vote. we won in fai fallujah. we like world war i, door-to-door combat. my guy brian heckler came back. i hired him when he came back. when i called him up and told him that we lost fail lou sharks after we had had it in our hand, he cried. he had friends who had died over there. furthermore, the president failed to recognize the threat posed by the muslim brotherhood. obama created the vacuum in the middle east that gave rise to isil. he downplayed the benghazi thing. i remember him trying to blame it on a video. i can remember that because i talked to james clapper and i talked to all of the intelligence people right after that happened. i did so because of my position at that time as ranking member on the armed services committee. and they all say they knew at the time of benghazi that it was a terrorist attack. had nothing to do with the video.

and so, anyway, the president also said that isil was contained ours before the attack on paris. now, the threat to our country and our security is increasing. fort hood, boston, san bernardino, now orlando. the attacks are not the fault of the west. they're the fault of radical islam. somehow the administration can't say it. they can't say radical islam. most recently we heard from the white house that isil is retreating. this is from obama, president obama, that isil is retreating. it's declining and losing territory and losing funds. but just last week the c.i.a. director john brennan testified before the state senate intelligence committee and this is his quote. he said, "our efforts have not reduced isil's terrorism capability and global reach. " fourth more, he went on to say, he said isil is probably exploring a variety of means for

infiltrating operatives into the west including the refugee flows, smuggling routes and the legitimate methods of travel. now, that is a quote from him. so he had the president on one hand saying it's contained, we're successful. isil is disappearing. at the same time the c.i.a. director that he appointed is telling us the truth that we're losing. and this is -- this is serious. you know, i looked back wistfully at the good old days of the cold war. i never thought i'd say the good old days of the cold war but in reality, we're in much greater threatened position today than we ever were during the cold war. the cold war we had two super powers. we knew what they had. they knew what we had. they were predictable. it doesn't mean anything anymore. these people want to break the law. so it was incredible testimony that he gave, john brennan,

before the senate committee. in light of the administration's talking points and should have all of us seeking ways to ensure they are not successful. however, policy proposals to combat these threats, extra investigating of refugee -- vetting of refugees, pausing the refugee program, stepping up the boarder protection and enforcing our immigration laws through visa enforcement are all ignored by this administration. they'd rather paint us, the republicans, as arms dealers to terrorists and yet remain silent on the president's deal with iran, the number one state sponsor of terrorism. you know, i can remember when the president with the secretary of state put together the deal with iran. it's going to be -- all of a sudden iran was going to change. iran is still today the chief supplier of terrorist activity around the world. and yet we released billions of dollars to them through this deal that was made.

it's interesting. i happened to be on the u.s.s. -- i can't remember which one it was, one of the aircraft carriers in the persian gulf at the same time that this deal is being put together by the president and by the secretary of state. and that is when we found take there was an iranian ship that was carrying weapons from north korea to yemen at the very time that they are pledging their love for us and their -- they're working with us on this program. the deal with iran is giving them the resources necessary to supporter rich. -- support terrorism. similar radical groups seek to extinguish our freedoms and to terrorize, kill and oppress anyone would lives counter to their extreme ideology. no matter how they carry out their evil, their mission, it will always be superseded about i our nation's laws.

we've got to protect the constitution, support law-abiding citizens' rights to due process, and to bear arms and to focus on the real threat: us latchic ter arrival -- islamic terrorism. radical islam. i wish the administration would talk about this, this greatest threat to our nation. we're doing something that's totally -- this is totally unare he lated, madam president, it's something that happened in my state of oklahoma earlier this week. earlier this week the county commissioners in my city of tulsa in my state of oklahoma voted to renew a memorandum of understanding with i.c.e., that's immigration and customs enforcement, to detain their inmates and train local deputies to refer threats of violent criminals to the federal authorities. now, entering into a memorandum of understanding has been a routine procedure until last week when it was derailed by illegal immigrant activists. the same type of activists that

you see across the country pushing sanctuary policies, policies to give sanctuary to terrorists and policy to protect criminal aliens and allow them to continue committing crimes against our citizens like the one we saw, the murder of kate steinle in san francisco almost a year ago, well, the law enforcement across the country take part in this program so they can do their job of keeping criminals off the streets. however, their efforts are continually frustrated by liberal activists who seek to shield those same criminals from the consequences of their actions. we should stand with our friends in law enforcement in their community who are working every day to ensure our safety and the safety of others. whether criminal immigrants are here legally or illegally, it should not be controversial to deny them the privilege of stay in our country and we should

remove them from our communities until they are removed from our country. when we refuse to do it, we reward their behavior and give them an opportunity to continue to violate crimes. now, why is that such a big deal? in 2014 -- people are -- they heard this way back in 2014 but they've forgotten it. in 2014 the obama administration during that year 2014, they released over 30,000 criminal aliens from custody and by july of last year, so now we're talking about in the first six months after they released 30,000 criminal aliens, 1800 of them went on to commit over 2,500 new crimes. now, that's not a believable thing. because it's not believable, a lot of people don't believe it but it actually happened. it is a fact that the obama administration released over 30,000 criminal aliens and six months later 1800 of them that

we know, probably more than that, went on to commit crimes. instead of deporting people who shouldn't be here, the administration released them back on to our streets where they committed new, preventible crimes including assault, sex offenses, kidnappings, and even homicide. between 2010 and 2015 we had 135 preventible homicides occur in our communities across the country by criminal aliens that have been released by this administration. now, this is very difficult to believe. it's certainly not acceptable. the excuse they used is that the administration uses the excuse that too little known supreme court cases, these cases determine that criminal aliens cannot be detained in the united states for more than six months while awaiting deportations. now, however, there are many factors which can prevent a deportation from taking place within the six-month period. now, that's kind of interesting because that is an excuse that

is being used, and in order to take away this excuse, i introduced the keep our community safe act in the past two congresses, and i'm introducing it amendment 4732 to the c.j.s. appropriations bill. this legislation would allow for the department of homeland security to petition the courts and hold a criminally convicted alien for renewable six-month period until deportation occurs if the secretary deems that the alien would be a threat to the national security or the safety of the community among other reasons. now, this is back home. this is my community. this is where this is happening. and throughout america. now, some organizations such as the aclu and other liberal organizations believe this bill amounts to indefinite detention in violation of a criminal's due process rights. however, in addition to the specified circumstances of

continued detention, i just mentioned, this bill requires the secretary of the department of homeland security, that's what they're supposed to be doing, to rectify or to recertify that person is a threat every six months. in other words, if this person is a threat, rather than automatically turn him loose in six months, he can recertify the fact that he is still a threat and every six months continue to keep him. furthermore, an alien can submit evidence for a review of his detention and will still have access to our courts giving judges a say in the process. now, we were unable to get this on in the last two years. and i can't imagine it would not be -- after all the things that have happened just this year and of course right on the heels of the disaster that happened, i can't imagine that people wouldn't want to do that, do everything they can to keep from turning these people loose. i go back and repeat that this administration turned loose

30,000 criminal aliens on to the streets and those -- this is the year 2014. and in the first six months of the following year, they have actually gone back and committed more crimes. so we're looking at -- there's this thing about turning people loose. it's very similar to what the administration is doing in gitmo. we passed a law, actually the committee that was -- let me make an inquiry here. are we on a time requirement here? the presiding officer: no, senator, we do not. mr. inhofe: thank you. the chair right now is a member of the armed services committee and can very well remember whether we passed a law. and that law was -- said that the president is not going to be able to release anyone from gitmo until 30 days notice is given to the senate committee,

senate armed services committee. now, the president signed that into law. in a matter of hours later released the taliban five. everybody remembers the taliban five. they were the most egregious of all the terrorists that were in gitmo. and we don't know what they're doing right now. supposedly they're over in cutter or some place under some supervision. but it happens that the recidivism rate of those who have been released from gitmo is 30%. in other words, 30% of those that are released are back trying to kill americans again. it's unacceptable and it's very similar to this. whether it's releasing people, terrorists from gitmo to go out and kill americans or releasing people who are criminal aliens from our cities and towns, it's a problem, a serious problem. and we're going to have to address this problem and we are going to address it. with that i'll suggest the

