rule. i'm joined by senator johnson of wisconsin in this effort and 44 senators who are cosponsors. while president obama is running around talking about keeping college costs down, his administration has put out this so-called overtime rule which could raise tuition by hundreds of dollars for millions of american college students or cause layoffs at universities. in tennessee, for example, colleges report to me that they may have to raise tuition from $200 a student to $850 a student in one case because of this rule. the administration's new rule is a radical change to our nation's overtime rules. what they've done is double the threshold for overtime. here's what that means. hourly workers are usually paid

for overtime work, but salaried workers generally don't earn overtime unless they're making below a threshold set by the labor department as required by the fair labor standards act. today that threshold is $23,660. this administration is raising it all at one time to $47,476. the administration calls this the overtime rule. i think we should call this the timecard rule or the higher tuition rule. this means that a midlevel manager in knoxville or nashville who is making $40,000 a year is going to have to go back to punching a timecard. the reaffects 4.23 workers nationwide, nearly 100,000 in tennessee. it's going to create huge costs for employers including small businesses, nonprofits like the boy scouts, colleges and universities. they have to decide whether to cut services, cut benefits, lay

off, demote employees or create more part-time job or do a little of all of that. the university of tennessee sayb site -- if they increase everyone's salary to meet the new threshold, they'll have to increase tuition by over $200 per student on average with some seeing as much as a $456 increase. if they put all the salaried employees back on time cards, they face big morale issues. listen to this letter that i received from a university of tennessee employee who told me currently i'm an exempt employ but i stand to fall under the nonexempt status under the new standards. while this may not seem like a major issue to many, i stand to lose a substantial amount of benefits. the nature of my position does not ever cause me to work overtime as i work in an office from 8:30 to 4:30 daily. i'm salaried. if i'm reclassified it appears i'll lose 96 hours of annual leave per year as well as be

subject to an almost 100 hour lower cap on accrued national leave. another private college in tennessee tells me it will cost him the equivalent of $850 a student if they don't lay off any employees. as employers, they also face the cascade of regulations that's coming from the labor department. this rule should be called the timecard rule because it will pull millions of american workers who climbed their way to salaried positions backwards, back to filling out a timecard and punching a clock, back to having fewer benefits, backward in their careers, back to being left out of the room, back to being left off e-mails and even out of the discussion. want to show off your stuff at work? want to get up early, leave late, climb the ladder, earn the american dream so many americans have before you? tough luck. employers are going to say don't come early, don't stay late, don't take time off to go to your kids' football game.

work your eight hours and go home. i don't have enough money to pay you overtime. this rule says the obama administration knows best. they know how to manage your career, your work schedule, your free time, your income. they know better than you do. today someone who makes a salary of less than $23,660 must be paid overtime. almost everyone agrees that threshold is too low and should begin to go up. almost everyone said to the administration, though, it's time to raise the number, but don't go too high too fast or you'll create all kinds of destruction. they didn't listen. now we're going to have these huge costs. and let's talk about employers. let's remember we're talking about nonprofits like operation smile, a charity that funds cleft palate operations for children. they say this rule may cost them 3,000 surgeries a year. or the great smoky mountain council of boy scouts, my home

council, they estimate $100,000 in costs, annual costs because during certain seasons employees staff, weekend campaign mean longer hours. many americans are discouraged by this economic recovery. many are waiting for the recovery but you don't grow the economy by regulations like this. the national retail federation says the rule will -- quote -- "curtail career advancement opportunities, diminish workplace flexibility, damage employee morale and lead to a more hierarchal workplace. the u.s. chamber of commerce says this dramatic escalation of the salary threshold below which employers must be paid overtime for working more than 40 hours a week will mean millions of employees who are salaried professionals will have to be reclassified to hourly wage workers. mr. president, there's 16 million americans, including 320,000 tennesseans who are working part time while looking

for full-time work or who are out of work entirely. they need a vibrant economy. they don't need bureaucrats telling them how to manage their work schedule, their free time and their income. i know this is a good-sounding rule, but it wrestles more and more control from the hands of americans and small business owners and puts more power in washington agencies. many of these rules, like the overtime rule or the higher tuition rule or the timecard rule, call it whatever you will, they won't stand the test of time. they'll end up in courts. they'll lose, or another president will come along and fix what's broken. but in the meantime how many millions of dollars in hours or time are wasted as small business owners make excruciating decisions about how to implement these rules? mr. president, my hope is that the senate will vote to give this timecard higher tuition

rule an early death before business owners and nonprofits and colleges and universities begin the task of i implementing it in december. i thank the president. i yield the floor. mr. johnson: mr. president, i rise to say thank you to the the senator from from tennessee of leading this vote on disapproval on what is really a terrible rule. it is a solution looking for a problem. i spent 31 years running a manufacturing plant. it's been my experience, i never had somebody in my operation ask to be, go from salary to hourly. i remember in 2004 when they tightened the rules, a number of people who worked for me were forced into hourly, none of whom wanted to go. by the way, none of them received higher wages or higher salary. they just lost flexibility. and that's exactly what's going to happen. being an accountant i want to go through the numbers. this is the department of

labor's own calculations. they claim that there will be $1.2 billion more wages paid to workers. that's what they claim the benefit's going to be. but they also admit there will be $678 million in compliance costs to business, just trying to figure out the rule. trying to implement it. what they're missing is if wagea big if, because i think what will end up happening is employers are competing in a global economy. you can't just increase costs. so my guess is basically what's going to happen, happened to my business in 2004 is they'll just adjust. the workers won't get any more money but let's just say $1.2 billion in wages are paid to workers. well, that's a cost to business. so if you take a look at the overall benefit to the economy, wages might increase $1.2 billion but business costs will increase at $1.2 billion. that nets to zero benefit to the

economy. but there will still be a $678 million compliance cost to business. of course that will be added to the already onerous regulatory burden on our economy. there are three different studies. the small business administration, the competitive enterprise institute, and the national association of manufacturers. putting the cost complying with federal regulation somewhere between $1.75 trillion to over $2 trillion per year. if you take the median estimate of that, divide it by 127 million households, that's a total cost of compliance of federal regulations of $14,800 per year per household. the only larger expense to a household is housing. that's the cost complying. let me finish with another figure. $12,000 per year per employee,

that is the cost of just four obamacare regulations to one wisconsin paper manufacturer. i can't tell you which one because the c.e.o. fears retaliation. think of that for a minute. but just four obama regulations are costing one paper manufacturer the equivalent of $12,000 per year per employee. if you're wondering why wages have stagnated, look no further than this massive regulatory burden. and of course the overtime rule is just one of those burdens. i guess i just ask everybody, would you rather have that $12,000 feeding government in kpwhraoeupbs -- kpwhraoeupbs -- compliance costs or have that $12,000 in your paycheck feeding your family? big government has made it a lot harder and this overtime rule made it incrementally harder. with that, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: thank you. i would like to inquire how much time is remaining on our side. the presiding officer: 11 1/2 minutes. mr. reed: i would like to thank the senator from south carolina for his thoughtful and kind words about the collaboration that we both witnessed on the committee as we brought this bill to the floor under the leadership of chairman mccain. first, with respect to the inhofe-mikulski amendment, i share their concerns about the quality of commissaries. it's an essential service for military personnel. in fact, it's really in the fabric of military life, being able to go to the commissary. it's an important benefit particularly for junior members, those that aren't as well paid as more senior members of the military. but both the chairman and my colleagues on the committee, many of them recognize the need to look for alternate approaches for delivering services to military families but doing so

in a way that can serve resources that can be further used for operations, maintenance and equipment and critical needs we're seeing more clearly at this moment. so we have proposed, and i support the chairman's proposal, to try a pilot program for commissaries that would be run by commercial entities. and i think there is merit to this proposal. i want to emphasize it is a pilot program. it is not a wholesale replacement of the commissary system. it's designed to test in real time whether or not a commercial entity can go ahead and use effectively the resources and the operation of the commissary to better serve, better serve military personnel. we've come a long, long way from the years ago when the commissary was practically the only place a service member could get groceries or get supplies they need for their home. today go outside any military

base, and you will see a target, a wal-mart, and every other combination of store. frankly, our young soldiers, sailors, marines and air men are used to go there, used to going to both places looking for bargains. they're used to the services. this is no longer the isolated military of decades ago where the only place you literally could shop was the some care. i think we have to recognize that. the other thing we have to recognize is there is an interest now by many grocery chains to test this model, to see if in fact they can deliver better services to military personnel and i think that test should be made. that's the essence of the proposal within the armed services committee mark. there is an on-going study of this by the department of defense, and i think that's helpful. and part of the conclusion is the department is critically assessing the privatization of all or portions of the commissary system. i will emphasize, this amendment

does not support the privatization at this time of all commissary systems, but they're looking at that issue. an issue of conflict of interest informed the department of willingness to engage which is leading to a more thorough analysis. and this request was issued in are may just a few weetion ago. so we're now i think positioned to move forward and test this model. thand that's we're asking for, a pilot test. it is sensible. it is limited. we'll learn quite quickly and effectively whether this model works, what its potential is. i think we can conduct in such a way that we'll be a able to structure, if it is a valuable enter prierks relationships between commercialent they's not only protect -- that not only protect military personnel but enhance their experience at the commissary. that's the goal, not just to

save dollars. that is important, but also to make sure that their experience at the commissary is both adequate and in fact more than adequate, effective. now let me turn to senator durbin's amendment very quickly. i support this amendment and the reason i do is because of not only the quasi-, the he will queency of the senator from illinois about the success of this program, but here to me is a crucial pointdon how we got here has been described by my colleague. it is a combination of history, of the rules of budgeting 20-plus years ago, et cetera. but in the interim, we have been able to create a usuallily useful medical research enterprise which will be, i think, dismantled, not intentionally -- that's not the intent of the chairman or any of ther supporters of this chasing of the bill. in fact, as the chairman said, he would stand up and support

realoe caughting these funds someplace else. and my clear from south carolina -- and my colleague from south carolina believed we would do that as well. if you look at how difficult it is to fund the human services budget here, the reality i think -- and this is what -- the reality is if these funds are taken out of this bill, they will not reappear even through the best and sincere efforts of many of my colleagues elsewhere. we'll lose this funding and we'll lose hugely valuable research. and the whole issue of certification by the sebt of defense, if you -- by the secretary of defense, if you step back, this research has been so effective, there is a linkage to every military member. it might not be so dramatic as a proces-- process these ease thal -- prosthesis. thithey will be affected.

and this is research that affects every american. i am going to support senator durbin's amendment. he has stated the case very well will unintended overhead caused by the certification process. but the essence here is we have a valuable national resource that through the history and bureaucratic and congressional procedures and policies has been embedded in the defense department. if we do not support senator durbin's amendment, we will lose that. we won't recapture it elsewhere in another bill. i just think it is too much to lose. with that, mr. chairman -- mr. president, excuse me, i would yield the floor. mr. durbin: hop how much time is remaining on each side? the presiding officer: the minority has five minutes. mr. durbin: i'm sorry? the presiding officer: the minority has five minutes, the majority has five and a half. mr. durbin: thank you. i want to thank senator reed for his comments in support of my

amendment. this is about medical research, and if i have a passion nor this subject -- for this subject, i do. most of us do. there comes a point in your life where you get a diagnosis for news about someone you love and you play to goodness that there's been some research to develop a drug for a procedure or a device that gives them a chance for life. do i want to invest more money in medical research so there are more chances for life? you bet i do. and i believe our highest priority should be the men and women in uniform and their families and our veterans. that's why i'll stand here today and defend this department of defense medical research program as long as i have breath in my lungs because i believe it is essential that once we've made the promise to men and women in uniform, that we'll stand by them, that we keep our word and our word means standing by medical research. some have made lightly of the issues that are being investigated under medical research. not anyone on the floor today, but others.

process state cancer shall -- prostate cancer -- what are they doing investigating prostate cancer at the department of research? service members are likely to develop prostate cancer twice as likely. for the men and women who have served our country and have experienced a traumatic brain injury, their riive of developing alzheimer's disease is much higher. for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, their sphres is also higher. alzheimer's stretch is he department of defense? here's the reason. lou gehrig's disease,a.l.s. military veterans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a.l.s. relative to the general population. why? should we ask the question, do we owe it to the men and women in uniform to ask this question about a.l.s.? we certainly dovment lung

cancer, of course there's too much smoking in the military. that's part of the reason. but the incidence is higher. gold for illness. it wasn't until the department of defense linked up its research that we finally inked up why so many gulf war veterans were coming home sick. traumatic brain injury, epilepsy and seizure -- the list goes on. to walk away from this research is to walk away from our promise to the mirm in unilateral -- to the men and women in uniform, their families and veterans. i hope the majority of the senate will support my effort to eliminate this language that's been put into this department of defense authorization bill and say to the chairman once and for all, stop this battle against medical research. there are many ways to save money in the department of defense. let's not do it at the expense of medical research and at the expense of the well-being of the men and women who soirve country. i reserve the balance of my time. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia.

zach disaik want to compliment chairman alex an deared and ron johnson from wisconsin, senator johnson, on their rfltion disapproval in the overtime rule u. mr. isakson: when i came no the chairman, lamar alexander was making his speech. i listened closely. i got a phone call last week from brian wright, the pastor at east side baptist church. they have one of the largest baptist churches in my state that provides daycare, early childhood developed, sports activities and vacation bible school hon a 24-7 program for underprivileged kids. the unintended consequence of what i am sure is a well-intended regulation is that a 24--a-day camp counselor will be paid regular pay for eight hours and have to be paid time and a half for the other 16 hours of the day. you're going to price the johnson ferry baptist church.

what do you is you take a church out of the business of helping human beings, put the government in the position of having more demand for taxpayer-funded people that provide those services that otherwise wouldn't have been provided anyway. i want to commend chairman alexander. i awrnlg yo urge all my colleago joining them in the resolution of disapproval on the overtime riewsm it is wrong for america. it's consequences are unintended but devastating. i urge everybody to vote in favor of it and appreciate senator alexander that are leadership in offering that. i yield back. mr. graham: as to the durbin amendment, i want people to understand what we're trying to do. there's $900 million spent on medical research in the department of defense. all we're asking is that the money being spent is related to the defense needs of this country. that $900 million, probably

two-thirds of the research money will not pass the test of being related to the defense department. if you care about the men and women in unilateral forth which we all do that's probably $600 million or $700 million to help a military that's in decline. as -- in terms of research dollars, i've worked with senator durbin, alexander, blunt to increase n.i.h. funding. this idea of taking money out of the defense department's budget to do medical research unrelated to the defense needs of this country, that needs to stop because the military is under siege. smallest navy since 19156789 the smallest army since 1940. if you want to retomorro re-- it to reform the way things are down here, this is a great start. you'll have to find another place. if they make place, i will help you find another place. to those medical research aisle

items that survived the cut, you'll have to go through the normal contract procedure. i don't think that's too much to ask. if you want things to change in washington, somebody has got to start to process a change. it's long overdue to stop spending money in the department of defense's budget for things unrelated to the department of defense, even though many of them are worthy. the point we're trying to make is that our military needs every dollar it can get, and we need to look at the way we're doing business anew, and that's exactly what this gill. does -- this bill does. senator durbin takes us back to the old way of doing business. finally, this whole idea of medical research in the department of defense budget started with a $20 million earmark for breast cancer that's now $900 million. why? because if you can make it in the d.o.d.'s bill, you're going to get imriewr program funded.