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

quorum call:

mr. toomey: madam president?

the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. toomey: thank you, madam president. i rise this morning to discuss the pending legislation that would prevent terrorists from being able to legally purchase guns. this general topic of background checks for the legal firearm sales is not new to me. it's an issue that i've been wrestling with for some years now, shortly after the horrific murders at the sandy hook elementary school. my democratic colleague, senator joe manchin from west virginia, he and i teamed up and worked together and produced a bipartisan bill that was designed to ensure that we would do background checks for commercial gun sales, so that if someone wants to buy a firearm through a commercial mechanism -- not a private transaction

like from a sibling or a neighbor or friend, but a commercial sale -- would be subject to a background check so that the very criminals who have forfeited their second amendment rights and those who are dangerously mentally ill, who also should not have guns, we would find a mechanism to prevent the sales. that was legislation that i worked on with senator manchin. as i said, it was bipartisan. it still marks the closest the u.s. senate has come to passing legislation dealing with background checks in a meaningful way in quite sometime. but we were not successful. it did not -- it didn't pass. on june 12 we saw the worst terror attack on american soil since 9/11, an unbelievable massacre in orlando that left 49 people dead, another 53 grievously wounded, and it has raised the question of whether now there is an opportunity to

do something to make it illegal, make it more difficult, if not impossible, for a terrorist who we already deem to be too dangerous to, say, board a plane, make it illegal for that person to buy a firearm. there's other things we need to be doing, by the way. a lot of other things we need to be doing to keep us safe from the terrorists who want to kill americans. we need to make stronger measures to keep them from entering the u.s. in the first place. we ought to make sure they can't escape detention and scaap tour and we ought to -- and capture and we ought to make sure that local law enforcement are cooperating with federal law enforcement and d.h.s. folks. but one of the things we can do is the very simple measure that the collins legislation addresses. this is too important an issue to bto be partisan. i took to the senate floor last

week to urge my colleagues -- we had a umnumber of our democratic -- we had a number of our democratic colleagues engaging in a filibuster, in a series of speeches about how important it was that we do something. my message was, let's stop talking a understand let's actually do it. let's actually find the mechanism, the solution here. there's two aspects we need to consider, in my view, in this legislation. one is, we want to block a terrorist from buying a firearm. i don't think that should be terribly controversial. but the second thing that's also very important to me -- and i think many of our colleagues -- is to make sure that an innocent american who is wrongly put on the list has the opportunity to clear his or her name, so that their second amendment rights are not infringed upon p. that's the challenge, it seems to me. and i.t. not rocket science -- and it's not rocket science. this is something that we can

do. so i actually drafted a bill that does. i think the bill works very, very well. senator collins took a different approach and used a different mechanism for getting the same result. in the end, senator collins has legislation now that has significant bipartisan support. it's a compromise bill that i think strikes the right balance, and as i announced yesterday, i intend to support her legislation. there is no question, it's an objective fact that if susan collins', senator collins' legislation becomes law, the attorney general will have a tool that they don't have today. it is a tool that will stop terrorists from being able to buy a gun. it is as simple as that. that's what it does. and it also provides the mechanisms whereby an innocent,

law-abiding american who is wrongly put on, say, a n no-fly list will be able to clear his or her name. i think that's very, very important. so the starting point is for the collins -- for the collins legislation is that if you're on the no-fly list, then you don't get to buy a gun. now, let's think about this. if we deem a person to be so dangerous that we deny them the opportunity to board a commercial plane, should we really allow that person to walk down the street, walk into a firearm dealer and buy an ar-15? i don't think that makes sense. i think most of us probably agree. so that's a short list, actually, of people that we deem to be so dangerous that we don't let them board a plane. but apretty sensible from my point of view to also preclude a firearms purchase. then we have the selectee list. that he is a separate list that subjects people to enhanced scrutiny because they're a

serious suspicion. those people also would be denied a firearm. now, as with the approach that i took, senator collins' legislation has a whole series of procedures and policies and mechanisms to ensure that if someone is wrongly put on this list, they'll have a way to get off the list. and what -- we know for a fact that eventually some people will be put wrongly on the list because people make mis-staifntle governments make mistakes, and in fact someone could even try to abuse the list. and so we need to have a mechanism to make sure that an innocent person can have their name taken off. senator collins, i think, achieved that. she creates an adversarial challenge mechanism in court where the burden of proof is on the federal government to prove that the individual who's been denied the opportunity to buy a gun should be denied that -- in other words, the person is

properly on the list -- and as in my legislation, if the individual suc succeeds and is challenged and say, i was denied the opportunity to buy this firearm, i'm not the john smith that you think i am and here is my proof and the person wins, why, the u.s. government would pay all of his reasonable attorneys' fees and costs, as it should be the case. the person shouldn't be financially penalized for simply clearing his or her own name. also, there needs to be a meaningful deadline for a court to make a decision, in the case of the collins' legislation, it is 14 days. otherwise, a court case could go on indefinitely. that wouldn't be right either. so, madam president, the bottom line is simple. this legislation is a sensible, reasonable way to achieve the balance that i've been calling for. make it illegal for a suspected

terrorist, someone we won't allow to board a plane, to buy a gun and at the same time create a mechanic number of for someone wrongly put on the list to clear their name. so last week we had quite a number of our colleagues here down on the senate floor. they were giving impassioned speeches about how essential it was that we do something. what we're going to find sought whether that was sincere or political. that's  what we're going to find out. because this legislation achieves exactly what our colleagues said they wanted. it may not do it in exactly the fashion in every little detail. it's not exactly the same as the legislation that i proposed. but it's bipartisan. there are at last count at least five members of the democratic caucus who are on this bill. there's at least a comparable number of republicans. there's probably more that are going to support this. and it's really going to be a test of whether this body is

serious about what it says it's serious about. whether the folks who came down here and gave impassioned speeches about how important it is we do something, do they really want to get something done or do they want a political message to run ads about? i hope it's the former. i hope we're going to be able to get something done because senator collins and the other senators she worked with -- and i appreciate the took from me and my office -- to craft a sensible, workable, compromise bill that has bipartisan support that will achieve those two important goals of making sure that the bad guys can't buy guns and the good guys get a chance to clear their name and don't have their second amendment rights infringed. that's what this is about. we need to have a vote on this. we immediate to have a vote soon. i hope we'll have a vote still this week. but this is an opportunity for this body to take a big step forward and get something done with a bipartisan compromise bill that makes a lot of sense. we're going to have a test, madam president, and i hope this chamber will pass the test.

i yield the floor. mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: madam president, thank you. i want to start by thanking my colleague, senator mikulski, for all of her leadership in the fight for equal pay for equal work. madam president, it's been 50 years since the signing of the equal pay act, but despite how far women have come, despite all the progress women have made and the ways women contribute to -- across our economy, women still only make 79 cents on the dollar, and the gap is even wider for women of color. for african-american women, 60 cents on the dollar. for native american women, 59 cents on the dollar. for hispanic women, 55 cents on the dollar. this status quo is not only deeply unfair to women, it's also bad for families and it's

bad for our economy because today 60% of working families rely on wages from two earners. we have got to do better. that's why i was so pleased when earlier this year the equal employment opportunity commission took a very important step in the right direction with a modest proposal to collect pay data on a form that employers already submit in order to accomplish one goal: making sure that we have solid information about how employers pay their male and female workers. this proposal is pretty straightforward. it brings new much-needed transparency to workplaces and might even help businesses address pay gaps that they weren't even aware existed. it would also make enforcement of pay discrimination laws more effective and efficient especially when it comes to an issue like wage discrimination, i'd like to think it would be hard to argue against more transparency and more effective

enforcement because when women are not getting equal pay for equal work, we should be able to find out about it and we should be able to fix it. so it is disappointing that republicans in both the house and the senate are in fact opposing that proposal. that is absolutely the wrong approach. and what makes this even more surprising is that just weeks ago i was very proud to stand right here to introduce a resolution in the senate calling for equal pay for equal work for the u.s. women's national soccer team. it was a resolution that recognized the impact of the wage gap on women and the need to fix it, and it passed by voice vote. so, madam president, given that the senate was able to agree on the seriousness of this problem, i'd like to give all my colleagues an opportunity today to take another step forward. not backward. on equal pay for equal work. i've drused an amendment -- i've introduced an amendment that would provide much-needed new

resources to ensure this important proposal can be implemented and finalized as quickly as possible. and i urge our colleagues to support the amendment and oppose efforts by some in the republican party to stand in the way of better information, better information in enforcement on pay equity. madam president, it should go without saying that if a woman still isn't getting equal pay in the 21st century she deserves to know and she deserves action. this rule would take critical steps in the right direction for women, families, and our country as a whole. and i hope that our republican colleagues won't stand in its way. thank you very much, and i yield the floor. ms. mikulski: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: madam president, i rise as an enthusiastic supporter of the murray amendment requiring the eeoc to implement the change recommended by president obama to -- that

would add compensation data to its employment data form and also to provide it with $1 million to be able to pay for its implementation. first, i would like to salute the gentlelady from washington state who has been a long-standing and assertive advocate of equal pay for equal work for women. i thank her for her ongoing persistent advocacy, and i so admire this amendment which insists that we develop even better tools to pinpoint those 100 major companies on terms of their pay. the gentlelady from washington state was right there when we passed the bullet ter bill. -- the lily lead better bill. she has been there when we tried to move to the next step on paycheck fairness. today she's here to implement

the eeoc rule that would also help again to do the kind of work we need to do to ensure the civil rights act of 1964 that guaranteed equal pay for equal work is enforced. we spent days talking about enforcement of the law, let's enforce the law passed over 50 years ago to guarantee equal pay for equal work. now, quick history, the lilly ledbetter bill kept the courthouse open for when people wanted to file wage discrimination charges. that courthouse was slammed in the face of her and others who found out too late about what they were paid. we kept the courthouse door open. then we introduced paycheck

fairness. the paycheck fairness bill would get rid of the other barriers to women getting equal pay for equal work. one of the biggest barriers is that pay is kept a secret. one of the biggest secrets in the united states other than national security is what women get paid in the workplace. let's keep it our little secret. in fact, in many instances you have to sign an agreement in order to be hired that you will not disclose your pay to another worker. and if you do, you can be fired. so paycheck fairness is pending. to be sure though we're not talking about small business, we're not talking about mom and pop stores like my dad's grocery store, but i can assure you my father paid equal pay for equal work to my mother. but in january our president,

president obama, announced that the eeoc would add compensation data to its employment data form that companies must submit annually that will help shed light on the wage gap across geographic regions and industries. now our colleague from tennessee, the distinguished senator, senator alexander, has introduced an amendment preventing this change from going into effect. so we had dueling amendments. i'm for the murray amendment. it requires that eeoc to implement the obama change and provides $1 million to do it. what is the e.e.o. number-one form? it's the employer information report that requires companies to submit information annually about their employees based on race, ethnicity, gender and job

category. so it's equal pay, equal work. the form helps identify and prevent discrimination and protects employees' civil rights. in january our president obama announced that companies with over 100 employees -- now remember, this is over 100 employees -- must include compensation data on their e.e.o. number 1 form that would identify the wage gap based on gender ethnicity across regions. this change has been strongly supported by many of us. and i support it. now much is said about the president overreaching. i don't get it. you know, sometimes -- often the president has been criticized on the other side of the aisle for not doing too much, that he's not a leader, that he's not a fighter, that he's not a champion. i take exception to that. i think he is a leader. i think he is a fighter.

and i think he is a champion. and he's certainly been that in behalf of the empowerment of women and girls. and so what did he do? he exercised his executive authority to declare that the eeoc action on pay data collection would do this, that the eeoc in partnership with the department of labor have a proposal to annually collect summary pay data -- again, as what i say, gender, race, ethnicity -- from 100 employees. this proposal would cover 63 million employees -- 63 million employees. it stems from a recommendation of the president's equal pay task force and a presidential memorandum issued in 2014. and it will help focus public enforcement of equal pay laws

and provide better insight into discrimination -- discriminatory pay practices across industries. today the eeoc is proposing revisions to its long-standing form to require these 100 employees, not just contractors, to provide this information. it would go across ten job categories, 12 pay bands. but it would not require the reporting of specific salaries of individual employees. so remember, they'll report on the basis of category, job category and paper band. so we won't know if susie smith gets paid more or less than sam jones. but we will know what they're paying computer operators. we will know what they're paying lab technicians. these are jobs that tend to be gender neutral. so we will know that if you're

working in a call center or a firm that employs 1,000 people, that you would be able to do it. remember, covering 63 million people. the proposal was broader than one that was originally published by the department of labor, and it lays important groundwork for progress towards achieving equal pay. and it will -p encourage and facilitate greater voluntary compliance by employers dealing with existing federal pay law. it will also assist the eeoc, and in case of contractors, in better focusing investigations on employers that are unlawfully shortchanging workers based on gender, race, or ethnicity. it wouldn't go into effect until september 2017. now why is this important? it covers only companies of 100

or more employees. it will affect 63 million people. nobody's personal privacy will be i am pinged upon because -- impinged upon because it is information, job category and pay band. it will show, first of all, who are the guy-guy companies? these become -- the good-guy companies? these become best places to work. you go to work for "x" company, they do pay equal pay for equal work. but if it has been a consistent pattern of egregious violation of unequal pay for doing the same job, it enables spartan resources at the eeoc to be targeted. so, one, i say cheers to president obama for taking leadership to get to the real facts of the matter to pinpoint who the egregious violators are that employ more than 100

people. so, again, no negative impact on small business. no negative impact on small business. and again, gives no personal information but does give corporate information. so i think this is -- i think the obama action was outstanding, and i think the murray amendment defending the obama action through this amendment is exactly what's needed on this bill to again take the very important steps of ensuring the enforcement of the civil rights law passed by president johnson that said equal pay for equal work. so, madam president, i'm sure that there will be other additional debate on this. does the gentlelady wish -- so, madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. and i also ask unanimous consent that my intern marty berger be accorded privileges of the floor for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you very much. madam president, a grave threat facing humankind on our planet is global warming. we are the first generation to see the impact, and that impact

is occurring in so many ways right before us. in my home state of oregon, we are seeing the impact upon our forests which are having a longer fire season, a drier fire season, a fire season that burns more acreage. we are seeing more lightning strikes. we are seeing a smaller snow pack in the cascades, which is impacting our agriculture and it's impacting our trout streams. everyone realizes that a smaller, warmer stream is not as pleasant a place to be for drought to thrive. we are seeing it even in our pacific ocean oysters. the oysters are having trouble reproducing. they're having trouble reproducing because the ocean is more acidic, because through wave action, the oceans have absorbed a lot of the carbon dioxide and have become carbonic acid and the carbonic acid then affects the formation of shells. so in each of these impacts,

it's having really a steady detrimental role right before our eyes. it's affecting our fishing, affecting our farming, affecting our forestry. it's an assault on our natural resources, and it's incumbent on all of us, this generation, to address that. and what we know is that the impacts we see in oregon are being echoed in states across the country and nations across the globe. if you go to the northeast, you might hear folks talking about how the moose are dying because the ticks aren't being killed by winters that are cold enough. you might hear about the migration of lobsters going north to find colder water, so on and so forth. we're seeing it everywhere. what we know is that in order to prevent the temperature of the planet from going up more than

two degrees centigrade, which is about 3.6 degrees fahrenheit, we have to leave in the ground the vast bulk of our proven fossil fuel reserves. in other words, we have already seen a one-degree increase in temperature centigrade, and that's about 1.8 fahrenheit, almost two degrees. that has come from the burning of fossil fuels. and if we keep burning them, we're going to burn up the planet. we're going to have a devastating impact on this planet. so we have to stop. we have to pivot quickly off of fossil fuels. and one way to summarize the challenge that we face is that across the planet, we've identified vast reserves of gas and of oil and of coal, and they're worth a lot of money, so of course the owners want to pull it out of the ground and sell it to be burned. we somehow have to find the

political will to take this on and leave in the ground 80% of those proven fossil fuel reserves. that's the magnitude of the challenge, and we can do all kinds of things that will help. we can produce more renewable energy. we can produce more conservation. we can proceed to find ways to pull carbon out of -- out of smokestacks and store it in the grouped, or at least we can try. we need to approach it from every possible angle. i'm going to keep coming to the floor, as i have before, to talk about keeping it in the ground, and i expressly want to emphasize that, because when we simply talk about the fact to save energy, like put a little more insulation in a building or double-pane windows or a little more mileage on the car, we don't get the size of challenge that we're facing. this is an extraordinarily difficult challenge, and it's up to our generation to address it.