iters not about d. -- it's not about medical research it is about the power of somebody to get the medical research program in the department of defense's budget. it is not a merit-based process here. it needs to be. i yield and notice -- mr. durbin: how much time is remaining? the presiding officer: one minute and 45 seconds. mr. durbin: on the other side? the presiding officer: one minute, 15 seconds. mr. durbin: i'll conclude. i would say to my friend from south carolina, i have gone through a long lis of research projects at the department of defense and their medical research program and each and every one of them i have linked up to medical families and peculiar circumstances affecting our military. that's why i 234eu department of defense medical research is now critical. i've yet to hear the other side say that one of threes is waste 238. and they can't. because if our men and women in uniform are suffering from gulf war ill nesses, of course we want the department of diswens our any other medical lech group

to try to find out what is the cause of the problem and what can we do about it. when it comes to the incidence of scare being higher among veterans, are you worried about that? i sure am. why would it sn? should we ask that request? of course we should and do you that through legitimate medical research. do you know what the institute of med sing said about this medical research snram here is what they said. it has shown to be an efficiently managed, scientifically productive effort, valuable component of the nation's health research enterprise. this is not wasted money. this is medical research for the men and women in uniform, their families, and the veterans who serve in country mpletdz i'll stand here and fight for it every minute and those who say, well, we'll strengthen our military if we do less medical research on behalf of the men and women in iewj form and veteran -- in uniform and veterans, that doesn't make us a stronger military. let us keep our word u we told them we'd stand behind them when they came home and we've got to

keep our word. i ask unanimous consent that a list of 147 had organizations that support the durbin amendment be placed in the record at this point. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i call up amendment number 4369. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senator from illinois, mr. durbin, for himself and others, proposes an nement number 4369. at the end of sub-subtitle c,. the presiding officer: without objection. time is yield back. question is on the durbin amendment. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: have all senators voted? any senator wish to change their vote? on this amendment the yeas are of. -- 66. the nays are 32. the amendment is agreed to. there will be to minutes equally divided in relation to the inhofe amendment. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. a senator: a year ago when we were considering the same bill, the language of the bill that was presented to us had a pilot program that would take five -- would temporarily look at privatizing five commissaries. mr. inhofe: we elected not to do

that and passed by voice vote a motion that said till such time as we -- the presiding officer: order in the chamber, please. the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: we had an amendment at that time with 25 cosponsors and it was not necessary to actually to have a roll call vote overwhelmingly it was passed that we would not do that until we had a stud of d.o.d. with an assessment by g.a.o. on privatization. that has not happened yet. the initial report came out from g.a.o. in its -- and it's negative on having the privatization language at this point. i reserve the balance of my time. mr. mccain: mada a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: a key aspect of this, it's a pilot and i believe along with the chairman, this is the

best way to evaluate the merits or demerits of privatization of commissaries. it will allow an evaluation that's not theoretical, not a report but an actual company actually engaged in five locations running a facility. the goal is not just to maintain the commissaries. the goal is to enhance the value of service men and women. i think along with the chairman that this approach is appropriate -- an appropriate approach and would do just that. i would urge rejection of the inhofe amendment. the presiding officer: the senator has seven seconds. mr. inhofe: we have 40 cosponsors. i would advise each one of you to look at the cosponsors before you vote on n. however, i would have no objection to a voice vote.

the presiding officer: if there's no further debate -- the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the question is on the inhofe amendment 4204. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 70. the nays are 28. the amendment is agreed to. mr. mccain: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: madam president, it's my understanding that we're trying to set up the amendment and second-degree amendment on the increase of 17 -- an authorization of $17 billion. there will be, my understanding also there will be a second-degree amendment. i just want to say a few words about the amendment which is

pending, and we were trying to reach agreement as to when we will have debate and vote on both second-degree and the amendment itself. i would point out that the unfunded requirements the military services total $23 billion for the next fiscal year alone. sequestration threats to return in 2018 taking away another $100 billion from our military. and the amendment increased defense spending by $18 billion. and i will glad to go through all of the programs that there's increased spending, but i would point out that those increases are, were in the five-year defense plan but were cut because of the, because of the authorization of $17 billion, the president's request of $17

billion in what we had last year. a quick glance around the world i think will certainly make one understand that the world is not a safer place than it was last year, and we're cutting into readiness, maintenance, all kinds of problems are beginning to arise in the military. so my friend from rhode island and i will be discussing and debating both the second-degree amendment and the amendment, and hopefully we will have votes either tomorrow or on thursday, depending on negotiations between the leaders. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: madam president, i want to thank and commend the chairman. as he indicated, he has proposed an amended, and he is also

allowing us to prepare a second-degree amendment which i would like to offer as soon as it's ready and then conduct debate on a very important topic, and that is investing in our national security in the broader sense and doing it wisely and well. and then i would hope, again subject to the deliberations of the leaders on both sides, that we could have a vote on both the underlying amendment and the second-degree tomorrow or the succeeding day. i want to thank the chairman not only for bringing this issue to the floor but also giving us the opportunity to prepare an appropriate amendment. thank you. mr. mccain: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i understand that the senator from oklahoma and the senator from new mexico are interested in getting some legislation which is noncontroversial up and

completed, and i'm more than glad to yield time from our discussion of the defense authorization bill for the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: if the senator would yield, i appreciate that very much. we're talking about the tsca bill. it's almost a must-pass type of a bill. we have the support on both sides. i think almost total support. if we could have another ten minutes to talk to a couple people, i'd like to make that motion, if you could go ahead and talk about the -- mr. mccain: i thank the senator from oklahoma. when he gets ready, we'll obviously be prepared to yield for consideration of that legislation, important legislation, to the senator from oklahoma. and in the meantime i'd like to point out that as part of this package of $18 billion, there's an increased military pay raise

of 2.1%. the current administration's budget request sets pay raises at 1.6%, fully funds u.s. troops in afghanistan at 9,800. the budget request of the president was troop levels of 6,217. it stops the cuts to end strength and capacity, restores the end strength for army, navy, marine corps and air force. for example, it cancels the planned reduction of 15,000 active army soldiers. if the planned reduction actually was implemented, we would have one of the smallest armies in history. the funds -- certainly in recent history. the funds, recommendation of the national commission on the future of the u.s. army includes additional funding for purchase of 36 additional uh-60 blackhawk

helicopters, 5a-64 -- and chinook. all of those were in keeping with the recommendation on the national commission on the future of the united states army. it adds $2.2 billion to readiness to help alleviate problems each of the military services are grappling with. of the $23 billion in unfunded requirements received by the military services, almost $7 billion of it was identified as readiness related. it addresses the navy's ongoing strength fighter shortfall and united states marine corps aviation readiness crisis by increasing aircraft procurement. it addresses high-priority unfunded requirements for the navy and marine corps, including 14 fa-18 super hornets and 11 f-35 joint strike fighters. it supports the navy

shipbuilding program. it provides a balance of funding necessary to fully fund the additional fiscal year 2016ddg-51 harley burke class destroyer. it restores the cut of the one natoro combat ship in fiscal year 2017. it supports the european reassurance initiative with the manufacturing and modernization of 14 m-1 abrams tanks and 14 m-2 bradley fighting vehicles. there's also increased support for israeli cooperation on air defense programs of some $200 million. so what this is is an effort to make up for the shortfall from -- that would bring us up to last year's number. last year's. again i want to point out -- and

we'll talk more about it -- but we have all kinds of initiatives going on. increasing troops presence in syria and iraq. they're having much more participation in the european reassurance program. there's more emphasis on our rebalancing in asia. all at the same time we're cutting defense, making it $17 billion lower than the military needed and planned for last year. so i hope that my colleagues would understand and appreciate the need, particularly when we look at already the deep cuts and consequences of reductions in readiness, training, and other of the intangibles that makes the american military the great and superior to all

potential organizations that it is. i hope my colleagues will look at what we're proposing for tomorrow. i know the other side will have a second-degree amendment as well, which i haven't seen it but i would be glad to give it utmost serious consideration depending on its contents. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: the week after memorial day and the day after the 72nd anniversary of d-day and a time when we live in a more dangerous world from china and russia, from isis, it is appropriate we're here talking about our military and helping our troops and doing so by

strengthening our military. senator mccain, chairman of the committee, talked about the fact that there is a pay raise here. there is assurance to our military that we are not going to have the end strength that puts us in more peril. i applaud him. i applaud senator reed for their work on this bill. i hope we praik progress on this bill. we now have a situation where 129 people on average are dying every single day. we have in my home state of ohio and around the country epidemic levels not just of heroin and prescription drugs but out in fentanyl, a synthetic form of heroin. it is facted every community and every state. this is the eighth time i've come on the floor to talk about this issue since the senate passed their legislation here on march 10. by the way, that's every week we've been in session then, and i came initially to encourage the house to act, urged them to move on it. they have now done that a couple of weeks ago.

now i am urging the house and senate to come together, because we have some differences in our two afroaches this, but -- approaches to this but for the most part we have commonality. there's common ground on how to deal with this issue, better treatment and recovery, helping our law enforcement better deal with t my message is very simple: we know what's in the house bill. we know what's in the senate bi. we're starting to work together. this isn't like other issues we address here on the floorks with all due respect. this is an urgent one. this is an emergency back home. this is one where we know the federal government can be a better partner with state and local governments, with nonprofits. the presiding officer, you, madam president, have been very involved in this issue over time. you understand it. when you go home, you hear about it every where you go, as do i. this is one that affects every single state. that's why we got a 94-1 vote in this chamber. tbhi that. in a never happens around here. we were on the floor for two and a half weeks and by the end of

the debate, every single senator said, this is a key issue back home. like this issue. it is common sense. we need to support t there is a real crisis out there. this is a stliewtion to the crisis. we have the common ground smed we need to move forward and do so soon. in 88 days since the senate passed the legislation on march 10, by the way, more than 10,000 americans -- 10,000 americans -- have died of drug overdoses from oippedz. and that doesn't include of course, the hundreds of thousands of others who have not died from an overdose but are casualties. they've lost a job, they've broken a relationship with their family, with loved ones, they've been driven to payer to drugs by going to crime, they have lost hope. there are now an estimated 200,000 in ohio who are suffering from addiction from heroin and prescription drugs. that's the size of the city of

akron, ohio, a major city in my state. it is urgent. by the way, people understand it. there's a new poll out showing that 3 in 10 ohioans know someone who is struggling with an opioid addiction. they know someone, their friends, families, coworkers, neighbors who are experiencing a lost job, time in prison, broken relationships, communities being devastate. all they have to do is open the newspaper to be remoonedded it. every day the headlines show the story of families being torn apart because of adifntle suns my last speech on the floor about two weeks ago, here is some new news from my state of ohio. a if a man and his daughter were arrested together buying heroin. the same day a 26-year-old man was found dead of an overdose in butler county. last year in steubenville, police seized 100 grams of heroin from one man. i told the story of annabel la, a 14-month-old who died after

ingesting their mother's fentanyl-laced heroin. a 29-year-old man was sentenced to nine years in prison after his 11-month-old son ingested his father's fentanyl and died. ohioans know this is happening and we're taking action. the state troopers in ohio will soon be carrying naloxone with them, which can actually reverse the effects of an overdose. our legislation provides more training for naloxone, also equaled narcan. it provides more grant opportunities. it is one reason the fraternal offered police have been supportive of our legislation. last year in ohio first responders administered naloxone 16,000 times saving thousands of lives. our governor is conducting an awareness campaign called start talking. the national guard is helping out. they're conducting is 13 events across -- 113 events across

ohio. i'm told that 65 national guard members have now partnered with 28 law enforcement agencies on counter-drug efforts. they've conskated more than $6 million in drugs already, including $235 pounds of heroin, fentanyl, opiate pills. cara would create a national awareness campaign. we think this is incredible important, including making this connection between prescription drugs, narcotic pain pills and heroin. four out of five heroin addicts in owe he started with prescription drug drugs. this is not included in the house-passed legislation, as one example of something we want to add. i think this is critical we add it to the final bill we send to the president's desk so that this message resonates to let people know they should not be getting into this funnel of addiction. as you can see, madam president, we're taking action in ohio. but they back in ohio want the federal government to be a better partner and we can be through this legislation.

in cleveland, cuyahoga county executive and medical examiner last week asked the federal government to be a better partner with them. i agree with them. they support our legislation. so do 160 of the national groups. everybody who has worked with us over the years to come up with this nonpartisan approach that's based on what works. it's based on actual evidence of the treatment that works, the recovery programs that work, the prevention that wonche works. in cheestled, ohio -- in in chie have -- in cheestled, ohio -- in cleveland, ohio, 145 people have died so far this year. that includes one six-day span when 13 people died.

26 lived in the suburbs. this knows who zip code. it is not isolated to wi. it is not isolated to rural or yosuburban. no one is immune to it. people across the country are talking about it more. in the last couple of weeks and one reason we're talking about it is the premature death of prince, a world-renowngdz recording artist whose 58th birthday would have been sell brailted yesterday. we now know based on the up a that it is now confirmed that he died of a fentanyl overdose. nengtsal in is driving more of this epidemic every day. the new information about the overdose that took prince's life has surprised some. after all, prinsz had it all -- success, fame, talent, fortune. he was an amazingly talented

musician. but as paul wanches the executive director of the american college of plel toxicology put it, "this epidemic spares no one. it affects the wealthy, the poor, the prominent, the not prominent." he is exactly right. this reepidemic knows no limits. in a way, as this has become known, it may hope get rid of the stigma that is attached to addiction, as people understands it is everywhere. it it happens to grandmothers, it happens to teenagers who just had their wisdom teeth taken out, it happens to the rich and famous. prince is hardly the first celebrity case of opioid addiction. celebrities like jamie leigh curtis has been brave naff open up and talk about their struggles and i commend them for that. former cleerld browns wide receiver told he is he is, i grew up in the football atmosphere.

it is ingrained in the fliers have to deal with it. after the game you are popping pills to feel normal. the pills are second-nature to us. they're given to us to get through the game. the pills are part of the game. end quote. i am home hopeful that good can come out of tragedy. it can be that we raise awareness about this epidemic and prevent new addictions from starting. the house-passed legislation does not include care rase expanded prevention grants which address local drug crises and is focus the on our young people. i am hopeful that will be included in the bill we send to the president's desk and to our communities. madam president, i know that the scope of this epidemic can feel overwhelming at times but there is hope. prevention can work. treatment can work and it does work. think about jeff knight. he is from the suburbs of cleveland, an entrepreneur, started a small landscaping business when he was 21. the business grew and grew. he was success f.p.l. he had more than a dozen

employees. then at age 27 he was prescribed percocet. percocet. he became addicted. his tolerance increased so he switched to oxycontin. when the pills were too expensive or you couldn't find enough picialtion he switched to heroin because it was less expensive and more accessible. he started selling cocaine to buy more heroin. the drugs became everything, which is what i hear from so many addicts, the drugs became everything. pulling them away from their family, their jobs, their god-given purpose in life. within three years ago jeff knight lost everything. he lost his business, he lost his relationship with his family, and he was arrested. but there he got treatment. and through a drug court program, he got soap sober. he moved into a socioliving facility where there was supervision, accountability and support from his peers. we're holding up those best practices and we want to fund those best practices that have

that kind of support, not just treatment but strong recovery programs. jeff has now been clean for three years. and he's still got the same nth preen neural spirit. he is using it to actually help others, he's bought several houses which he's turned into sober housing for men who are addicted, all because he got treatment and he was in a good recovery program. he is now permitting others to appreciate. nine oust ten of those who need treatment aren't getting it right now we're told. care remarks the senate-passed bill and the house bills both provide more help for the type of treatment programs and recovery that work if week get a comprehensive bill to the president, we can help more people who are struggle to get treatment. we can give them more help. it is time to act. and act quickly to find commonplace and get a bill in blase so we can begin to help millions who are struggling. again i appreciate your efforts in this regard. and i ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue to promote our leadership to move forward, get this conference resolved, get it to

the president's desk and begin to help our constituents back home. all of whom deserve our attention on this critical issue and this epidemic that's affecting every community. i yield back my time. madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. paul: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presidin the presiding officer: officer without objection. mr. paul: milt milton friedman once said that if you give the government control of the sahara desert, within five years there will be a shortage of sand. i tend to agree and it worries me nipple any -- any time a consensus builds to -- i spent the last week reading this bill, this takeover of chemical regulations and i am now more worried than i was before i read the bill. most worrisome beyond the specifics is the creeping infestation of the business community with the idea that the argument is no longer about minimizing regulations but about

making regulations regular. businesses seem to just want uniformity of regulation as opposed to minimization of regulation. a good analogy is that of how businesses respond to malingerers who fake slip and fall. some businesses choose to limit expenses by just paying out small amounts. but some brave businesses choose to legally defend themselves against all nuisance claims. federalizing the chemical regulations is like settling with the slip-and-fall malingerers and hoping he or she will keep their extortion at a reasonable level. in the process that we have abandoned principle, we have given up the state laboratories where economic success and regulatory restraint are aligned. it is no accident that

regulatory restraint occurs in states that host chemical companies and ensures that state legislators and state legislatures will be well-aware that the economic economic of overbearing regulation will be felt in their states and so there is, as a consequence, a back-and-forth and a consideration both of the environment in health and of the economy. federalization of regulation separates the people who benefit from a successful chemical industry from the unelected bureaucrats who will write the regulations. once you server the ties, once there is no incentive, once nobody cares about the jobs anymore, the tendency is to regulate and to overregulate. once that tie is severed, the joint incentive to minimize regulation is lost.

in fact, this legislation explicitly bans the consideration of a regulation's economic cost when deciding whether chemicals will be put into a high risk category. once a chemical has been labeled high risk, the legal liability and stigma that will attach will effectively ban the substance without the effect on the economy ever being considered. regardless of what the final regulations actually say, the subsequent public reaction and lawsuits will have the effect of driving the chemical out of the market if it is considered to be a high-risk chemical. if we are to ignore the cost of regulation, if we are to ignore the relationship between regulations and job loss, there is basically no limit to the fervor and ferocity that will be unleashed by bureaucrats whose perpetual mandate is to

regulate. i always thought that we needed more balance, not less in deciding on thu regulations. -- on new regulations. i always thought we should balance the environment and the economy. instead of balancing the economic effects and the environmental effects, this bill explicitly says their goal is to regulate, period. this bill explicitly states that the economic impact of regulations is only considered after the e.p.a. has decided to regulate, after a substance has been categorized as high risk. is this really the best we can do? sometimes i wonder if we deserve the government we get. when the business community guess -- gets together and seeks regulation, i wonder, have they not paid any attention to what's going on in washington? are they unaware the devastating explosion of federal regulations? are they unaware that today's overbearing regulations were

yesterday's benign advisories? everything starts out nice and easy. we're not going to overregulate you but it never goes down. it always ratchets up. are they unaware that the most benign and well intended regulations of the 1970 owes, now rewritten by a president mad with regulatory zeal? for those who are unaware of the devastation the e.p.a. has wreaked upon our payable, -- our people, i request that you come and visit us in kentucky. come and visit us in west virginia. the e.p.a.'s war on coal has spread a trail of despair amongst a proud people. many of these counties have unemployment over twice the national average. the regulations that are crippling and destroying our jobs in kentucky were not passed by congress. these job-killing regulations are monster that's merged from

the toxic swamp of big government bureaucrats at the e.p.a. the obama-clinton war on coal largely came from regulations that were extensions of seemingly bland, well intended laws in the early 1970's, laws like the clean water act that were well intended legislating that you can't discharge pollutants into a navigable stream. i'm for that. but somehow the courts and the bureaucrats came to decide that dirt was a pollutant and that your backyard just might have a nexus to a puddle that has a nexus to a ditch that was frequented by a migratory bird that once flew from the great lakes. so your backyard is the same as the great lakes now. it's become obscene and ob assured but it was -- absurd but it was all from well intentioned, reasonable regulations that have gotten out

of control. the pa now can jail you for putting dirt on your own land. robert lucas was given ten years in prison for putting dirt on his own land. the craziness that has infected the e.p.a., we now have the feds asserting regulatory control over the majority of the land in the states. will the federal takeover of the chemical regulations eventually more of into a -- morph into a war on chemical companies similar to what happened to the coal industry? i don't know but it concerns me enough to examine the bill closely. any time we're told that everyone is for something, any time we're told that we should stand aside and not challenge the status quo, i become suspicious that it is precisely the time that someone needs to look very closely at what is happening. i also worry about federal laws that preempt state laws. admittedly sometimes states such

as california go overboard and they regulate businesses out of existence or at least chase them to another state. however, california's excess is texas' benefit. i grew up along the texas coast. many of my family members work in the chemical industry. texas has become a haven because of its location and its reasonable regulations. because texas and louisiana have such a mutually beneficial relationship with the chemical industry, it's hard to imagine a time when the texas or the louisiana legislature would vote to overregulate or to ignore the cost of new regulations. it's not in their best interest. but it's much easier to imagine a time when 40 -- 47 other states gang up on texas, louisiana, and oklahoma to ratchet up a federal regulatory regime to the point at which it

chokes and suffocates business and their jobs. think it can't happen? come and visit me in kentucky. come and see the devastation. come and see the unemployed that have come from e.p.a. over zealous regulation. how can it be that the very businesses who face this threat support this bill, support the federalization of regulation? i'm sure they're sincere. they want uniformity and predictability, admirable desires. they don't want the national standard of regulations to evolve to the worst standard of regulations. california regulators, yes, i'm talking about you. and yet the bill before us grandfathers in california's overbearing regulations. it only prevents them from getting worse. but everyone must realize that this bill also preempts friendly

states, like texas and louisiana from continuing to be friendly states. as federal regulations gradually or quickly grow, texas and louisiana will no longer be able to veto the excesses of washington. regulations that would never pass the texas or louisiana state legislature will see limited opposition in washington. don't believe me? come and visit me in kentucky. see the devastation that the pa has wrought to my state. so why in the world would businesses come to washington and want to be regulated? nothing perplexes me more, makes me madder than when businesses come to washington to lobby for regulations. and unfortunately it's becoming the norm, not the exception. lately the call to federalize regulations has become a cottage industry. for companies to come to washington and beg for federal

regulations to supersede troublesome state regulations. it seems like every day businesses come to my office to complain about regulatory abuse and then they come back later in the day and say oh, by the way, can you vote for federal regulations on my business because the state regulations are killing me. but then a few years later they come back, the same businesses, and they're now complaining that the regulatory agencies are ratcheting up the regulations. food distributors clamor for federal regulations on labeling. restaurants advocate for national menu standards. now we have federal standards, lo and behold we also have federal menu crimes. you can be imprisoned in america for posting the wrong calorie count on your menu. i'm not making this up. you can be put in prison for putting the wrong calorie count down. we have to be we're write of --

be weary of giving more power to the federal legislature. with this bill, chemical companies lobby for federal regulations to preempt state legislation. none of them seem concerned that the federal regulations will preempt not only aggressive regulatory states like california but also market oriented states, friendly states like texas and louisiana. so the less onerous federal regulations may initially preempt overly zealous regulatory states, but when the federal regulations evolve into a more onerous standard, which they always have, there will no longer be any state laboratories left to exercise freedom. texas and louisiana will no longer be free to host chemical companies as the federal agencies ratchet higher and proponents of the bill will say, well, texas and la can opt out. -- louisiana can opt out. there's a waiver. guess who has to approve the

waiver? the head of the e.p.a. anybody know the recent head of an e.p.a. friendly to business that's going to give them a waiver on a federal regulations? it won't work. the pro-regulation business community argues that they're being overwhelmed by state regulations, and i don't disagree. but what can be done short of federalizing regulations? what about charging more on the states that have the costly regulations? in vermont they've mandated g.m.o. labeling. it's going to cost a fortune. either quit selling to them or jack up the price to make them pay for the labeling. do you think the socialists up in vermont, do you think they might consider their laws if they have to pay two bucks more for a coke or for a pepsi to pay for the absurd labeling? what could chemical companies do to fight overzealous regulatory states? what they already do. move to friendly states. if california inappropriately

regulates your chemicals, charge them more and by all means move. get the heck out of california. come to kentucky. we'd love to have your business. what these businesses who favor federalization of regulation fail to understand is that the history of federal regulations is a dismal one, well intended, limited regulations morphed into ill will and intrusive regulations. what these businesses fail to grasp is while states like california and vermont may pass burdensome expensive regulations, other states like texas and tennessee and kentucky are relative havens for business. when businesses plead for federal regulations to supersede ill-conceived regulations in california and vermont, they fail to understand that once regulations are centralized, the

history of regulations in washington is only to grow. just witness the regulations in banking and health care. does anyone remember ever seeing a limited reasonable federal standard that stayed limited and reasonable? it's not new in washington no businesses to lobby to be regulated. some hospitals advocated for obamacare and now complain that it's bankrupting them. some small banks advocated for dodd frank regulations and now they complain that the regulators are assaulting them as well. the bill before us gives the administrator of the e.p.a. the power to decide at a later date how to and to what extent he or she will regulate the chemical industry. in fact, more than a hundred times, this bill leaves the discretionary authority to the e.p.a. to make decisions on

creating new rules. a hundred times it says the administrator of the e.p.a. shall at a later date decide how to regulate. that's a blank check to the e.p.a. it's a mistake. you wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to how many pages of regulations will come from this bill. the current code of federal regulations is 237 volumes and more than 178,000 pages. if obamacare is any guide, it will be at least 20 pages of regulations for every page of legislation. using the obamacare standard, this bill will give us nearly 2,000 pages of regulations. obamacare was about a thousand pages. the regulations from obamacare have morphed into nearly 20,000 pages. it's not hard to see how this bill which requires review of more than 85,000 chemicals now on the market could quickly

eclipse that lofty total. no one disputes that this bill increases the power of the e.p.a. this is an important point. no one disputes that this bill increases the power of the e.p.a. no one disputes that this bill transfers power from the states to the federal government. the national journal recognizes and describes this bill as granting extensive new authority to the e.p.a. if you don't think that's a problem, come to kentucky and meet the 16,000 people in my state who have lost their job because of the overregulatory nature of the e.p.a. ask them what they think of hillary clinton's plan to continue putting coal miners out of business in my state. ask them what they think of granting extensive new authority to the e.p.a. look these coal miners in the

face and tell them to trust you and that your bill will not increase e.p.a. power. tell them to trust you. is there anything in recent history of regulatory onslaught that indicates that a reasonable federal standard will remain reasonable? everybody says oh starting out, we're going to preempt these terrible states like california. it's going to preempt california and vermont and all these terrible liberal states and it's going to be a low level. business was involved, so business has made it a low and easy standard for chemicals. it will be ratcheted up because regulations never get better. they always get worse. so, mr. president, i rise today to oppose granting new power to the e.p.a. i wish we were here today to do the opposite to vote to restrain the e.p.a., to make sure that they balance regulation and jobs. i wish we were here today to vote for the reins act that

requires new regulations to be voted on by congress before they become enforceable. instead this regulation, this legislation will inevitably add hundreds of new regulations. i rise today to oppose this bill because it preempts the constitution's intentions for the federal government. i rise today to oppose this bill because the recent history of the e.p.a. is one that has shown no balance, no concern for thousands of kentuckians they put out of work. i rise today to oppose this bill because i can't in good conscience as a kentuckian vote to make the federal e.p.a. stronger. thank you, mr. president, and i cede back my remaining time.