so as i come to the floor, i will be speaking sometimes about the math behind the temperature increase and the rising amount of carbon dioxide in the air, the rising amount of methane in the air and describing how the planet atmosphere is changing. other times i will be talking about the calamities we're seeing on the ground, everything, the things i mentioned, the pine beetles that are thriving because it's also not cold enough to kill the pine beetles as well as the ticks or the coral reefs that are leeching across our planet. i will also come to the floor to highlight emerging technologies, because we have to realize as much as we talk about the problem, we have to talk about efforts being made to address the problem. and so i will just pick out various ideas and efforts that are appearing in our newspapers or our scientific literature, and that's what i'm going to do today. the innovations i want to highlight today, the first one is about a strategy in iceland

to store carbon dioxide in the ground. this is one of the carbon capture strategies. now, this is not easy to do, and there are many different scientists working on different ways to attempt to capture carbon, but this is -- this is a new one, so i thought it merited discussion. scientists at la month earth object -- lamont earth observatory, columbia university, invented a way to study carbon dioxide by dissolving the gas into water and then storing the water into rocks where it reacts to form the mineral calcite. calcite will then store the carbon dioxide as a solid deep underground. this project of columbia university is being experimented with in iceland is called

carbfix. they pumped about 250 tons of carbon dioxide mixed with water into the rocks in 2012. they found when they came back in 2014 that 95% of the carbon dioxide had become calcite. and while there are some very specific requirements to make this particular technology work, the right kind of rock, the right amount of water, the carbon dioxide being generated close to the right kind of rocks, it's an example of an innovating technology that could prove useful as another tool in the fight against climate change. a second idea that's starting to expand is to recognize that we can put solar panels in a variety of places, not just on the ground, not just on our rooftops, but also on bodies of water, and this was reported in may, 2016. this is referred to as floating solar, and here we have a lake

and we see these floating solar panels, and floating solar panels have several advantages or potential advantages over land-based panels. one is more efficient cooling. a second is that they might create less of an eyesore for the public. they might prevent surface water from evaporating which can be a side effect that would be useful japanese, australian and u.s. companies are pursuing this technology currently. there is a planned array in japan on the yamakura dam reservoir that is planning to put 50,904 panels onto that reservoir, floating on that reservoir. they would generate 16,000 megawatts hours annually, or translate that to something more understandable, they could power 5,000 homes for a year.

so significant. in the united states, there is a winery in california that goes by the name of farniente. this is a picture of it here. where they have combined both land array and water arrays, and the combination produces 477 kilowatts of electricity at its peak, and it's expected to pay for itself by 2020, or maybe sooner. so a high rate of return. these floating panels provide an opportunity for cheaper, out of the way energy generation and has the potential to protect reservoirs from evaporation and water loss. we must continue investing in and encouraging innovative technologies, floating solar panels are one, to make renewable energy adaptable to all environments usable all over the world. i thought i'd highlight a third technology. and certainly one of the biggest

uses of fossil fuels is in vehicles, and vehicles use burned gasoline and diesel. they come up to speed and suddenly there is that red light and you have to hit the brakes. and every time you go from, well, let's say it's an urban road and you're going 35 miles per hour and you have to come to a stop, you waste enormous amounts of energy. all of the momentum with that mass, that car, that truck traveling down the road, is then converted primarily into heat through your brakes. it's lost. it's not recaptured. so along the way, as different companies started exploring electric cars, they said we've already got electric motor. we already have a battery sizable enough to accommodate quite a bit of electricity. why don't we try to capture that

energy from the braking process and put it back in the battery. so what they do is they utilize magnets. and as the magnets go through a field, that field creates resistence. it produces a current and that current, those electrodes are stored in the battery. this is called regenerative braking. and we've seen this on a variety of electric cars. it just makes sense since they already have an electric drive and have the batteries to accommodate it. we've seen a lot of interest in electric cars. recently test la put out -- tesla put out an invitation for people to put out $1,000 and get in line to buy the model 3. they had the roadster, the model s and now the model 3. the model 3 will be competitive with the chevy volt. it will be much cheaper than their previous cars. the waiting list has grown

beyond 400,000 people. an enormous, enormous unprecedented response. tesla cars, like the volt, like other electric cars use regenerative braking. but the thing i wanted to highlight today was an effort to really apply this in new ways. ups, united parcel service, they have a fleet of delivery trucks, and they've invested in hybrid and electric vehicles and they have used regenerative braking. last october they announced deployment of 18 new delivery vehicles that use regenerative braking that reduce pretty much to zero mission status. they use electrons used to start the trucks. in their announcement they said those trucks would save 1.1 million gallons of diesel fuel over 20 years. when you start talking in

anything that the word million, million gallons, that is a lot of savings from just 18 delivery trucks. but even more recently we have an article in which mack trucks is developing the ability to use regenerative braking on garbage trucks. so they developed a new electric hybrid garbage truck. it incorporates a power train technology developed by wright speed. wright speed power trains use electric motors to drive the wheels of the trucks so the motors are powered by batteries and they are recharged from the regenerative braking when the garbage truck comes to a stop. now, the point here is that when you have a very heavy truck that accelerates and stops often, it wastes a vast amount of energy. and now they're working to design an effective drive train

to recapture that energy. the founder of right speed, ian wright says this technology can power these vehicles for substantial distance and very heavy vehicles, 66,000 pounds, and can power them up pretty steep hills. a 40% grade is a very steep hill. but the main point is that it's capturing that energy that would otherwise be lost every time they stop. and if you watched a garbage truck go down the street, it stops. the men on board, or the men and women on board, they jump often, they get the garbage cans, they hook them up, they go on to the truck. they accelerate. four houses later they're stopping again. this is a very appropriate application. i wonder how much energy would be saved if every car in america

had regenerative braking. almost every car gets used in an urban setting where there's lots and lots of braking. how much would be saved if our light pickups had regenerative braking? how much would be saved if every delivery van that is heavy and it starts up and it stops many, many times, how much would be saved? at some other point i'm going to try to put together a calculation of that because it could be a substantial contributor. so each of these technologies that i mentioned today -- a new strategy on storing carbon dioxide kwroupbd -- underground, a way of deploying solar panels through floating solar panels, expansion of the use of regenerative braking -- represents modest efforts in this effort to take on this large challenge of global warming. banded together, they can make a great difference and other

technologies to come will make a great difference. it is our challenge. it is our generation's responsibility to pivot quickly off of fossil fuels. and these strategies can help. thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor. mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, last weeks flags across the country were lowered to half staff to honor the 49 lives that were lost in the terrorist attack in orlando. the american flag also flew at half staff following terrorist attacks in brussels in march, in san bernardino last december and in paris last november. the flag is a symbol and it has great meaning. so do words, words when we talk about the enemy.

the words have meaning too. but now is not just a time to talk. now is the time to act. we must take action to stop the terrorists here and abroad. that's why last week republicans were eager to get to work on appropriations bills that give the f.b.i. more of the resources that they need to stop the threats on american soil. the bill that would give the law enforcement officials more tools to help prevent terrorist attack was brought and discussed on the floor. but what did the democrats do? they came to the floor and staged a campaign-style publicity stunt. when democrats were talking on the floor, republicans attended a briefing by the f.b.i. director to listen -- not to lecture as democrats were doing -- but to listen and to get the facts about the specifics of what happened in orlando. when democrats held press conferences and sent out tweets,

republicans were pushing for the defense authorization act that finally passed. this legislation actually does something by helping our military take on terrorist threats. it's directed at organizing the pentagon to confront new threats. democrats actually tried to block the legislation, and president obama has threatened to veto it. president obama went out and he gave a speech last week in which he said, he said isil is on the defense. remember when he compared isil to the j.v. team? well, now the president says they're on defense. he bragged about all the success he's had in fighting terrorists. then his c.i.a. director came to capitol hill, john brennan. he came to speak to the senate intelligence committee about what's happening with isis. he said our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach.

does the president not believe his own c.i.a. director? the c.i.a. director said that isis is adapting to our efrpts efrpts -- efforts and it continues to generate tens of millions of dollars each month. he said isis would intensify the global campaign. why does the president of the united states, the commander in chief, refuse to accept the words of the c.i.a. director, his own c.i.a. director? the c.i.a. director came to the senate and he said that isis is training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks. why does the president intentionally try to deceive the american people in terms of thinking about what the attacks are and what is happening? why is -- does the president wat to say all is well? the c.i.a. director says isis has a large cadre of fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for further attacks.

the president seems to suggest the problem is not coming from the terrorists but coming from the second amendment of the constitution. so who should we believe, the president of the united states or his c.i.a. director? p well, somebody asked the c.i.a. director at the hearing last week if isis would be weaker if they didn't have a safe haven in syria and in iraq. the c.i.a. director replied this is a big, big part of it. we need to take away their safe haven. terrorists use thighs safe havens -- use these safe havens to train, raise money and plot more attacks. that should be the focus of president obama and the obama administration in response to orlando. the administration, the president wants to pretend that it's succeeding in getting rid of safe haven abroad. it's simply not true. the terrorist army of isis controls a significant amount of territory across the globe, and

it's not just isis. it's also additional terrorist groups. the director of national intelligence testified to congress earlier this year that sunni extremists have more safe havens than at any other point in history. ep added that al qaeda affiliates are positioned to make gains this year. according to the united nations, the taliban now controls more ground in afghanistan than at any point since 2001. extremist groups like isis need the territory they control because it gives them safe havens and because the territory makes them more powerful. it helps them inspire more of their followers to launch attacks around the world. it makes it seem like the ideology of radical islam is winning the battle of ideas. so it's imperative that we have a real strategy to defeat isis and other terrorist groups

abroad. we need to make sure that someone in the united states or france or anywhere else in the world with an internet connection does not see this radical islamic ideology as victorious. that's why we need to pass the appropriations act that's on the floor today, because nobody believes that using the term radical islam will magically defeat the enemy, but words do matter. and it's interesting, mr. president, i note in "the new york times" op-ed page last friday, an editorial written by david brooks. he is a columnist. the president listens to him, someone the president says he turns to. brooks' column last friday starts like this: "barack obama is clearly wrong. barack obama is clearly wrong when he refuses to use the word islam in reference to islamic terrorism. the people who commit these acts are inflamed by a version of an

islamic ideology they claim an islamic identity." but the president will not say it. brooks goes on, and i think it's very informative seeing it's david brooks who is writing this and the president is someone who turns to him. he says "obama is using language to engineer a reaction rather than to tell the truth. obama is using language to engineer a reaction rather than to tell the truth, which is the definition of propaganda. the definition of propaganda. that's what we have. well, if the president refuses to correctly name our enemy, he can't effectively fight the enemy. because democrats don't understand, and the enemy -- it seems they just want everyone to get along. the world does not work that way. so the democrats try to change the it topic from terrorists to

going after our second amendment rights. when they do this, they're not confronting the real threat which is the ability of isis to inspire terrorists to act. if you really want to stop the terrorist threat, you need to address the real problem. we must give law enforcement the support that they need to stop the terrorists here at home. we must give our military the strength to deprive the terrorists of their safe havens abroad. the defense authorization act and this justice appropriations legislation are important steps to doing that. symbolic acts like lowering the flag matter. so do words. words matter. president obama wants to seem to take a victory lap for his efforts so far. well, there will be no time for sreubgt -- victory lapse until isis is no more. maybe president obama really doesn't understand the truth about this threat from radical islamic terrorists. maybe he's just not being honest

with the american people about it. either way, congress has been told the truth by the c.i.a. director. and it is up to us to do something about it. the c.i.a. director said it himself to the senate last week. he said that isis -- quote -- "would have to suffer even heavier losses of territory and money for its terrorist capacity to decline significantly." our response to the orlando attack should be to step up the fight against isis where they live. we need a real strategy to defeat the radical islamic terrorists and the resolve and the strength to carry it out. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mccain: i ask that further

readings underrette the quorum call be dispensed with and i be recognized. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, in the last several days, the conversation and the dispute and the rhetoric has been devoted to the issue of guns. certainly a worthy cause. but unfortunately for the american people, the issue of how we got here has been ignored. guns don't fire themselves. guns and weapons are fired by people. they are fired by people and in this case both orlando, san bernadino, paris, others, they are fired by people who have been radicalized or trained or in a coordinated fashion have inflicted murder, death and mayhem on innocent people.

so while we in all our righteous indignation talk so strongly and so passionately about what we have to do about the weapons, we're ignoring exactly how all of this happened and why it happened and it's because of the policies of this president and this administration from the beginning. from the beginning, this president wanted to get out of iraq, wanted to get out of afghanistan, believing in some delusional fashion that if we got out of these conflicts, then the conflicts would end, and obviously that has not been true. i just want to go for -- and the senator from south carolina and i were talking about it. i just want to go through a chronology of events very quickly. president obama, october, 2011. this is president obama, october, 2011. the tide of war is receding. the long war in iraq will come to an end by the end of this

year. we're also moving into a new phase in the relationship between the united states and iraq. we'll partner with an iraq that contributes to regional security and peace just as iraqis have persevered through war, i'm confident they can build a future worthy of their history as a cradle of civilization. president obama, december, 2011. we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant iraq. president bush, july, 2007. to begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for iraq, for the region, for the united states. it would mean surrendering the future of iraq to al qaeda. it would mean that we would be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. it would mean we allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in iraq to replace the one they lost in afghanistan. it would mean we would be increasing the probability that american troops would have to return at some later date.

that american troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous. i know my colleagues have not missed it. american troops have had to return to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous, and that's the words of president george w. bush in july of 2007. in october of 2011, at the same time that the president said the tide of war is receding, i myself said this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the middle east, especially the iranian regime which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of u.s. troops from iraq. an iranian regime. all of our military commanders with whom i have spoken on my repeated visits to iraq have told me that u.s. national security interests and the enduring needs of iraq's military required a continued presence of u.s. troops in iraq beyond 2011 to safeguard the

gains that we and our iraqi partners have made. nearly 4,500 americans have given their lives to our mission in iraq. countless more have been wounded. i fear that all of the gains made possible by these brave americans in iraq at such grave cost are now at risk. that's what i said in october of 2011. that's the situation -- as the situation worsened in december, 2011, i said domestic political considerations in the united states and iraq have been allowed to trump our common security interests. all of the progress that both iraqis and americans have made at such painful and substantial cost has now been put at greater risk. senators mccain and graham, in december, 2011, if iraq slides back into sectarian violence, the consequences will be catastrophic for the iraqi people and u.s. interests in the middle east and a clear victory for al qaeda and iran, a

deterioration of the kind we are now witnessing in iraq was not unforeseen, and now the u.s. government must do whatever it can to help iraqis stabilize the situation. we call upon the obama administration, the iraqi government to reopen negotiations with the goal of maintaining -- reopen negotiations with the united states of america with the goal of maintaining an effective residual u.s. military presence in iraq before the situation deteriorates further. what we were saying is you didn't have to pull everybody out of iraq. we could have stayed. and they kept saying what you need is the status of forces agreement, and the fact is that now there is no mention of a status of forces agreement, and there is 4,500 americans there and possibly more. president obama, january, 2014. the analogy we use around here, and i think it's accurate, is as if a j.v. team puts on lakers

uniform, that doesn't make them kobe bryant. he went on to say they are the j.v. isis is the j.v. senator mccain and graham in october, 2013, wrote by nearly every indicator, the situation in iraq has worsened dramatical ly. since the beginning of the conflict in syria and the withdrawal of u.s. forces from iraq in 2011. what's worse, a dear tear yourating conflict in syria has enabled al qaeda and iraq to transform into the larger and more lethal islamic state of iraq and al-shaam. isis, which now has a major base for operations spanning both iraq and syria. it may just be a matter of time until al qaeda seeks to use its new safe havens in these countries to launch attacks against u.s. interests.