the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i'm prepared to make a unanimous consent request, but i don't have the wording yet. i will momentarily. so i will not take the floor at this time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. a senator: -- mr. coons: i ask unanimous consent that leah shean, a fellow from my office be allowed floor privileges. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from delaware is recognized. mr. coons: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with senator whitehouse of rhode island for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. coons: mr. president, i am so pleased today to join my colleague, the senator from rhode island, to discuss one of

the most important issues facing future generations and our world. that's climate change, an issue that also affects both of our coastal and low-lying states directly. many know delaware's status as the first state to ratify the constitution but few are also aware that delaware is the lowest-lying state. we have the lowest mean elevation. this status comes with certain challenges especially for nearly 400 miles of exposed shoreline. that means no part of our state is more than 30 miles from the coast. so the good news is no matter where you live in my home state, it takes you less than 30 minutes to get to sun and sand but the challenge is we're increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. in recent years we've seen how flooding can devastate homes and communities up and down our state. low-lying neighborhoods that often don't have the resources to cope with steadily increasing flooding like south bridge in wilmington, pictured to my right here, are disproportionately

affected. environmental justice has long been a concern of mine and of senator whitehouse's and we had an opportunity to visit the neighborhood of south bridge which every time it rains more than an inch or two is significantly flooded and with subsidance, the steady sinking of the land and with sea level rise acting in combination in my home state we're simply going to see more and more challenges from severe flooding due to sea level rise around the globe and my home state. it's not just houses and neighborhoods threatened, it's also businesses and industries. there's a broad range of long established businesses and industries in my state that are placed in coastal areas because of the history of our settlement and development. some are between 15% and 25% of all the land used for heavy industry in my state will likely be inundated by sea level rise by the end of the century. that doesn't includes land use that contributes to land and

revenue. we also punch above our weight when it comes to tackling the challenges of climate change. in places like south bridge, our communities have come together at the state and local level to find creative solutions to cope with the flooding that is increasingly caused by climate change. this image here demonstrates a plan that's been developed for the south wilmington wetlands project. as senator whitehouse may describe in more detail his visit to the state of delaware, but i wanted to open simply by describing this community response to the flooding you saw in the previous slide. we've come together as a community to plan a cleanup of a brownfield area, to create a safe and attractive park for the neighborhood and to improve water quality and drainage in a way that also creates new ecosystems, new opportunities for recreation and a new future for a community long blighted and often under water. that's not the only example of many of actions that have been taken by my home state of delaware. delaware also participates in rggi, the regional greenhouse gas initiative, a collection of

nine midatlantic and northeastern states including rhode island that have joined together to implement market-based policies to reduce emissions. since 2009 the participating states have reduced our carbon emissions by 20% while also experiencing stronger economic growth than the rest of the country which i view as proof that fighting climate change and strengthening our economy are not mutually exclusive goals. in fact, over the past six years delaware has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions more than any state in the entire united states. we've done that by growing our solar capacity 6,000 percent through multiple utility scale projects and distributed solar. we've done our best to adapt to climate change through community and state-led planning. our governor jack markell led a fantastic bottom-up statewide planning effort to address the impacts of climate change on water, on agriculture, on ecosystems, infrastructure, and public health. and in december of 2014 they released a climate framework for delaware, an impressive

state-wide effort to be prepared for what's coming before it's too late. delaware then, i think, is an example of how communities most vulnerable to climate change can work together across public and private sectors to meet the challenge of climate change head on. that's why i invited my friend and colleague, senator whitehouse, a true leader in the work to address climate change not only in his home state of rhode island but across our country, to come and visit my state. every week senator whitehouse gives a speech on a different aspect of climate change. and i was proud to participate today in his weekly speech on the topic and thrilled to welcome him to my home state in may as part of his ongoing effort. before i yield the floor to senator whitehouse, i just want to tell you about one other stop on our statewide tour, a stop in prime hook, one of delaware's two national wild life refuges. the beach there receded more than 500 feet and storms have broken through the dune lines. when hurricane sandy hit this

already fragile shoreline leaving this coastline battered as you can see through this image here, it broke through completely and permanently flooded and destroyed the fresh water marsh. the storm deepened and widened the breach from 300 feet to 1500 feet and exacerbated routine flooding on local roads used by the community to being a ses the beach. for a delicate ecosystem, this type of severe weather and flooding can be devastated. over the last three years the u.s. fish and wildlife service worked in tandem with other federal agencies and n.g.o.'s to restore this fragile ecosystem and rebuild the beaches' defenses. it is a long story but you can see the punch line here that as of march 2015 construction has been completed with a new barrier. the finished product will be a salt water marsh that i am confident will contribute significantly to a durable, resillient long-term ecosystem.

this is one example of the creative things we're doing to address climate change and sea level rise. i think one of the most important things we're doing was in our last stop. and for that i'll turn it over to senator whitehouse to discuss our last visit. mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: thank you, senator coons. i'm really grateful to the junior senator from delaware for inviting me to his home state and for joining me here today for a time to wake up speech 139. senator coons and i spent a terrific day touring the delaware shore. you can say what you want about us, but on that day we were the two wettest members of the united states senate. i can assure you of that. this is capitol hill oceans week, mr. president, and wednesday's world oceans day so it's a good time to consider the effects of climate change on our oceans. the oceans have absorbed a third of all carbon dioxide produced since the industrial revolution and over 90% of the excess heat

that has resulted. that means that by laws of both physics and chemistry, the oceans are warming, rising and acidfying. rhode island is the ocean state, but give delaware credit, it generated around $1 billion and over 23,000 jobs from the ocean from the last report in 2013, from tourism, recreation, shipping and fishing. and like rhode island, delaware sees it's sea level rise at a rate of three and a third mill meters a year along the delaware shore, 13 inches up over the last hundred years. and delawareans care about this. over a quarter of reported persons experiencing the effects of sea level rise, two-thirds that they worry about the effects and over 70% of the -- call on the state to combat sea level rise. i did enjoy the visit to south

wilmington and to port may. but the real prize and the prime reason i went was port mayan's avian connection. among the sand pipers, ruddy turn stones and gulls we saw on the shore was a bird called the roof spa -- roofa red knot. they stand out for the amazing story that accompanies their arrival in delaware each spring. this is a story to love, and i guess you'd have to say a bird to admire. they only have about a 20-inch wing span at full growth and their body is about the size of a tea cup. but each spring these red knots undertake an epic 9,000-mile voyage from the southern tip of south america to the canadian arctic. after spending the summer

nesting in the arctic they may their way south. this bird has one of the longest animal migrations of any species on earth. how does delaware come into this? the red knots fly straight from brazil to delaware bay. as you can imagine, when they get there, they are hungry. they've lost as much as half their weight. we were told they actually start ingesting their own organs toward the end for fuel. delaware bay, the largest horseshoe crab spawning area in the world. each may and june horseshoe crabs emerge from the seas to lay millions of eggs. nearly two million horseshoe crabs were counted in delaware bay in 2015 and a female horseshoe crab can lay up to 90,000 eggs per spawning season. so do the math. that's a lot of eggs. and the red knots come here timed just so by mother nature to bulk up on those nutritious horseshoe crab eggs to replenish their wasted bodies from that

long flight from brazil to delaware bay and to fuel up for the 2,000 further miles of their journey into the canadian arctic. i wanted to see this natural wonder before it ends. the u.s. fish and wildlife service lists the red knot as threatened under the endangered species act" successful breeding is highly dependent on the timing of departures and arrivals to coincide with favorable food and weather conditions in the spring and fall and on the arctic breeding grounds." climate change can bollix that timing. we're seeing that in an additional species along the west african coast. the journal reports the it is leading to smaller birds, the chicks less strong, begin to

weaken, get out of phase and it cascades through an array of further difficulties. you actually have got to love this unassuming but astounding little bird, but its survival relies on a cascade of nature's events to line up just right. nature throws a long bomb from tierra del fuego and off go these birds and months later they arrive in delaware bay timed to this 450 million-year-old creature emerging from delaware bay to spawn. if one environmental event comes too early o one food source becomes too limited, this species could collapse. we got ahead of that in the 1980's when horseshoe crabs became rare because they were overfished. as their number went down, red knot numbers changed in accord. the red knot could pay a sad

price. some people may snicker and say there he goes again, now he is out on the senate floor talking about some stupid bird. but i will say that when you see the voyage that this little bird has to make, a little shore bird used to running along the shore making this epic voyage every year, one of them has been measured back and forth because of the tag on its ankle to have flown the distance from here to the moon and half the way back in its life. and if you can't see the hand of god in that creature, mr. president, i weep for your soul. so i thank my colleague from delaware for his staff and the experts who he brought along to help us learn about this. like rhode island, delaware is being proactive in addressing the risks that we face and planning for a warmer and a wetter future. i return my time to the distinguished -- mr. coons: with that, mr. president, i want to conclude by commenting that our day together began and ended with citizen science. the very first thing we did was to visit delaware's national park to participate in a

bioblitz where volunteers from all over the country were identifying species and categorizing the threats to them from climate change. and the very last thing we did was counting horseshoe crabs along cape henlopen shore. i must say my colleague from rhode island, even though there was driving rain and difficult conditions, was passionate and determined to do everything we could to contribute to the counting effort of the horseshoe crabs that day. it was a terrific opportunity for us to see a state that's engaged in planning and preparation and to witness one of the most remarkable migrations across our globe. i just want to express in closing my gratitude to senator whitehouse for his leadership on this issue. mr. whitehouse: would the senator yield for a question? mr. coons: the senator will yield. mr. whitehouse: were we indeed the two wettest senators that day? mr. coons: we were indeed the most persistently wet senators in the entire country by the end of a very, very wet but very fulfilling day up and down the state of delaware. with that, i would like to thank my colleague from rhode island and i yield the floor. mr. inhofe: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask the chair to lay before the senate the message to accompany h.r. 2576. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate a message from the house. the clerk: resolved that the house agree to the message to the bill to h.r. 2576 an act to modernize the toxic substances control act, and for other purposes, with an amendment to the senate amendment. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i move to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment, and i ask that there now be 45 minutes of debate on the motion, and that following the use or yielding back of time, the senate vote on the motion to concur. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. inhofe: for the information for the members here, the information of senators, this will allow us to pass this bill tonight by voice vote. i ask unanimous consent that for

that 45 minutes that the senator from california, senator boxer, be recognized for ten minutes, followed by the senator from louisiana, senator visitor, and then go -- senator vitter, and then go back and forth in five-minute increments. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i'd just like to make a little clarifying note. senator udall has asked for ten minutes. so the thought was if we could use our time, boxer ten and after senator vitter we go to senator udall for ten, then we go back to your side and then senator markey wanted five, and i don't know if senator whitehouse wanted time. he would like five minutes as well. so it would go in that order. ten for me, ten for senator udall, five for senator markey, five for senator whitehouse. mr. inhofe: i believe that adds up to 45 minutes. i will just not speak until

after the vote. i amend my u.c. request. the presiding officer: is there objection to the modified unanimous consent request? mrs. boxer: i have five minutes left, is that right? the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: well, mr. president, i want to start off by thanking my really dear friend senator inhofe. we have had a wonderful relationship when it comes to the infrastructure issues. we have not worked terribly well together on environmental issues, but because of both our staffs and members of the committee on both sides of the aisle, we were able to tough it out and to come up with a bill that i absolutely believe is better than current law. i would ask unanimous consent that at this time i enter into the record additional views by

four leading democratic negotiators, myself, senator udall, senator merkley and senator markey. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: thank you so much. and i do rise in support of h.r. 2576, the frank lautenberg chemical safety for the 21st century act. i spoke at length about this before, so i won't go on for a long time, but i do want to reiterate that the journey to this moment has been the most complicated journey i have ever had to take on any piece of legislation, and i have been around here for a long time. but it was a critical journey. when you name a bill after senator lautenberg who fought for the environment all his life, that bill must be worthy of his name, and finally this bill is. it didn't start out that way. i used every prerogative that i had, every tool in my arsenal to bring it down until it got better, and it is better. it is better than current law.

asbestos, for example, is one of the most harmful chemicals known to humankind, and it takes 15,000 lives a year. it is linked to a deadly form of lung cancer called mess owe feel overtime a. -- meese owe feel overtime a. people can get these fibers into their lungs. we didn't ban it in this bill, which i support. i have stand-alone legislation to do that, but we have made asbestos a priority in this bill. flame retardants are another category of dangerous chemicals. they have been linked to a wide array of serious health problems, including cancer, reduced i.q., developmental delays, obesity and reproductive difficulties, and these harmful chemicals have been added to dozens of everyday items such as furniture and baby products. so when we're talking about it.

sca reforming the toxic laws, we're not just talking about a conversation, we're not just talking about a theory, we're not just talking about something you would address in a classroom, we're talking about our families. now, the negotiations have been challenging. many organizations and many states stood strong despite the pressure to step back, and i am so grateful to them for their persistence. i especially want to thank the 450 organizations that were part of the safer chemicals healthy families coalition that worked with me, as well as the asbestos disease awareness organization for their efforts. without them, i would not have had the ability to negotiate important improvements. now, let me highlight briefly a few of the most important changes in the final bill, and i can't go one more minute without thanking the two people who are

sitting right behind me. tina porrier who is my chief of staff on the committee and chief counsel and jason albritton who is my senior advisor. they worked tirelessly, through the night with senator inhofe's staff. and i can tell you without that work we never would have gotten to this point and we never would have gotten to a bill worthy of frank's name, and it means a great deal to me. now, the first major area of improvement is the preemption of state restrictions on toxic chemicals. in the final bill, we were able to make important exceptions to the preemption provisions. first, the states are free to take whatever action they want on any chemical until e.p.a. has taken a series of steps to study a particular chemical. two, when e.p.a. announces the chemicals they are studying, the

states still have up to a year and a half to take action on these particular chemicals to avoid preemption until the e.p.a. takes final action. three, even after e.p.a. announces its regulation, the states have the ability to get a waiver so they can still regulate the chemical, and we have made improvements to that waiver to make it easier for our states to act. for chemicals that industry has asked e.p.a. to study, we made sure that states are not preempted until e.p.a. issues a final restriction on the chemical, and for that i really want to thank our staff. they put a lot of effort into that. the first ten chemicals e.p.a. evaluates under the bill are also exempted from preemption until the final rule is issued. also, state or local restrictions on a chemical that were in place before april 22,

2016, will not be preempted. so i want to say as someone who comes from a state, the great state of california, the home to almost 40 million people that has a good, strong program, we protected you. would i rather have written this provision myself? of course. and if i had written it myself, i would have set a floor in terms of the standard and allowed the states to take whatever action they wanted to make it tougher, but this was not to be. this was not to be. so because i couldn't get that done, what we were able to get done were those four or five improvements that i cited. and i want to say to the states who may be watching this debate, you can really gear up and move forward right now. you have got time. you can continue the work on you passed before april. you can also have a year and a

half once e.p.a. announces a chemical, and if they don't announce anything, you can go back to doing what you did before. you know, an e.p.a. that is not funded right, i say to my dearest friends on the floor today, if they are not funded, they ain't going to do anything, so the states are going to have the ability to do it. i would hope we would fund the e.p.a. so we have a strong federal program and strong state programs as well. but we will have to make sure that the e.p.a. doesn't continually get cut, cut, cut, cut, cut now, -- cut. now, the second area of improvement contains asbestos. i think i talked about that before. it is covered in this bill. and the third area of improvement concerns cancer clusters. this one is so dear to my heart and to the heart of my republican colleague, senator crapo. we wrote a bill together called the community disease cluster assistance act or trevor's law.

trevor's law provides localities that ask for it a coordinated response to cancer clusters in their communities. what trevor taught us from his experience with horrible cancer is that sometimes these outbreaks occur and no one knows why, and yet it's considered a local issue. now if the local community requests it, if they request it, they will get help. fourth, we have something called persistent chemicals. mr. president, those are chemicals that build up in your body. you just don't get rid of them, and they are a priority in this legislation. and fifth, and another one dear to my heart and dear to the heart of senator manchin and senator capito is this provision that ensures that toxic chemicals stored near drinking water are prioritized. this provision was prompted by the serious bill of contaminated drinking water supplies in west

virginia in 2014, causing havoc and disruption. they didn't know what the chemical was. it got into the water. they didn't know what to do. and as we all remember, it was a nightmare for the people there. no more. now we're going to make sure that the e.p.a. knows what is stored near drinking water supplies. sixth and very important and something that got negotiated in the dead of night, and i want to thank senator inhofe's staff for working with my staff on this. the bill enables e.p.a. to order independent testing if there are safety concerns about a chemical, and these tests will be paid for by the chemical manufacturer, and i also want to thank members of the house who really brought this to us. finally, even the standard for evaluating whether a chemical is dangerous is far better than the old tsca. the bill requires e.p.a. to evaluate chemicals based on

risks, not costs, and consider the impact on vulnerable populations. this is really critical. the old law was useless. so all of these fixes make this bill better than current federal law. looking forward, i want to make a poissments this new tsca law will only be as good as the e.p.a. is. with a good e.p.a., we can deliver a much safer environment for the american people, safer products, less exposure to harmful toxics and better help for our people. with a bad e.p.a. that does not value these goals, not much will get done. but again, if a bad e.p.a. takes no act, states will be free to act. so, again, i would ask for 30 additional seconds, and i'll wrap up. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: we do have this down to five people.

mrs. boxer: i just want to add this, 030 seconds. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: you are free to act with a bad e.p.a. compared to where we started, we have a much better balance between the states and the federal government. it is not perfect. the bills i worked on with frank did not do this, did not freeempt the states. -- preempt the states. because of this journey and we respected each other on both sides and listened to each other on both sides, today is a day we can feel good about we have a decent bill, a federal program, and the states will have a lot of latitude to act. thank you so much. i would yield the floor. mr. vitter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: mr. president, i rise to also laud a really significant achievement which we're going to finalize tonight with the final passage of the frank r. lautenberg chemical safety for the 21st century

act. this much-needed bill will provide updates that have been due literally for decades to the toxic substances control act of 1976, tsca for short, which has been outdated and overdue for updating since almost that time. now, getting to where we are tonight, about to pass this by an overwhelming vote following the 403-12 vote in the house a few weeks ago, didn't happen overnight. in fact, it took about five-plus years. in 2011 -- that's when i started discussions with a broad array of folks,certainly including senator lautenberg, and that's when i first sat down with frank and started this process in a meaningful way. and when we agreed that we would try to bridge the significant

differences between our two viewpoints and come up with a strong bipartisan bill. that same year i also set down with john shinkus of illinois to let him know that frank and i were going to put in a lot of effort to come up with this framework and we wanted him to be a full and equal contributing partner. over the next year and a half we slogged through that process of trying to come up with a strong bipartisan bill. it wasn't easy, between senator lautenberg and myself and our staffs, other staffsment, there was an often brutal stretch of brutal negotiations, testing times, testing everybody's patience. several times we walked away to come back together again and finally, finally it did come together. in early 2013, that really started taking shape.

toward of end of april 2013, we were far enough along to lock a small group of staff and experts in a room to finalize that first bipartisan bill. folks like brian zumwad, my chief counsel then, and a key staffer on the e.p.a. committee, ben dunham, brendan bell, and that led finally to this first bipartisan bill which we introduced on may 23rd, 2013. that wasn't the end of our toss +ska journey and unfortunately in many ways the most difficult segment of that journey was soon after that introduction on may 23. because on june 3, just a few weeks later, frank passed.

the single-greatest champion on reforming how chemicals are regulated died at 89 years of age. that was heartbreaking, but it was a moment when all of us who had been involved only redoubled our commitment to following this through to the end. soon after frank's unfortunate passing, our colleague tom udall really stepped up to the plate in a major way to take frank's role as the democratic lead in this effort. we had a quiet dinner one night here on capitol hill to talk about our commitment to carry on this fight and get it done, and we formed a partnership, a friendship that was really built around this work with an absolute commitment to get that done, and i'll always be so thankful to tom and his

partnership, also his great staff, including their senior policy advisor jonathan black. as with most major undertakings, we had a the love other help all -- we had a lot of other help all along the way that the stage of the process. senators crapo and alexander were extremely helpful. also a little later on, senators booker and markey and merkley will d. a lot to advance the ball and refine the product. of course at every step of the way, i continued to talk with congressman john shimku is, a reliable partner in this process as was his senior policy advisor chris sarley. throughout this process, staff was absolutely essential and monumental, they did yeoman's work in very, very difficult and trying circumstances. i mentioned brian zumwalt, my

former chief counsel, a driving force behind this, and i deeply appreciate and acknowledge his work, as well as someone else i else i mentioned, did i my tree carikof. let me also thank ben dunham. i think in the beginning particularly ben and brian and dmitri gave each other plenty of hell but worked through very difficult negotiations to get it done. and also i want to thank jonathan black and drew wallace in senator udall's offices, adrian with senator markey and on the outside, a lot of expert help from all sorts of stakeholders across the political spectrum, certainly including industry representatives with the american chemistry council, and i want to thank mike walls, rudy

underwood, robert flag, and of course their leader kyle duly. finally, there is one enormous figure who is owed a great debt of gratitude and lot of credit for seeing this over the goal line tonight, and that's frank's better half -- and i say that with deep respect and admiration to frank -- but surely his better half bonnie late lawsuit. she is been called the 101th senator, particularly on this issue. she was devoted to seeing frank's work completed, and i thank her for her relentless effort reaching out to members, house and senate, stakeholders to make sure this happened. as i mentioned at the beginning, this is long overdue. all stakeholders across the political spectrum agreed for decades that this aspect of the

law needed to be updated. we needed to fully protect public health and safety, which we all want to do. we also needed to ensure that american companies, which are world leaders today in science, research, and innovation, remain so and do not get put behind by a regulatory system which is overly burdensome and unworkable. this tsca reform bill, properly named after frank lautenberg, achieves those goals. it is a positive, workable compromise in the best sense of that term so that we will achieve public health and safety and ensure that our leading american companies, great scientists, great innovators, great world leaders in this sector remain just that and remain the world leaders we want and need them to continue to be. so i thank all those who have

contributed to this long but ultimately successful and worthwhile effort. with that, mr. president, i look forward to our vote and i yield the floor. mr. udall: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president. and let me just initially, while senator vitter is still on the floor here, just thank him so much. he was a great partner in terms of working on this piece of legislation, thoroughly through the process over three years. we met i think about three years ago and had a dinner and decided after frank lautenberg had died that we would -- after he died and he had done a lot of work on the bill, that we'd pick it up and make it havment he's been a man -- make it happen.

he's ban man of his word. let me just say about chairman unwho have also, what they say in the senate is if you have a strong chairman, you can get a bill done. and he has been remarkable in terms of his strength and his perseverance, in terms of moving this bill. and so we're at a very, very historic point today, and i think i would call it an historic moment. and i thank you. it's been a pleasure working with you. i have enjoyed working with you when i was on the committee and i am going to enjoy working with you in the future, chairman inhofe, in terms of many other issues that come before us in the senate. i don't have any doubt this is an historic moment. several years and congresses in the making and for the first time in 40 years the united states of america will have a chemical safety program that works, that protects our families from dangerous chemicals in their daily lives.

mr. president, this is significant. most americans believe that when they buy a product at the hardware store or the grocery store, that product has been tested and determined to be safe. but that isn't the case. americans are exposed to hundreds of chemicals from household items. we carry them around with us in our bodies and even before we are born. some are known as carcinogens, others as highly toxic. but we don't know the full extent of how they affect us because they've nevada been tested -- they've never been tested. when this bill becomes law, there will finally be a cop on the beat. today under the old tsca, reviewing chemicals is discretionary. when this bill is law, the e.p.a. will be required to methodically review all existing chemicals for safety, starting with the worst offenders. today the old law requires that the e.p.a. consider the cost and benefits of regulation when

studying the safety of chemicals. very soon e.p.a. will have to consider only the health and environmental impacts of a chemical. and if they demonstrate a risk, e.p.a. will have to regulate. and very conge it will be en-- and very soon, it will be enshrined in the law that the e.p.a. must protect the most vulnerable people: protect women, infants, the elderly, and chemical workers. today the old tsca puts burdensome testing requirements on the e.p.a. to test a chemical, the e.p.a. has to show a chemical poses a potential risk and then it has to go through a long rule-making process. very soon e.p.a. will have authority to order testing without those hurdles. today the old tsca allows new chemicals to go to market without any real review. anage of 750 a -- an average of

750 a year. very soon the e.p.a. will be required to determine that all chemicals are safe, before they go to the market. today the old tsca allows companies to hide information about their product, claiming it is confidential business information, even in an emergency. very soon we will ensure that companies can no longer hide this vital information. states, medical professionals, and the public will have access to the information they need to keep communities safe. and businesses will have to justify when they keep information confidential, and that right willexpire after ten years. today the old stoss ka underfunds the -- the old tsca underfunds the e.p.a. very soon there will be a dedicated funding stream for tsca. it will require industry to pay its share, $25 million a year.

in addition, this new law will ensure victims can get access to the courts if they are hurt. it will revolutionize unnecessary testing on animals, and it will ensure that states can continue to take strong action on dangerous chemicals. mr. president, the senate is about to pass this legislation. it's going to the president and he will sign it. over the past several days, i've gotten the same question over and over again. what made this legislation different? why was the agreement possible when other bills stalled? and i thought about it quite a bit. it isn't that the bill was simple. this was one of the most complex environmental pieces of legislation around. it certainly wasn't a lack of controversy. this process almost fell apart many times. and it certainly wasn't a lack of interest from stakeholders. many groups who are involved all with strong and passionate views

and some with deep distrust. we face countless obstacles but, mr. president, i think what made this possible was the commitment and willpower by everyone involved to see good legislation through and endure the slings and the arrows. i want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone involved. i remember having dinner with senator vitter one evening early on when i was trying to decide whether i would take up frank lautenberg's work on this bill. there was already plenty of controversy and concern on the bill. senator vitter and i were not used to working with each other. in fact, we have almost always been on opposite sides but i left dinner with a feeling that senator vitter was committed. he wanted to see this process through and was willing to do what it would take. for three years i never doubted that. both of us took more than a little heat. we both had to push hard, get important groups to the table and make sure that they stayed

at the table. so i want to thank senator vitter. he's been a true partner in this process for me. there are many others to thank and i will but before i do that i want to say a few words about this bill's namesake. frank lautenberg was a champion for public health and a dogged, determined leader for tsca reform. he cared so much for his children and grandchildren. he wanted to leave a better, healthier, safer environment for them. and he always said that tsca reform would save more lives than anything he ever worked on. this is a bittersweet moment for all of us because frank isn't here to see this happen. but i have faith that he's watching us and he's cheering us on. his wife, bonnie, has been here working as the 101st senator. she has been a force, an inspiration keeping us going,

pushing us when we needed it. she helped us fulfill frank's vision. in the beginning we thought the bill might not ever get introduced in the senate. we entered this congress after the republicans took the majority. many felt strong environmental legislation was impossible. they urged us to wait. but many of us felt that 40 years was already too long to wait. we knew we could do it and make it better and get it passed. senator carper was one of those key members on the environment committee. he gave us legs to get out of the gate. he and senators manchin and coons were among our original cosponsors. they recognized that we had a great opportunity before us, and i want to thank them all. mr. president, they say that in order to get things done in washington, you need a good, strong chairman and chairman inhofe fits that description. i want to thank chairman inhofe and especially his staff, ryan

jackson and dimitri karakotix. his team was instrumental in moving things forward and worked with me to ensure we built the broadest possible support. they knew that with broad support, you could do better than get it out of committee. we could get it across the finish lining. there are days when we all feel discouraged by gridlock here in washington, but chairman inhofe and senator vitter rose above that. they saw the value in working together across party and across house and senate. senators booker, merkley and whitehouse all understood we could work together. i want to thank them, too, for sticking with this bill, working through differences. as a result of their efforts, the bill gives states stronger protections, and it helps reduce unnecessary testing on animals. and it includes a number of other improvements. their staff, adam zip consist kin, adrian devny and others

were key, a strong bipartisan vote of 15-5 out of the committee set us up for action on the floor. as many of you know, floor time is valuable and hard to come by, and stuct to -- subject to nonpertinent issues. we needed to work to ensure the broadest possible support and we did that with senators durbin and markey, our cosponsors of our legislation and i want to thank them and their staff members. jasmine h awe nt and michael freed hoff for their important work to improve key aspects of the federal program like fees and implementation dates and ensure that we could pass this bill through the senate. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. udall: is my time up? the presiding officer: yes, it is. mr. udall: thank you very much. i'm going to stay over. i know the two senators, i want to thank them. i'm going to stay with senator inhofe here and thank additional

people because i think it's that important but we have this time agreement. we need to move on. so i'm going to yield to senator markey for five minutes and then we're going to senator whitehouse for five minutes. unless there's a republican to intervene, chairman inhofe. mr. inhofe: that's right. senator markey, if he would yield, he's already yielded to you, i do ask unanimous consent that before the vote, that we include in the record a colloquy between myself and senator vitter. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: also i would say i will forego my remarks in order to give them more time until after the vote. the presiding officer who yields time? a senator: i yield time to -- the agreement as i understand it is the senator markey will speak for five minutes and senator whitehouse for five minutes.

mr. inhofe: that's already unanimous consent, yes. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: thank you, mr. president. today congress stands ready to reform the last of the core four environmental stat yachts. -- statutes and may do so with a stronger bipartisan vote than any other major environmental statute in recent american history. for a generation, the american people have been guinea pigs in a terrible chemical experiment. told that all the advances in our chemistry labs would make us healthier, happier and safer, american families have had to suffer with decades of a law that did nothing to ensure that that was true. and that is because when the industry successfully overturned the e.p.a.'s proposed ban on asbestos, it also rendered the toxic substance control act all but unusable.

children shouldn't be unwitting scientific subjects. today we have a chance to protect them by reforming this failed law. as ranking democrat on the senate subcommittee of injures cix -- of jurisdiction, i one of a handful of members who participated in an informal conference with the house. and i have with senators udall, boxer and merkley prepared a document that's intended to memorialize certain agreements made in the bicameral negotiations that would typically have been included in a conference report. in our work with the house, we truly did take the best of both bills when it came to enhangsing -- enhancing e.p.a.'s authority to regulate chemicals. the degree to which states will be preempted as the federal government regulates chemicals, has been a source of considerable debate since this bill was first introduced. i have always been a very strong supporter of states' rights to take actions needed to protect

their own residents. and for many of us accepting preemption of our states was a difficult decision that we only made as we also secured increases to the robustness of the e.p.a. chemical safety program. i am particularly pleased that efforts i helped lead resulted in the assurance that massachusetts pending flame retardant law will not be subjected to pause preemption and that there is a mechanism in the bill to ensure that states ongoing -- states' ongoing work on all chemicals can continue while e.p.a. is studying those chemicals. the fact that the bill is supported by the e.p.a., the chemical industry and the chamber of commerce and the trial lawyers tells you something. the fact that a staggering 403 members of the house of representatives voted for this tsca bill more than the number who agreed to support the clean air act, the clean water act, or

the safe drinking water act amendments when those laws were reauthorized tells you something. what it tells you is that we work together on a bipartisan and bicameral basis to compromise in the way americans expect us to. although there are many people who helped to create this moment, i'd like to thank some whose work over the past few months i especially want to recognize. bonnie welltonberg on behalf of her husband, frank. she was relentless. senator inhofe and his staffers, ryan jackson and dimitri kar karakeetzo who remained as committed to agreements that they made about senate democratic priorities as they were to their own priorities throughout this process. i couldn't have imagined a stronger or more constructive partnership. senators udall and his staffers

drew wallace and jonathan black whose leadership especially during these challenging moments were very important. senator merkley and his staff, adrian devaney whose creativity often led us to legislative breakthroughs especially when it came to crafting preedge compromises. my own staff leehom, this is her 20th year on my staff with her ph.d. in biochemistry. it was invaluable in negotiating with the american chemistry council and all other interests. i also want to thank many other members, senator boxer, senator whitehouse and his staff, betina along with barbara boxer. senators mcconnell, senators reed, senator durbin, all central players in making sure that this legislation walls here today. these spectacular and

hard-working e.p.a. team, all of whom provided us with technical assistance and other help often late at night and before the dawn. i thank gina mccarthy, jim jones, wendy cleland ham mott, ryan wallace, kevin mclean, brian grant, laura vot. eric kaiser. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. markey: may i ask one additional minute? the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. markey: ryan smith, don sadowsky and scott sherlock. stephanie harding and andrew mcconville at ceq who's engagement helped especially in the last few weeks and some outside stakeholders who worked particularly closely with my staff and with me, around drew rogers, andrew goldberg, richard denson, johanna slaney, rich gold, scott paber.