that was what senator graham and senator mccain said in october, 2013. senators mccain and graham, january, 2014. the ports that al qaeda -- reports that al qaeda fighters have taken over fallujah and are gaining ground in other parts of iraq are as tragic as they were predictable. the administration's failure in iraq has been compounded by its failed policy in syria that has sat by and refused to take any meaningful action while the conflict has claimed more than 130,000 lives. it's now taken over 400,000 lives, by the way. driven a quarter of the syrian population from their homes, fueled the resurgence of al qaeda and devolved into a regional conflict that now threatens our national security interests and the stability of syria's neighbors, especially iraq. as the situation worsened, in april of 2014, i said it's reality check time in iraq where the syria-iraq border has turned into a major highway and safe haven for transnational

terrorist groups. the black flags of al qaeda fly over the city of fallujah where hundreds of u.s. troops were killed and injured. violence across the country has reached the same levels at the height of the iraqi insurgency in 2008 and the country is creeping dangerously close to a reignition of civil conflict. president obama, september, 2014. we will degrade and ultimately destroy isil. john mccain, september, 2014. the president's plan will likely be insufficient to destroy isis, which is the world's largest, richest terrorist army. to destroy isis, create conditions for enduring security in the middle east and protect the american people. additional steps are necessary. half-measures against isis only make it stronger and will not lead to its destruction. that was almost two years ago. senator graham and mccain, october, 2014.

we continue to urge the administration to quickly adopt a comprehensive strategy against isil and avoid the perils of gradual escalation. degrading and ultimately destroying isis will require additional actions that we have long advocated such as the deployment of u.s. special forces and military advisors on the ground to direct air strikes and advise our local partners. the expansion of assistance from moderate syrian forces and the establishment of safe zones protected by no-fly zones in syria. that is ultimately what it will take to destroy isis and keep america safe. we cannot afford to delay any longer. that was nearly two years ago. the list goes on and on, and i will make them part of the record because my friend is here. and you know, all during this time, while senator graham and i were warning time after time, using every means possible to warn the american people and our

colleagues that this thing was going to escalate because the president of the united states did not have a strategy, his policies that he had failed, and now we have attacks on the united states of america. i have been pilloried because i used the word personal. i said i misspoke. but have no doubt about why we are where we are today, and that is because this administration, this president called isil the j.v., said if the j.v. team puts on lakers' uniforms, that doesn't make them kobe bryant. does anybody today believe that isis is the j.v.? the list goes on and on. and i will -- i want my colleague, senator graham, but i also want to speak for a moment, and i will go on with these because we can see the competing statements between the administration and the president and graham and mccain. they are starkly different.

but what else has happened there? the ecochamber as has been described by mr. rhodes, one of the president's chief advisors, the ecochamber of krugman, zakaria, of friedman, of ignatius, all the ecochamber is out there. he is doing fine, everything is fine, this guy is leading great, not to worry, things are really great. the ecochamber that mr. rhodes described in an article in "the atlantic" about how they were able to orchestrate the iranian agreement, it's out there. so as we warned, as we warned and predicted -- i wish we had been wrong. i'd love to stand here on the floor of the senate and say senator graham and i were wrong. we didn't have to worry about isis. they are the j.v. but we were right. we were right, and we continue

to be right, and we still don't have a strategy. but there is the ecochamber out there that goes on and on and on. and, my friends, i believe the american people deserve better than what they are getting from this echo chamber, which is the obamaphiles that can incredibly praise all of these mistakes. finally i urge my colleagues -- and i will go through some more of these, but my colleagues, i warn them unless we get a real strategy and stop this incrementalism, we are going to see -- perhaps we will retake fallujah, as we have. we may even retake mosul, but this isis is still metastasizing and spreading throughout the world, and there is no better expert than the director of the central intelligence agency who

basically said that in a hearing to not only the members of congress but the american people. i'd like to yield for some comments to my friend, the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: thank you very much. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: i wish we were wrong, too. the worst is yet to come. i hate to be saying this all the time. as they're losing territory in iraq and hurt some in syria which they are, they're becoming a lethal ter i.r.s. organization. -- terrorist organization. all i can say is that you could see this coming a mile away if you spend any time looking. the president of the united states' biggest flaw i believe is he doesn't think we're at war. he thinks this is a counterterrorism problem. these are wayward souls or religious fanatics and he doesn't embrace the fact that radical islam is loosely associated throughout the globe. they have an agenda to destroy

our way of life, to purify their religion, destroy the state of israel. it's on the sunni and shiite side. it represents a small minority of the islamic faith. when you talk about radical islam, mr. president, you're not slandering those or fighting radical islam. they don't feel slandered. i've been to iraq and afghanistan along with senator mccain over 37 times. viet to have one leader in that part of the word tomorrow me, would you quit using the term "radical islam." they appreciate the fact that we understand the threat and that what we've been proposing would actually work. so the j.v. team here is in the white house. i really don't mean to slander j.v. teams. the bottom line is that the people in the white house have proven take they're not up to the task of defending this nation, destroying radical islam, and come out with a plan to make us safe and protect our allies. how much more has to happen before you realize the people running this war one don't realize we're at war.

it's hard to win a war when you don't realize you're in one. as to orlando, it breaks your heart as to what happened but the attorney general went down there yesterday and i like her very much, to offer sympathy to the victims. and she made a statement, we'll never know what motivated this man. excuse me, we do. all you have to do is listen to what he said. he pledged league yans to -- allegiance to baghdadi in the middle of the slaughter. he went to the other side. in every war america has been in, we've had americans side with the enemy. it's an unfortunate event but it happens in all wars. and radical islamic groups like isil are trying to turn american citizens against us. this man joined their cause. he called 911 and said i am now a soldier in the army of isis. i pledge allegiance to al-baghdadi, not to the citizens of the united states and the country he was a citizen of, and he slaughtered a bunch of peop

people. madam attorney general, i know why he did this. and the fact that you can't understand why he did it bothers me about your view of the fight that we're in. but let's go back in time as to isil was created. al qaeda and iraq was designated -- decimated by the surge. it is fair criticism -- it is fair to criticize the bush administration. president bush did make mistakes. senator mccain called for the removal of the secretary of defense under president bush's watch, secretary rumsfeld, because he believed that secretary rumsfeld did not appreciate the deteriorating security environment in iraq. i don't remember anybody on this side of the aisle standing up at all as the mideast deteriorates and saying, you know, president obama, you need to reconsider what you're doing. so senator mccain when republicans were in charge, president bush was commander in chief, challenged the construct that all things were going well in iraq when they were not. so i want to give you some credit, senator mccain, it's

not just obama. when you see a problem, you try to speak up. the bottom line is president bush made an adjustment. he doubled down on the surge. he sent more troops into iraq under general petraeus and guess what? the new strategy worked. by 2011 president obama was claiming this to be a successful operation that we could leave iraq whole and free, secure and stable. vice president biden said it may be the biggest accomplishment of the obama administration to withdraw our forces from iraq because we're in such a good spot. "the new york times" held the security environment in iraq as a major achievement. but what we were trying to say along with military commanders is if you pull out now, the games we fought for -- gains we fought for are going to be lost. this is what i said on april 3, 2011, as this negotiation was going on. if we're not smart enough to work with the iraqis to have 10,000 to 15,000 american troops in iraq in 2012, iraq could go

to hell. i'm urging the obama administration to work with the administration in iraq to make sure we have enough troops. 10,000 to 15,000 beginning in 2012 to secure the gains that we have achieved. this is a defining moment in the future of iraq and in my view they're going down the wrong road in iraq. now, when the administration tells you that the iraqis would not accept a residual force, they're lying. and i don't use that word lightly because it's a harsh word. they're intentionally misleading you. they're lying. let me tell you why i know. i was there. i got a phone call from secretary of state hillary clinton asking me along with senator mccain and lieberman to go to iraq to see if we could talk to the iraqis about a residual force. we met with barzani, the president of the kurdish element of iraq. not only would it be accepted at 15,000, he would accepted

250,000. anybody who knows anything about the kurds, they're not resistant to american troops in iraq. they would put them yule in occurred dis -- kurdistan if we let them. then we went to the head of a sunni block and he said the sunni members of this block, political block, realize without an american force, iran will come in and fill the vacuum and the sunnies will feel threatened because the political achievements will all be at risk because you'll change the balance of military power. then we went to maliki. i can remember like it was yesterday. it was senator mccain, senator lieberman, and myself as always those three and i am at the end of the line, as i should be. you had ambassador jeffries and general austin who is the commander of our forces in iraq. so when it came my time, i looked maliki in the eye and said, would you support a

residual force to maintain the gains we've achieved jointly? and he looked me in the eye and said, how many troops are you talking about? i turned to general austin and ambassador jeffries and general austin said, we're still working on that number. we went back to talk to the vice president. the military had recommended 18,000, general austin did. the chairman of the joint chiefs said we could get by with 10 but they wouldn't go below 10. the administration, according to general dempsey, then chairman of the joint chiefs, kempt reducing the -- kept reducing the number below 10 and it got to almost 1500. this cascading of numbers of troops did not come from the iraqis saying there's too many. it came from the white house who really wanted to get to zero. so when you try to blame the iraqis for your mistake, you're lying. mr. mccain: could i also add to my colleague, i ask unanimous

consent for a colloquy with the senator. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: that at the same time, this administration, this president and his administration was saying, that we can't get a status of force agreement with the iraqi government. that has to go through the parliament. is there any mention today of this same president who says that it's absolutely necessary for us to have a status of force agreement as we incrementally increase our troop strength in iraq? mr. graham: we have over 4,000 troops. they're playing with the numbers again. i know this. there are over 5,000 troops. about a thousand are off the books. they're there. they're just not being counted. this insist sanity desire by the president to say we're not in combat offends me. tell me to the family of the navy seal that was killed. they don't want to admit we're in combat because we're at war. they don't want to admit we're at war because this guy in orlando was certainly at war

with us. we have a presence in iraq and isn't it unusual that no one is talking about we need approval from the iraqi government now? this was never the problem. the problem was that president obama sincerely wanted to end both wars. he saw an opportunity in 2011 to fulfill a campaign promise because america's -- at the end of the day he ignored sound military advice and everything that senator mccain and i and others said has come true in spades. now let me tell you this about a recent comment by the president yesterday. that our military strategy regarding isil is hitting on all cylinders. mr. president, you need to get out of the white house and take a new look at what's going on in the world. there was testimony yesterday by a yuzidi woman in the homeland security committee. the u.n. last week issued a report that isil is engaged in

genocide against the yuzidi people. this is a group of people who mix christianity and islam and they have a unique religion. isil is in the process of destroying the yuzidi community that's been around for thousands of years. this woman testified yesterday that eight members of her family, including her mother were killed by isil. she was gang raped and she said don't feel sorry for me. they're doing this to girls as young as 8 years old. so, mr. president, go tell that young lady that your military strategy when it comes to isil is working on all cylinders. the u.n. special envoy to syria estimates that 400,000 people have been killed in syria where isil's headquarters exist. mr. president, go tell the people, the families of the victims of isil in ear ya that -- in syria that your military strategy is working on all cylinders. mr. president, how do you explain the fact that they're now up to 8,000 isil fighters in

libya? and i had a conversation yesterday with a commander, walt hauser, incredibly gifted man. i asked him, is isil in libya? he said yes. are they a threat to our homland? he said -- homeland? he said yes. are we doing anything militarily to engage them and he said virtually nothing. i asked how many air strikes against isil soldiers inside libya. he said zero. so the bottom line is, mr. president, we're not hitting on all cylinders. we're making some gains but you don't have an overall strategy to secure these gains. leaving aside in power is the worst possible outcome for the united states because the sunni arabs see him as a puppet of iran and he's the one who's killed most of the 400,000, not isil. the syrian people are never going to accept him as their leader. russia and iran, mr. president, have come into the aid of the

butcher of damascus assad. they have bombed the people we have trained to fight not only isil but assad. the russian president has killed the people the american president tried to recruit to our cause and we're not doing a darn thing about it. mr. president, your military strategy is not working. tell that to the king of jordan where there are more syrian refugees today than there ever have been in the history of jordan. there's a report out two weeks ago that there are more refugees now in the world than there were post-world wore ii. tell it -- world war ii. tell it to the people of libya that one out of five children are syrian refugee children. the bottom line is you always overestimate the threat and you oversell your successes and i hope that the people in this body will realize that some the votes we're going to take in the coming weeks will correct this course and i hope you realize that the war is not going as

well as the president says it is and i want it to go better. i want to destroy isil and i promise you this. the strategy we have in syria will never lead to isil's destruction. the people we're training to fight isil are mostly kurds. and the kurds do not have the ability to go into iraq or syria which is an arab town, take it away from isil and hold it. the people we're training are communist kurds, xy. p.g. is their acronym. they're associated with a terrorist organization in turkey. i appreciate their help but the future of syria should not lie in the hands of a bunch of communist marxist kurds which could never bring about stability in seer ya. we don't have a game plan to end this war. we don't have a diplomatic strategy. if you don't believe me ask the 50 plus foreign service officers who wrote a letter publicly urging the president to change his strategy in syria because

it's not working. you could discount senator mccain and i if you'd like, but these are 50 people who dedicated their lives to understanding the mideast and they said in an open letter that we should be taking the assad regime on because if he stays in power, this war never ends. he's getting away literally with murder and our strategy of appeasing assad because of russia and iran's involvement is going to lead not only to the destruction of syria but a change in power balance in the mideast that's harmful to us. so it's not just us saying that it's not working. mr. president, your military strategy is not working on all cylinders. the asidi community is being decimated on your watch. 400,000 people have been murdered on your watch. we haven't gotten to the mistake you made in syria yet because as we withdraw our forces in iraq against military advice, the people in syria rose up demanding the freedom all of us

take for granted and there was a moment in time when assad was on the ropes the people of syria rose up as part of the arab spring and every person in the administration advised president owe boom ma to help the free syrian army while they were intact and he said no. and when he said no, hezbollah which is an agent of iran, sent 5,000 troops to support assad, russia eventually got in on assad's side and the entire mess in syria has exploded. his unwillingness to help the free syrian army take assad out created the vacuum inside a syria that isil failed. to those of you who look at orlando as a gun control problem, i think you're missing the story of orlando. orlando is about sigh silk seen as a winner by people over here sympathetic to their cause. isil is being seen throughout the world as a winning team, not a jayvee team.

and what you coo he is orlando is someone that was recruited to their cause, and our intelligence systems failed. i am not blaming the f.b.i. but the fablght of th -- but tht of the matter is we interviewed this guy a couple times. he fell through the cracks. mr. mccain: the president and members of the administration continuously say we only have two choices. one is do nothing or very little or we have to send 200,000 troops. you know, i grow so weary of that straw man being set up by the president of the united states because it is intellectually dishonest. what we have called for -- and i am not sure this president can lead and do it because he has no credibility in the middle east anywhere, when he decided that they would cross the red line, we would take military action and we did nothing. that had a profound effect thought the middle east. ness no trust or confidence in

the middle east. but if there were, it would be approximately 100,000 troops, about 10,000 americans, as sunni-arabs, turkey, the saudi arabia, the other gulf countries, a force that would go to rakka and take out isis. and i want to assure my fellow americans that, as long as they have -- as isis has a geographic base in rakka, they will be exporting terror into the united states and europe. they -- baghdad did i, we know, is tending people with these devices, secure, encrypted devices. we know that there is self-radicalization taking place as we speak. we know that they are being inserted into the refugee stream. we know these things. as long as they have a capital and we have no strategy for retaking that capital, there will be further attacks, as the drrkt of the c.i.a. has said, as the director of national

intelligence has said. there will be further attacks on the united states of america. mr. president, i would ask that these statements by the president and by senator graham and myself be added -- be put in the record. but i would point out -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: as long ago as 2014, august, senator graham and i said, "americans need to know that isis is not just a problem for iraq and syria. it is a threat to the united states. doing too little to combat isis has been a problem. doing less is certainly not the answer now. isis presents mr. obama with a similar challenge and it has already forced him to begin changing force, albeit begrudgingly. if you does not, isis will continue to grow into an even graver danger to our allies and to us. it was obvious -- president

obama, november 20156789 "we have contained them." really? "we have contained them." and, againen, general dunford said, further warning that isil is not contained. i said in december of 2015, as long as this caliphate exists in rakka, they're going to be able to orchestrate attacks and even medicine it imetastasize, maybeo libya. guess what this they moved to libya. august 2011, here is one of my favorites. president obama: for the sake of the syrian people, the time has come for president saad to step aside." obama administration official in the new yorker four years later, "the meaning of assad has thoag has evolved." "the meaning of assad has to go has evolved." and anyway, the list goes on and on. president obama, october 2015,