i enjoyed meeting, working with, partnering with each one of these outstanding people over the last year. this is a huge bill. it's a historic moment. it's going to make a difference in the lives of millions of americans. it's the most significant environmental law passed in this generation. the old law -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. markey: -- did not work. this one is going to protect the american people. i yield back the balance of my time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, it's been -- as the song says, a long strange trip getting here. and it's had its share of near death experiences as senator udall has int -- is intimately aware of president i was involved with senator merkley and senator booker in one of those near death experiences. if this was a rocket with

stages, one of the major stages was the merkley-booker-whitehouse effort in the committee. and i just wanted to say it's the first time the three of us had worked together. and they were wonderful to work with. they were truly a pleasure. we had a lot on our plates. we made about a dozen major changes in the bill. and i want to just take a moment to thank emily enderland on my staff who was terrific through all of the negotiations and renegotiations and counter negotiations in that stage. but this was obviously a rocket that had many or stages than that one. i want to thank chairman inhofe and his staff for their persistence through all of this. ranking member boxer was just relentless in trying to make this bill as strong as she could make it through every single stage and it is marked by that persistence. senator vitter and senator udall forged the original notion that this compromise could be made to

happen. and they have seen it through so i congratulate them. the house had a rather different view of how this bill should look and between senator inhofe and senator udall and representative palone and representative upton, they were able to work out a bicameral as well as bipartisan chomp mice that we -- compromise that we all could agree to. there are a lot of folks involved but i want to close by offering a particular thanks to my friend, senator udall -- in , there is a titanic, pro meetious, -- promethius who brought fire to humankind. his penalty for bringing fire is to be chained to the rock and have zeus sent every day. it is an image of persisting through pain. i do have to say senator vitter may have had his issues on his

side. i do not know how that looked like, but i can promise you that on our side, tom udall persisted through months and months and months of pain, always with the view that this bill could come to the place where this day could happen. so there are times when legislation is legislation and there is a time in legislation there is a human story behind it, and this is a human story of courage, foresight, persistence, patience and willingness to absorb a considerable number of slings and arrows on the way to a day when slings and arrows are finally put down and everybody can shake hands and degree. we have i think a terrific victory and while there is much credit in many places, my heart in this is with senator tom udall of new mexico. i yield the floor. mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: may i inquire as to how much time is remaining?

the presiding officer: seven and a half minutes. mr. inhofe: oh. let me make one comment, and then i'm going to yield back. the presiding officer: that's all the time that's remaining. mr. inhofe: that's all the time that's remaining. mr. inhofe: that's all the time remaining, is that correct, seven and a half minutes? the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. inhofe: i will not be using seven and a half minutes, but i will be using that after the vote. i do want to include one more person that has not been thanked and that's senator mccain. right now we're in the middle of the must-pass bill every year, the defense authorization bill. he was kind enough to allow us to work this in during his very busy schedule on this bill that we're trying to get through this week, so i do thank him very much. with that -- you know, it is important to even though we have thanked the same people over and over again and when it gets to democrat eat rust, -- demetrius,

i'm going to pronounce his name right, i will be thanking him and several others. with that, i will yield our time back. i see the senator -- of course. the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: i just want to, once again, senator inhofe, compliment you and senator vitter. it didn't have to wind up this way. it wound up this way because you reached across the aisle, because you ensured that all sides were given a fair hearing and that at the end of the day, there would be this result. so i just want to -- i have been doing this for 40 years. i have been on the environmental committee for 40 years. this is not easy. you did. from my perspective, it's historic. it's unprecedented in terms of how -- ultimately how easy you made this process. i was there at the table of superfund, clean air act, all the way down the line. you, you, my friend, have

distinguished yourself. along with senator vitter, you have made it possible for all of us, the whole senate here as this historic bill tonight will pass on the senate floor. i just wanted to compliment you one more time. mr. inhofe: i appreciate the remarks from the senator from massachusetts very much. with that, i will yield back our time and ask for the vote. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to concur. all in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: let me go through the list as i made the statement that it's important that people recognize how long staff works around here. quite frankly, i have often said when they come around for a

report from our committee, the environment and public works committee, the committee that has the largest jurisdiction in the entire united states senate. we're the committee that gets things done. those who are -- if you look at the variety of philosophies that are present, praising this work that's being done, we have the very most conservative to the very most progressive of members. and it's not just this bill. we did the highway bill, the highway reauthorization bill, something that we had been waiting -- had to wait for about eight years to get done. it was the largest one since 1998. we had the -- what other bills have we worked on? we have wrta bill coming up that we anticipate is going to be a reality. it's coming out of our committee. we have the nuclear bill. that's right.

we have -- this committee also has jurisdiction over that nuclear regulatory commission. all of the public works. as the senate -- as my ranking member, senator boxer, has said several times during this process, we get things done, we do disagree on a lot of the issues on the environment, and i say to my good friends on the other side of the aisle that you have every right to be wrong, and but we get things done, and i appreciate that very much. and senator mccain, i already thank you for yielding to us to allow us to pass one of the most significant bills which we just passed by voice vote. mr. mccain: i would be glad to be thanked again. a senator: if the senator will yield?

mr. inhofe: yes, i yield. mr. udall: mr. chairman, i would also -- have you finished? i wanted to say a few closing words and thank a few more people staying to the end. i would also -- of course the chairman needs to finish his remarks. i want to thank senator mccain for his good work. mr. inhofe: let me do this. i do want to make sure we get on record on this, senators vitter and udall. certainly the senator from new mexico. the way we have worked together is remarkable, and you have brought in bonnie to do the work that she has done. i know she wanted to be here as we are voting on this bill. it got down to do we want to get it done tonight or do we want to take a chance for later? dmitri karakitos. anyway, all these were working, jonathan black with senator udall's office has been great.

andrew wallace so ably represented senator udall in those negotiations. i want to thank mehall friedhoff in senator markey's office for the hours of work he poured into this bill. i also want to thank adrian devaney with senator merkley for his work in these negotiations. and adam zibkin representing senator booker. special thanks goes to bill gent and emily spain with senator carper. senator carper has not been mentioned very much tonight, but he has been very, very active in getting this done. emily anderly with senator whitehouse, senators carper, whitehouse, merkley and booker have been partners in getting this completed. and finally appreciate, as i said many times before, senator boxer and her team and benita purrier and jason albritton for working with us, supporting this bill.

we have done a lot of bills in the committee and these same characters keep coming up. so it's the staff that's driven this thing. i have to say that my chief of staff, the one who is most prominent on the committee, is one that obviously did so much of the work on this, and so ryan jackson, you have done a great job. and with that, i will yield the floor. mr. udall: thank you, mr. chairman. chairman inhofe, i just want to state again, the bipartisanship you showed was incredible and it showed what a significant accomplishment we could have, and i also want to thank so much senator mccain for allowing us to fit a little slice here in the middle of this very, very important bill, the ndaa, which i know he works on all year long. he does a terrific job. and he allowed us to come in. i told him, because he knew my uncle mo udall, they served together in the house, and i said i hope you will do this and

do it for mo, and he just got a great big smile on his face because he spent so much time. mr. inhofe: would the senator yield one moment? mr. udall: i will yield. mr. inhofe: i saved one of the best for last, alex harrigot. i neglected to mention him. mr. udall: of course alex. when the house and the senate -- i would just ask to use enough time to get through my thank yous. i ask consent for that. the house and the senate passed bills, and we didn't actually go through a conference committee, but we really worked hard on those differences from late december through just a few weeks ago. we faced challenges working out a final agreement with the house. we had two very different bills. both had broad bipartisan support, but they took very different paths to fix our broken chemical safety program. but we worked through those issues, too, and through this, although this was not a former

conference, it was a true bicameral process with a lot of give and take. to that end, i want to ensure that the record reflects a number of views that i and some of my colleagues have about the final product. we are not filing a traditional conference report but senators boxer, markey, merkley and i have prepared a document to enshrine the views we have on the compromise language. that will be added to the record for pos tiahrt on our final product, and i would ask consent that that be printed into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: and i want to thank all of our senate and house colleagues who were instrumental in pulling this together. again, chairman inhofe was a driving force and senators vitter, crapo and capito and senators merkley, markey and boxer. throughout this entire process, ranking member boxer and i didn't always agree, but we -- we are of the same party, but we also have different opinions about the most important aspects of this legislation.

but i want to say i sincerely appreciate her work and advocacy, especially on state preemption. she is a force, all of my colleagues know that, and she worked hard to improve this bill. the legislative process is an important one, and i believe it played out to a good resolution. i also want to thank her and her staff, latina fortier and jason albritton for their dedication and work. and then my staff members who have been mentioned here several times were crucial -- jonathan black, andrew wallace, mike collins, bionc ortiz, and all of my staff who over these three years kicked in and helped out when the heavy burden was on the folks that i had mentioned. on the house side, i want to thank chairman fred upton, the subcommittee chairman john shimkus, and of course leader pelosi, democrat whip hoyer, ranking member pallone and representatives degette and

green. they all worked tirelessly to advocate for reform. i'd like to mention their staff members as well. republican staff dave mccarthy , jerry kourey, tin richardson, and the democratic staff, rick kessler, jackie tohen and especially mary francis repco and eleanor bastion and sergio espinosa from representative degette and green's office. all these staff and so many more worked tirelessly for their members to shape and move this complex important legislation. and of course my own staff and many more who i did not mention, many senate and house staff who have come and gone over the long process but played very important roles. there are too many to try and list here, but let me say thanks to the good folks at the house and senate legislative council offices. throughout this process, we used both offices a tremendous amount

and appreciated their patience and good work, especially michelle johnson, maureen contraney, deanna edwards and the senate legislative counsel. a law like this takes so much work from all these offices and staff, and i know that my own staff could not have possibly done it without the expertise and advice of the experts at the environmental protection agency. of course, administrator gina mccarthy and her top assistant administrator jim jones deserve a great deal of gratitude for all they did to help support our efforts and ensure we got it right. and many congressional liaisons, program officers and lawyers from the general counsel's office. my staff and others spent many evenings and weekends with e.p.a. experts on calls to make sure we were getting the text right. here are just a few. wendy cleland hammond, ryan wallace, priscilla flattery, kevin mclean, brian grant,

laura vaught, nicole justifano, tryst continue brown, ryan smith and scott shurloch. i want to thank them all and put them on alert. the real job for the e.p.a. is only beginning. and i'm about finished here. mr. markey: on the house side, fred upton, frank palone, just indispensable. that's why it happened. it was bibipartisan, bicameral. mr. udall: thank you, senatormarky. and you know because you've served several years. you know how important toss have good staff. thank you very much. and i appreciate that. implementation of this law is going to be extremely important, as the ranking member on the appropriations committee with jurisdiction over each, i will

remain very -- over e.p.a., i will remain very involved in ensuring that this law gets implemented well. i want to recognize all the great advocates for reform who pushed congress to act and kept pushing until we did act. of course, i need to start by thanking the environmental defense fund, in particular fred cup and his staff, richard denison, and jack pratt. let me also thank dr. lynn goldman, the dean of public health at george washington university, and the good advocates at mom's clean air force, the humane soviet society, the national wildlife federation, the march of dimes, the physicians committee for responsible medicine, the building trades, the american association of justice, and so many others. they reminded us that we were working for reform that would improve the lives of countless mothers, fathers, and children. from new mexico to michigan, from california to maine, they reminded us that the american people need a working chemical

safety program. i know there are many, many other groups out there and the environmental and public health community that took a different approach to our blil. i understand and appreciate where they were coming from. groups like safer chemicals, healthy families, and the natural resources defense counsel. they brought passion and conviction to the debate and stood firm on principles. they played a great and important role, and i want to thank them for that. good legislation takes work. it takes give-and-take from everyone, including industry groups, the american chemistry council, the american cleaning institute, and over 100 other members of the american alliance for innovation. thank you for engaging in the process to get this done. many thousands of americans have worked for chemical safety reform over the last four decades. thanking you -- and i'm thanking you for not giving up. my dad always said and senator mccain knew my father stew art -

stewart udall, get it done and get it done rievment today i can say that not only did we get it done, but we got it done right. let's not forget this is just one step in the process. we must find a way to work collaboratively as we turn to the next step: implementation. implementation needs to be done and needs to be done right. i look forward to working with all of these members and groups to ensure we have a strong, workable chemical safety program. thank you, senator mccain. many i'm sorry if this went longer than you expected, but i know my uncle mo is is looking down and saying, thank you, to you and my father stewart and all that -- the long relationship you've had with the udall family and the chapters in her book about mo udoolittl u--l

so thank you. and i thank ranking member jack reed. the hour is getting late. thank you so much. i yield the floor. mr. mccain: would the senator yield? i just wonder if there's anyone left in america that he has not thanked? [laughter] mr. reed: mr. president? the presiding officer: is noter from rhode island. mr. reed: mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. i call up amendment number 4549 to mccain amendment number 4229, and i ask that it be called up by number. the presiding officer: the clerk will report by number. the clerk: mr. reed for himself and ms mikulski proposes an amendment numbered 4549 to amendment number 4229. mr. reed: mr. president, i look forward to a very thoughtful debate tomorrow. senator mccain has introduced an amendment that would increase

spending with respect to department of defense and related functions. we are proposing in this amendment an additional increase in non-defense programs. but i look forward to the debate tomorrow. and i thank the chairman for his consideration all through the process of this floor debate. thank you. mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i thank my friend from rhode island and look forward to vigorous debate on both the initial amendment and the second-degree amendment proposed by my friend from rhode island. i would like to engage in a very vigorous debate on both and hopefully for the benefit of my colleagues cloture on both will be filed by the majority leader and hopefully we could get -- finish up debate on it either late morning tomorrow or early

afternoon, if necessary. so we can move on to other amendments. but let's have no doubt about how important this debate and discussion will be tomorrow and this amendment. we're talking about $18 billion. and in the case of the senator from rhode island, i'm sure there are numerous billions more as well. so i think it deserves every member's attention and debate, and may i say to my friend from rhode island, i certainly understand the point of viewed and the position that they've taken and from a glance at this, it looks like there are some areas of funding that are related to national security that i think are supportable. there's others that are not. but we look forward to the debate tomorrow and hopefully any member who wants to be involved will come down and

engage in this debate. but we would like to wrap it up tomorrow because there are a number of other amendments pending. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, senator peters and i -- it was extraordinary to watch this bipartisan effort on tsca -- thought an hour ago that we were going to have floor time for some brief remarks, so i would like to ask unanimous consent that senator peters have the chance to address the issues that he thought he was going to address and he's going to be brief -- an hour ago -- i will go next. i will be brief. and i would ask unanimous consent that following senator peters' raring's, i be allowed -- peters' remarks, i be allowed to address the senate briefly. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. peters: mr. president, i rise to thank chairman mccain and ranking member reed for

their support and for their help in passing the peters amendment number 4138 to the national defense authorization act, and i'd also like to thank my colleagues, senator daines, tillis, and gillibrand for joining me in this important bipartisan amendment. i'd also like to thank all the members who cosponsored the amendment, including senators tester, stabenow, kirk, sanders, stabenow, bloomen that you will -- blumenthal, boxer, and chairman mccain. we have more too many service members who are suffering from trauma-related conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. unfortunately, many of these service members have received a less-than-honorable discharge also known as a bad paper discharge. these former service members can receive bad paper discharges for misconduct that is often linked to beaver seen -- behavior seen from those suffering from ptsd

or other trauma-related conditions. the effects of traumatic brain injury can include headaches, memory issues and attention deficits. in addition to combat-sustained injuries, ptsd and t.b.i. can also be the result of military sexual trauma. bad paper discharges make former service members who are suffering from service-connected conditions ineligible for a number of the benefits that they have earned and they have become ineligible when they need them the most. these discharges put service members at risk of losing access to v.a. health care and this is completely unacceptable. i'd like to share a story of a former service member who shared his experience with my office in michigan. this individual was deployed in afghanistan in 2008 as a machine gunner. for his performance overseas, he

received a number of awards including the combat action ribbon, global war on terror service medal, navy meritorious unit commendation, afghanistan service medal, sea service deployment ribbon and the national defense service medal. when he return home, he began suffering from agitation, inability to sleep, backouts, and difficulties with comprehension. he was scheduled to be evaluated for t.b.i., however that evaluevation never ekurd. he began drinking to help himself sleep and received other than honorable discharge after failing a drug test. following his discharge, the v.a. diagnosed him with t.b.i. and he began treatment. the v.a. later determined that he was ineligible for treatment due to the character of his discharge and his treatment ceased immediately. he was later evaluated by a psychologist specializing in trauma management who determined that the behavior that led to

his discharge was the result of his t.b.i. and ptsd. he petitioned the discharge review board for a discharge upgrade and presented the medical evidence of b.i. and -- of both t. bib.i. and ptsd. the they considered his medical evidence to be irrelevant and his petition was denied. this michigander has since experienced periods of homelessness and has had difficulty maintaining a job. this is an example of someone who is suffering as a result of service to his country and yet the v.a. denied his request for benefits on the basis of this discharge. the discharge review board also denied his request to upgrade this -- his discharge despite his presenting clear evidence of his condition. we must stop denying care to service members with stories like this and start providing them with the benefits that they

deserve and they have earned through their service. we have a responsibility to treat those who defend our freedom with dignity, respect, and compassion. last year i introduced the fairness for veterans act and the peters-daines-tillis-gillibrand amendment that was unanimously accepted by this body is a modified version of that bill. the peters amendment would ensure liberal consideration will be given to petitions for changes in characterizations of service related to ptsd or t.b.i. before discharge review boards. peters amendment also clarifies that ptsd and t.b.i. claims that are related to military sexual trauma should also receive liberal consideration rmt. i think i would like to thank the mammogram veteran service organizations who coact f advocated tirelessly on this behalf of this amendment and legislation. like to recognize the iraq and afghan veterans of america, disabled veterans of america,

military officers association of america, the american lee john, paralyzed veterans of america, vietnam veterans of america, veterans of foreign wars, united soldiers and sailors of america, and swords to plowshares. in addition to seeing strong support from these veteran service organizations, this has also been a bicameral effort. and you'd also like to thank representative mike coffman of colorado and tim walls of minnesota who introduced the companion bill i in the house ad are supportive of this amendment. service members who are coping with the invisible wounds from their service and were subjected to a bad paper discharge should not lose access to the benefits that they have rightfully earned. that's why we must ensure that all veterans get the fair process they deserve when petitioning for a change in characterization of their discharge. the peters amendment number 4138 will do just that.

i am proud that today this body unanimously approved this important amendment that i authored with senator daines, tillis and the jill brands and i look forward to working with my house colleagues to ensure that this provision remains in the conference bill. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: as the senate works on the defense bill, it is important to note the shameful squandering of taxpayer money by a defense contractor accused of willfully exposing u.s. soldiers to toxic chemicals while they served in iraq. in 2003, courageous american soldiers, including members of oregon's national guard, were given the task of protecting workers of kellogg, brown, and root -- k.b.r. -- at the cormat

treatment plant in southern iraq. some of these soldiers are suing k.b.r. on the grounds of the contractor knowingly exposingly to dangerous carcinogenic substances like sodium dichromate and hexovalium chromium. many of these soldiers have reported serious illnesses and at least one has already passed away at a surprisingly young age. k.b.r. has fought this case as is their right. normally this would not be an issue for the congress. but this is not a normal case because k.b.r. isn't paying for the case. the american taxpayer is picking up the bill. k.b.r.'s contract with the pentagon includes an

indemnification clause. this, of course is legalese that means that the u.s. taxpayer is on the hook not only for any damages incurred as a result of the contractor's actions but also for legal bills and administrative costs incurred during legal battles. and it makes no difference if the contractor is at fault or not. in this case k.b.r. has run up exor want and wasteful legal bills in the course of its lengthy legal defenses against the soldier's claims. the pentagon in essence gave these contractors a blank check. predictably, k.b.r. is run very high legal fee, paying first class airfare for lawyers, witnesses and executives, secure of course in the knowledge that the taxpayer was picking up the

tab. along with attorneys billing at $750 an hour, taxpayers are on the hook to pay at least one expert more than $600,000 for testimony and consultation and apparently, mr. president, time spent napping. and of course, there is no incentive for k.b.r. to bring the legal cases to a conclusion. the lawyers can run up fees until the cows come home because they know they won't have to pay a dime no matter how the case turns out. fortunately in this indemnity case and in others, there's a solution provided in the same contract. the contract empowers the department of defense to take over the litigation and look out for the interests of the american taxpayer who's footing the bill. for reasons that are hard to calculate, the pentagon has refused to do this in the k.b.r.

case despite my having urged several secretaries of defense to exercise this authority. and so the litigation continues with no end in sight. so that is why i've offered amendment 4510 to the 2017 national defense authorization act. the amendment directs the department of defense to exercise its contractual right to take over litigation for indemnified contractors in cases where the legal process runs more than two years. in doing so, it will bring the seemingly never ending litigation to a timely resolution for all involved saving taxpayers from having to throw good money after bad as the process just drags on and on and on year after year. so the amendment isn't an attempt to relitigate the decision to indemnify

contractors in the first place. what this common sense amendment seeks to do is to make sure that the blank checks stop. the blank checks being picked up by taxpayers. this is critical because the government has an obligation to ensure that these legal bills don't cost the taxpayers any more than necessary. and certainly the american taxpayer does not need to be padding the pockets of the lawyers of the contractors. i want to be clear again. that the amendment does not prejudice the outcome of the legal case in any way. it simply ensures that when the taxpayers pay the bill, the government that represents the american taxpayer is in control instead of a contractor's lawyers. it seems to me the senate owes that to the american taxpayer. i urge my colleagues to support this amendment when it is considered later in the course

of the debate. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. a senator: tank you, mr. president. mr. gardner: when i was growing up on the eastern plains of colorado, one of the things that i was hoping to do when i went into college and graduated from college and entered the work force was to work in the space program. i desperately wanted to be an engineer, an astronaut. i wanted to live that dream that was played on television growing up, whether it was movies like "the right stuff," whether it was growing up in the mid-1980's

and the movies it showed and idolized the world of space exploration. i grew up idolizing the astronauts. in fact, i can remember as a child writing a letter to the nasa, national aviation space administration, nasa, basically telling them hey, i'm interested in becoming an astronaut. how can i do that? my mom all these years later little did i know kept the response from nasa. and the letter was a letter with the old nasa logo on top and the response came with a picture of the most recent space shuttle mission team, which included sally reid. of course we know -- sally ryde, we know sally ryde from the first space shuttle program. i remember how excited i was to get that letter back. i years later look back at the actual content of the letter and noticed they weren't necessarily quite as kind confirming my aspirations when they basically laid out how difficult it would

be to become a rocket scientist, to become an engineer, an aerospace engineer, to go on to pursue that dream. lo and behold, they were right. i ended up pursuing a different direction in college and beyond but i've always looked with great admiration and respect for the men and women of our space program. growing up on the eastern plains of colorado was a fascinating experience to learn how people ran their businesses and how today many of our tractors and combines rely on the very space programs that i was admiring. the roots of the space program that we saw in the 1970's and 1980's are being utilized today to sphere tractors, satellite-guided equipment to locate the best yield in a field through combines that use global positioning systems and precision farming data to better their operations. and of course we have these debates today that remind me about the conversations, debates

today over policy and about how we're going to see the future of space, how we're going to see the future of security, how we're going to see the future of rocket launches in this country. it reminds me of the conversations that i had with those farmers in the eastern plains. my family sells farm equipment today in a little tiny town out by kansas. oftentimes farmers would come in and talk about how they were going to be more productive this year, what kind of equipment they needed to tailor -- be tailor made for their operation, how they could create a farming program with the farm equipment they would buy to have the right type of tractor, the right type of combine, the right time of utility -- tilling equipment to meet the needs of their operation. when they would come in and talk about what kind of farm equipment best fit their needs, they would look at what price range they had to deal with, whether it was more affordable or less affordable. they would look at the utility of a particular piece of equipment. could this tractor or combine meet all of their needs? could it harvest corn and sun

flowers? could it harvest soybeans? could it pick up sun flower seeds? could it pick sun flower seeds, could it pick up dry beans. those rt -- those were the conversations we would have. what they didn't do was come in and hey hey, i want to buy -- and say hey, i want to buy a piece of equipment that costs 35% more than any other piece of equipment and doesn't fit the needs of our operation. we sold red farm equipment. there may have been equipment that somebody would want to do that with, but the fact is this. when they came into our store, they wanted form equipment that fit their needs at the right price. and that was able to meet all of the demands of their operation. so they didn't have to use a tractor for this field and a different tractor for that field, a tractor that costs 35% more over here, a tractor that didn't fulfill all of their needs over there. and so when i look at this debate today over the national dedefense authorization act and how we are handling our nation's

rocket programs, the eelv program, the debate that has occupied this congress for a number of years, i think back to that common sense on the high plains of colorado. because what is common sense on the high plains is just plain sense in washington, d.c. and that's what we are facing during this debate over what rockets we are going to allow this country to use in the future. that's the argument that we are making today. it's an argument about competition. it's an argument about cost. it's an argument about what is actually going to fulfill all of our needs in space and not leaving us without the capability to meet our national security space missions. that's the critical part of what we are talking about today, just like those farmers on the eastern plains did. they talked about the best fit for their mission to make sure they could plant their crops, to make sure they could get those crops out of the field, and so

that they could do it in an affordable manner that they would still be allowed to be in operation the next year despite the fact that they have historic low commodity prices, just as we're facing historically tight budgets in the united states congress. and so what we're talking about is about our national security, though. it's not about tractors in a field. it's not about whether we're going to have the right combine. this debate is about national security space missions. this debate is about having the right kind of rocket to launch a critical mission that might include a satellite on top that is for missile launch detection or perhaps it's a rocket that is going to put in orbit a device that will listen and provide opportunities for us to know what is happening across the world, across the united states. maybe it's something that is related to that organization that i was so desperate to join, the national aviation space

administration, nasa. maybe it's the dream chaser from see era -- sierra, nevada which is attempting to build a vehicle that will be placed on top of one of the rockets that might be no longer available should the current language of the defense authorization act move forward. and so, yes, we have the same kinds of debates every day in our business, whether you're a farmer or whether you're a car dealer. but this is about our security. this is about our defense. and this is about our ability to provide competition in space, to provide rockets that compete for business, to provide rockets that are cost effective for their mission, to provide rockets for this country to meet those critical missions that we talked about that are reliable, that have a proven record, and

that's what we are doing today, and that's why senator bill nelson of florida and i have together worked on amendment number 4509 to make sure that when it comes to our ability to reach space, to reach the orbits that we need to, to do it in a cost environment that reflects the reality of budgets today, to do it in a way we know can be reliable, this amendment will address those concerns by peeling out the language of the defense authorization act to ensure competition, to ensure reliability, to ensure affordability, and to assure those agencies like nasa or perhaps usgs and other agencies that are more and more relying on space have the ability, the capacity to reach the orbits that they are trying to reach. the nelson-gardner amendment assures competition. that's something that we have all agreed is critically important as we look to the

future of our space and launch programs. this addresses the certification of the evolved expendable launch vehicle, the eelv program that i mentioned before making sure that a provider can be awarded a national security launch for one of these critical missions using any launch vehicle in its inventory. why is that important? because we need to make sure that the u.s. government has the ability to receive the best value. it's the same conversation those farmers were having about what farm equipment they were going to use back home except this is a critical national security space mission. if we don't allow this language, if we prevent this language from being removed or if we don't allow the nelson-guargardner amendment to move forward, then it's going to be very difficult for us to have that competition. for instance, you're looking at the possibility that a rocket we're using right now known as the atlas 5 rocket which has

never failed would be forced to bid for future rocket missions, that united launch ie lines that -- alliance that makes the atlas 5 rocket would be forced to bid using more expensive delta 4 rockets. to be expensive is one thing. but to cost 35% more than what we already have today, that's missing that common sense that i talked about on the high plains of colorado. this amendment will make sure that we abide by the requests of the u.s. air force who are concerned that if we allow the provision of the defense authorization act to move forward today, that it would bar our ability to use certain rocket independence. but if the atlas five which relies on this emission is

banned permanently from d.o.d.'s use, that alternative that they would have to use the delta four rocket would cost an additional $1.5 billion to $5 billion more versus simply relying on the proven b proven and effective rocket that we have today. i think everybody in this chamber agrees that we can move to a different rocket than the atlas 5 which relies on the engine prohibited under the act. everybody agrees with that. but what they don't agree with is the fact that we would cost $1.5 million more to achieve this goal. we are going to be debating very soon an amendment that will add $17 billion, $18 billion and put that money into our defense needs, because people are concerned that we have a dwindling capacity in our military to meet the needs around the globe for u.s. national security needs, that

our men and women in uniform don't have the dollars they need to fix the equipment that they're relying upon. and so this chamber is going to be voting on putting more money into national events. if you allow the language that's currently in the bill that would bar our ability to use this engine in an existing rocket, it would cost us $1.5 billion more. the fiscally responsible thing to do is to allow for competition, to allow this rocket to continue to be used, to allow this engine to continue to be used as we transition out of this engine in a few years to have a different type of engine and a different type of rocket which they're working on right now. in just a few years, they will have it. but to say that we're going to change and eliminate competition today, we're going to drive up costs in some instances by 35% and we're going to turn to a rocket that can't meet all of the orbits, that can't meet all of our needs and doesn't have the track record of the atlas 5,

that's the definition of irresponsibility. $1.5 billion to $5 billion added cost by eliminating competition. that's not what i think this place should stand for. i believe the senate should stand for competition. i believe we should achieve what remarkable changes that we have seen in the space program as more and more people are entering the rocket market. we have seen new entrants into rocket launches, and that's what we're talking about today, is to continue that competition not lessen that competition by eliminating it, by taking off models and lines of rockets that cost $5 billion more. and we have already talked about the fact that farmer sitting in the field, if he has a combine that could cost 35% more, that does the same job and is one that cost 35% less, which one is he going to choose? which one would his banker want him to choose? the american people would want us to say let's go with what's

proven, what's reliable. let's transition off of it, you bet, but let's not cost our defense $1.5 billion to $5 billion more. and so to support this amendment and to support the rocket competition that this nation deserves, it's the fiscally conservative, the pro-competition position that assures the united states air force and national aeronautics and space administration will have access to space. and that's what it's about. is meeting the needs of those in our air force and nasa and others who have said we need this critical mission. as general heighton has testified before this congress, the department of defense will incur additional costs to reconfigure missions to fly on a different rocket, the delta 4 that we have been talking about and the delta 4 heavy because the competitor to the atlas 5 doesn't have a rocket as capable as the atlas 5 and can only fly to half of the necessary orbits.