"an attempt by russia and iran to prop up assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won't work." "in a quagmire and it won't work." secretary kerry in march of 2016, "russia is now helping with the cessation of hostilities. and if russia can help us to actually affect this political tran circumstance that is all to the strategic interests of the united states of america." and now what do they do? they bomb the people we trained and equip. they murdered -- bashar saad has murdered so many more with his barrel bombs, the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children. he has never paid a penalty for the use of sarin gas, where he gassed thousands of men, women, and innocent children.

does anybody believe that is asad is leaving power anytime soon in of course not. again, we have been talking about this. we have been warned about it. by the way, senator graham and i are always described -- senator graham in the liberal media. senator graham and senator mccain, among obama's harshest critics. critics. they don't mention that we called for the removal of the secretary of defense. we are the ones who have been telling the truth to the american people ever since this debacle began because we have an obligation -- we have an obligation to those men and women in uniform who are serving in the longest wars in our history. we have an obligation to the families that have been killed and wounded. we have an obligation to try to force this president to understand that we have failed. we are failing and we have

failed. and, yes, we're making some gains, the retaking of fallujah after two battles, by the way, that american troops were wounded and killed. there is some small success. but the fact is that none of this had to happen, and that's the great tragedy of the last few years. none of it had to happen, and this president didn't lead. and because he believed that all we needed to do is get out, that those conflicts would end, so i say directly to my colleagues, the president's policies are responsible for the deaths -- untold deaths, the quagmire we're in, the metastasizing of isil, and the rise of russia as a new power in the middle east, and the retention of bashar assad as --en sconessed as a ruler of syria, the same person

that the president of the united states barack obama said it's not weather bashar assad leaves power, it's when. mr. graham: if i may, just to wrap this up, 50 diplomats who have served in the mideast wrote lair to the world open to see that we have let assad gettate way with murder. assad will be in power when obama is gone. russia and iran have come to assad's aid. the biggest winners have been russia, syria and assad. the biggest losers have been our allies, the arab allies in particular. about our willingness to help, i was in a multi-person primary back in 2014. the president basically reached out to senator mccain and myself after assad crossed the red line the president drew regarding chemical weapons. it was labor day. i'll never forget it as long as i live. i flew up with senator mccain. we met with president obama in the oval office and susan rice and he informed us of what assad

did and was seeking our support to basically hit him militarily as punishment for crossing the red line. the goal was to degrade assad's capability on the battlefield, upgrade the ability of the opposition to fight him, and change momentum on the battlefield. senator mccain and i went out in front of the oval who was in the driveway and said, we stand with the president and his efforts to deal with assad crossing the red line, to upgrade the opposition, degrade assad and change the momentum on the battlefield. this was right around labor day. it was supposed to happen in a couple of days, airstrikes from the sea and land. nothing happened. by the end of the we, the president had decided to go -- by the end of the week, the president had decided to go to congress, and unfortunately congress didn't respond well, so there's some blame in the body.

but president obama has yet to call us and tell us that. i'm in the middle of a primary, and people are war-weary, and i just really thought that the president was doing the right thing to hold assad accountable, so i want to help him where i can. i tried to put money in the budget to help secure the gains we've achieved in iraq, and i hope fallujah false, and i think it will. but i said 8,000 to 10,000 u.s. soldiers would be necessary to destroy isil in iraq. we're over 5,000 and we've got to go to mosul, which is a city of a million people. if we don't have more american ground component, then we're not going to retake mosul and the shia militia are going to have way too much say in terms of the future of iraq. inside syria, there is no strategy to destroy isil. i think he's passing this on to the next president, not warchtsin -- not wanting to brek his promises, not wanting to recommit troops. he is just ignoring good, sound

military advice. i hate to say this, if there was a jayvee team in the war on terror, it is in the white house. they're at war with us, but we're really not at war with them. we can't even say "combat." i want to help in president where we can. we've had a very contentious debate about guns. things have been said on both sides of the aisle that i think are quite frankly out of bound. i don't want to sell guns to isil. i want to destroy them. i think we have several choices here. we're going to fight them in their backyard or ours. i choose to fight them in their backyard with partners. the arabs want to help us because they are in the crosshairs of isil. but they're not going in to fight isil in syria and wind up giving the whole country to the iranians for keeping assad in power. they've told us -- the king of saudi arabia told us you could

have our army, but they want to make sure when we finish the job in syria the iranians are not in control of syria. they're dominating four arab capitals and the arabs are tired of this. the bottom line is, iran is running wild, isil is a growing threat to the homeland, and we don't have a strategy to destroy isil and secure the gains and stabilize iraq and syria and when it comes to iran, we've empowered the most tyrannical regime on the planet, think i, by giving them $150,000 to put in their war machine. they will have a pathway to a bomb. the next president of the united states is going to have a mess on their hands. but we've still got a long way to go with this president. so, mr. president, send a couple thousand more troops into iraq to make sure we liberate mosul and can hold the place. up your game in syria, work with our arab partners that will go in on the ground with you. tell the russians if you want to

fight for the butcher of damascus, you're welcome to do so -- and they won't -- and let syrian people pick their leader, not have the russians or iranians pick their leader. there is a way forward, it will take more effort on our part but not 100,000 troops. we're talking less than 10,000 to get this job done. but we do need a different approach to syria or this will never end. i worry that the thousands of foreign fighters that have joined the jihad had winner passports -- and people on my side of the aisle are saying some pretty crazy things; you can't seal the u.s. from the rest of the wompled the ability to penetrate the homeland existsment the sooner we can destroy isil, the safer we'll be. the quicker we can live in peace and we don't have a plan to do it. i hope the president will make an adjustment. president bush adjusted. it is not easy for a president to adjust.

i can get that. but he made a decision to listening to his commanders and he adjusted. this president is making some adjustments, but they're incremental in fair nature -- in nature. when the attorney general says i don't understand what motivated this man, that really breaks my heart because i think most of us do. and here's what i worry the most about. taking too long to take these guys out over there and they're reaching into libya and another 9/11 son the way if we don't put these guys on the defense. i want to hit them before they hit us. i want partners. i don't want to fight this war alone. i want to keep the war over there. and it is coming here. and no matter what you do, it may come here anyway. but we're allowing them to come here quicker and faster than they should be allowed to come here. we're allowing them to stay stronger longer than they should. and in the wake of this foreign policy debacle, we've lost an

entire group of people called the yazidis, who have been wiped off the face of the planet, and you've had hundreds of thousands of people displaced, millions displaced. and they're going to look at america and say, you can't count on america. every young child in a refugee camp that was driven to that camp because of our failure to deal with isil, allowing assad to bury a family, they're going to grow up not liking us. the one day we will have to front them. if facts of this failed policy, it is going to be generation a there is still time to adjust. if you will adjust your strategy, not just listen to you listen to the 50 people who wrote the letter, listen to your military commanders, you make these adjustments, we'll be there with you. mr. mccain: mr. president, i would like to summarize. the reason why senator graham and i came to the floor at this time is because it's pretty