in 2015 and 2016, the air force and defense department leadership testified to the need before additional rd-185 independence. that's the -- engines. that's the engines that we have been talking about stripped out of the atlas 5, ending the atlas 5 program to compete for launches and assure the u.s. does not lose assured access to space. making sure that we can get where we need to go, to make sure that we can place a satellite in the orbit it needs to be in to provide security for this country. and we can do it on a reliable system at an affordable cost. we've talked about competition. the nelson-gardner amendment promotes competition by allowing the defense department to contract for launch services with any certified launch vehicle until december, 2022. allows competition. to 2022, transitioning out of

the rd-180 so we can have more competition in the future. the language that we have been discussing -- i believe it's section 1036, 1037 of the defense authorization act, eliminates this competition. it puts an end to it by ending the use of these engines and basically taking out the atlas 5 rocket. the atlas 5 again, the u.s.'s most cost-effective and capable launch vehicle. according to the congressional research service, the atlas 5 rocket which is powered by the rd-180 engine has had 68 successful atlas 5 launches since 2000. the atlas 5 has never experienced a failure. we talk about competition, we talked about cost, we talked about reliability. and when you're putting a satellite on top of a rocket where many times that satellite costs more than the rocket itself, we can't afford a failure from a fiscal standpoint

, and we certainly can't afford a failure from a -- failure from a security standpoint. that's why we need reliability. that's why we need a proven track record. you know, this debate is complicated. people have for years talked about the atlas 5, the delta 4, the falcon 9. what does it mean? which engine to use. how does it transition? why did we end up in this position in the first place? there is a lot of people who come to the floor on different issues and say it's not rocket science, but indeed today we are talking about rocket science and the need to have an atlas 5 rocket. an atlas 5 rocket that provides competition, that provides reliability, that provides the opportunity for the united states to meet our national security needs. without the nelson-gardner amendment, the underlying language of the defense authorization act legislates a monopoly. it creates a monopoly with the evolve of expendable launch

vehicle program, because only one company then would be able to fairly compete. and so while we have all committed to competition and we have all said we're going to transition away from this rocket engine, we actually would be passing legislation that would create a legislative monopoly. that's not plain common sense. that's nonsense. and to note the department of defense isn't the one who is buying these rocket engines in the first place. the department of defense, it's important to note, buys the launch service, and so our -- the nelson-gardner amendment would allow united launch alliance, others to repeat permissions with the atlas 5. the u.l.a. would be competing with the atlas 5. others would be competing as well. if u.l.a. doesn't win the competition, then the d.o.d., department of defense, will not be using the rd-180 engine. it makes sense to me. and so by promoting this open and fair competition to get the

best deal for the taxpayers of this country, to get the best deal for national security needs in this country, it's the fiscally responsible path forward and allows the department of defense to achieve those priorities. it allows the air force to reach the space that they need to. it's not just the air force. it's the secretary of defense. it's the director of national intelligence. it's the secretary of the air force, commander of u.s. space command. the air force chief of staff and many others have testified before this congress in support of continued use of the rd-180 rocket engine until a new domestic engine is certified for national security space engines. between the delta 4, the atlas 5, it can reach every national security space mission that we need certified. 100% reliability from the atlas 5. we don't have that anywhere else they have made clear, the d.n.i., defense secretary, space

command that this is an issue of national security ensuring america's access to space and protecting the taxpayers' dollars that are already so scarce in the defense budget. why would we add an additional $1 billion in cost by eliminating competition when we ought to be doing the exact opposite? the nelson-gardner amendment promotes national security by ensuring reliable access. we've talked about that. to make sure we have a certified launch service that's available with a proven track record. the atlas 5 rocket is one of the most successful rockets in american history. since 2000, as i mentioned before, we have had 68 consecutive successful launches. zero failures. that's not just making this up. that's the congressional research service that's pointing this out. since 2000. 16 years track record. according to the department of defense -- and this is importan5 restrictions are imposed, certain missions would sustain up to two and a half years in

delay. we have threats emerging around the globe. this past week i had the opportunity to visit south korea where we met with general brooks and we talked about the needs that this country has in assuring a denuclearized korean peninsula, to make sure that north korea doesn't have and possess the capability to launch a nuclear weapon that could hit the mainland of the united states. that's not something that can wait year after year after year because we have made a decision to cost the taxpayer more and we have made a decision to lessen our capacity and capability into space. in fact, what i heard from general brooks and what i heard from others in south korea is that our intelligence needs and requirements in north korea are only increasing. so why would we decrease competition, why would we decrease access to space, why would we increase costs when our

security needs are growing? the nelson-gardner amendment assures that we have this access because we know if there is a two and a half year delay, not only does that prevent us from placing important assets into space, it will also drive up costs. the space-based infrared system, sbis, worng satellites warning of anywhere in the world particularly countries like north korea would be delayed. the mobile user system and advanced high frequency satellite systems that are designed to provide satellite capabilities to our armed services around the world would both be delayed. and according to a letter dated may 23 from the deputy secretary of defense, and i quote, "losing delaying the capability to place, position and navigation communication missile warning, nuclear detection, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance

satellites in orbit would be significant. challenges to our freedom around the globe, the middle east, north korea. what's happening in southeast asia as radicalization occurs in certain countries. we can't afford delay, we can't afford cost increases. and it's not just defense, though it's not just the secretary of the air force. it's these agencies that we have also talked about tonight like nasa. national aeronautics and space administration. the nelson-gardner amendment supports our civil space missions by ensuring reliable access to allowing federal government agencies to contract with any certified launch service provider, because many of those missions that are critical to nasa's success outside of the d.o.d. are designed to fly atop an atlas 5 rocket. according to the "wall street journal," while the underlying ndaa language only directly impacts the department of defense, the result -- quote -- is likely to raise the price of

remaining nasa missions because massive overhead costs would have to be spread across fewer launches. that goes back to the conversation about buying one piece of equipment. a separate combine to harvest corn, a separate combine to harvest wheat, a separate combine to pick up beans. buy one combine, different attachments, and you can do it all. that's what we're trying to do is to make sure we have the capability of the equipment, because if you're a nasa mission and you're placing the dream chaser on top of it or you're placing something to do with the orion mission on top -- which is designed to be on top of the atlas 5, you're going to drive up the costs. so you have got the costs being driven up by the rocket because it's higher costs being spread across fewer agencies, you've got a higher cost because you have to redesign the orion and the dream chaser to fit the new rocket, you're going to be delayed possibly because of those changes, it's going to

result in higher costs. and so to the american people, we have a responsibility of saying hey, how do we transition away from the rd-180 engine, how do we ensure reliability? how do we ensure access? how do we ensure competition? it's by keeping the atlas 5. at a senate appropriations committee hearing on march 10, nasa administrator bolden highlighted the need for the atlas 5 by stating we are counting on u.l.a. to be able to get the number of engines that will satisfy requirements for nasa to fly. that's not a coppingal staffer making it up in the back room of the mail office. that's the administrator of nasa. he went ton talk about the mission's impact. he talked about the dream chaser, which was recently award add cargo resupply contract. this is a company that's already been awarded a cargo resupply contract to supply the international space station. the dream chaser was designed to

fly atop the atlas v rocket. the language in the ndaa would strip this ability to use that rocket. our amendment, the nelson-gardner amendment, would allow us to use the commonsense approach to use that plain sense that i talked about. michael griffin, former nasa administrator, weighed in on the issue, "a carefully chosen committee chosen by howard mitchell, united states air force retired, made two key recommendations in the present matter. one, proceed with all deliberate speed to develop an american replacement for the russian rd-1 engine and we agree. and while that development is being carried out, buy all the rd-180 we can to ensure there is to gap for national security payloaded. i see that reason to alter those recommendations," he goes on say. we're talking about a hard stop

of 2022 so we can replace the rocket with our own. but, in the meantime, let's use some common sense. let's make sure that we're saving the taxpayer dollars. let's make sure that we are not putting an additional cost, pulling $1.5 billion out of our defense budget to cover something that we can already do when their resources already far too scarce. let's make sure that we have a reliable platform to reach all the orbits. a platform that has had 68 consecutive launches to achieve the mission needs. this is high-risk stuff. and i mentioned as a kid growing up in colorado how fascinated i was with this rocket science. this body has the responsibility, i believe, to adopt the nelson-gardner amendment to ensure that we can protect our people, fiscally and from a defense standpoint. so later this week as we debate and offer amendment 4509, i hope

and encourage everyone to do what is fiscally responsible, to promote competition, to promote access and reliability from the d.o.d. to nasa by adopting the nelson-gardner amendment. mr. president, thank you. i yield back my time. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that alleys brown be granted privileges for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. today while the nation has been focused on the final six primaries across the nation, final six state primaries across the nation, something extraordinary unfolded here on the floor of the senate. just a short time ago, the u.s. senate took the final congressional act to send the

frank r. lautenberg chemical safety for the 21st safety act to the president's desk. this is landmark legislation that honors the legacy of our dear colleague frank lautenberg. this is landmark legislation that will make a real difference for the health and safety of every american. this is the first significant environmental legislation to be enacted by this chamber in 25 years. this bill, this extraordinary bill, brought democrats and republicans together to take action to protect public health. i've been honored to be part of this coalition, as we have worked toward a final bill for over a year. it hasn't been easy, but then things worth doing rarely are easy. a huge thank you to senators udall and vitter, who cosponsored this bill, led the

senators boxer and inhofe, the chair and ranking member of the environment committee, senators markey and whitehouse and booker for their leadership and contributions throughout this entire process. and also a special thank you to the staff that worked day and night. i know that i received calls from my staff member adrian devani at a variety of hours on a variety of weekends as he worked with other staff members to work out, iron out the challenges that remain. so a special to you adrian devani. and just a short time ago i had a chance to speak with bonnie lautenberg, frank lautenberg's wife. and she would have loved to have been here when we took this vote, but she's going to be down in the capitol next week with children and grandchildren, and i hope we get a chance to really thank her in person for her

husband's leadership but also for her leadership, her advocacy that we reached this final moment. she said to me, it appears it takes a village to pass a bill. well, it does, and this village was a bipartisan village. this was a bicameral village, and it has reached a successful conclusion. in the most powerful nation on earth, we should not be powerless to protect our citizens from toxic chemicals in everyday products. today marks a sea snift which we finally begin to change that. for too long we have been unable to protect our citizens from toxic chemicals that hurt pregnant women and young children, chemicals that hurt our children's development, chemicals that cause cancer.

the frank r. lautenberg chemical safety for the 21st century act will tremendously improve how we regulate toxic chemicals in the united states, those that are already in products and should no longer be used, and those new chemicals that are invented that should be thoroughly examined before they end up in products. make sure that toxic chemicals do not find their way into our classrooms, into our bedrooms, into our homes, into our workplaces. now the environmental protection agency will have the tools and resources needed to evaluate the dangerous chemicals and to eliminate any unsafe uses. my introduction to this issue began with a bill in the oregon state legislature about the cancer-causing flame retardants that are in our carpets and couches and the foam in our

furniture that shouldn't be there. this bill gives us the ability to review that and to get rid of those toxic chemicals. it was enormously disturbing to me to find out that our little babies crawling on the carpet, their noses one inch off the ground, were breathing in the dust from the carpet that included these cancer-causing flame retardants. it should never have happened, but we didn't have the type of review process to protect americans. and now we will. so together a bipartisan team has run a marathon together, and today we crossed the finish line in short order. this bill will be sitting in the oval office on the president's desk, and he will absent putting ink to paper -- and he'll be putting ink to paper and creating this new and powerful

tool for protecting the health of american citizens. that is an enormous accomplishment. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: mr. president, on behalf of senator boxer, the printing costs of the statement of additional views with respect to h.r. 2576, tsca, will exceed the two-page rule and would cost $2,111.20. i ask unanimous consent that the bovmenter statement of additional use be prescriptived in the record. -- of additional views be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor and i thank my colleague from new jersey for his courtesy in letting me express my aappreciation for the accomplishment of passing tsca before he gives his speech. mr. booker: i am grateful. the presiding officer: the senator new jersey. mr. booker: i rise to speak about senate a.m. 5803, an amendment graffed by a deer friend and respected colleague

of mine from new hampshire that i must in good faith disagree with. this amendment increases already-existing mandatory minimum sentences on offenses related to opioid fentanyl and would make -- would not make our community safer and it would redirect funds away from the kind of investments we need to truly end the opioid epidemic. today we face a deadly reality, community-shattering reality: on opioid epidemic in america. i know what this epidemic is doing to our communities. in my home state of new jersey, the heroin death rate is more than three times the national average. the heroin overdose rate in new jersey now eclipses that of homicide, suicide, car accidents, and aids as a leading cause of death.

over the past ten years, we have lost over 1,500 people under the age of 30 to heroin overdoses in new jersey alone. and i know that nationally death rates from prescription opioid overdoses have tripled in the last 20 years. i know that the opioid epidemic knows no bounds, it crosses geographic lines, racial lines. this is an epidemic that is tearing apart families, individuals, communities. this is an american epidemic. but this amendment is not part of the solution. mr. president, may i have quiet on the floor, please. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the senate will come to order.

mr. booker: again, i say this amendment is not part of the solution. first of all, mandatory minimums themselves have proven to be an effective -- ineffective in making us a safer nation and stopping the drug war. and secondly this amendment and ones like it will divert critical resources that could be, that should be, that must be invested in real solutions in supporting preventive and education efforts, in supporting law enforcement, in supporting treatment programs. we've seen a rush like this towards mandatory minimums before. in the 1980's and 1990's, we piled on mandatory sentences and three strikes are out laws in response to the growing drug problem and epidemics of drugs in the united states, but this did not stop that epidemic. it didn't work then and there's no reason to expect it to work