quorum call:

a quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. a senator: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business with senators

permitted to speak therein until 11:00 a.m., with the time until 10:30 a.m. under the control of the democrats and the majority controlling the remainder of the time until 11 clook a.m. -- until 11:00 a.m. mrs. mccaskill: mr. president, once upon a time, there were elections and the people of this country in their wisdom decided to send a different party to the u.s. senate as a majority. and at that time too much fanfare -- to much fanfare, the leader of the republican party announced that it was going to be a new day, that it was going to be regular order, that there was going to be a budget. there would be no filling the tree. that we would do individual appropriations bills. and most notably, the leader said that we were going to put

in a full day's work. in fact, i think -- my colleagues can correct me if i'm wrong, but i think he even talked about working on fridays in washington. now, let me hasten to add, i know every member of this body, when they go back to their homes in their states, they work. we have a lot of meetings to go to, people to see, so i don't want to say that when we're not in session, that we're not working. but the american people were told that we would be putting in more work in washington. and by the way, it's not as if we don't have work to do. i remember month after month after month, all fox news talked about was where was the budget, we had no budget. the law says you have to pass a budget. the republicans over and over and over again on this floor, on

television, where is the budget, where is the budget? i ask that question now. where is the budget? it hasn't been mentioned by my colleagues across the aisle lately. i believe under the law -- and my colleagues can correct me if i'm wrong -- but i believe it is required by law to be done in the spring. not during football season. and certainly not at christmas time. the individual appropriations bills haven't worked out so well either. the only ones they have been interested in doing are the ones that don't tackle the tough problem of balance. that is, the balance between our homeland security needs and our defense needs, balance between the needs of educating our kids and making sure that our soldiers are well equipped. but probably the thing that is

most amazing is that in light of no hearing on merrick garland, in light of no budget, in light of no spending bills, in light of all these things, we are working fewer days in washington than we have in 60 years. i showed this calendar to people at home. they thought i was kidding. this is the calendar of our work schedule. now, let me also point out that we've heard this week that the leader of the republican party doesn't even want us to work these three days. october 4, 5 and 6. so mark a line through those and the entire month of october is black, which means nothing is happening on the budget, nothing is happening on a supreme court vacancy, nothing is happening on

oversight hearings, nothing is happening on appropriations, nothing is happening on zika, nothing is happening in washington. now, i'm just going to pause for a minute so anyone who has the c-span bug can just look at this calendar. all the blacked out days are days that we're not in washington. a full week-plus in january, a full week-plus in february, almost two weeks in march. another two weeks in may. another almost week in june. almost two and a half weeks in july. no weeks -- the entire month of august. didn't even work the full month of september. now we're being told we may not even work any days in october. just working a handful of days

in november. and there's a lot of business that has to be done by the end of the year. and obviously it looks like there's only a few days in december that we're working. i think there is like 240 workdays that most americans work every year. by my estimate, i think we're working about 110 of those. now, no wonder the american people are angry. no wonder the american people don't get it. it's very simple. not only is the republican senate not doing its jobs in terms of setting history, of not having even andowndown vote on the supreme court nominee -- even having an up-or-down vote on the supreme court nominee. the republican senate doesn't work. i yield the floor to my colleague.

mr. tester: senator mccaskill, you're right. folks are sick and tired of this congress not doing their job. every time i go home -- in fact, i was just on the radio a few minutes ago. the radio announcer said you know you guys have been out for seven weeks. what do you anticipate you're going to get done over the next four weeks? i said whoa, whoa, whoa, i wish we were in the next four weeks, because the truth is there is a lot of stuff to be done but people are talking about getting out the end of this week or the end of next week and that's it until the lame duck if we have a lame duck. it seems as though this body runs based on the next election, not based on the policy that needs to be passed to make this country do its job. we play political games after political games, worrying about the next election rather than worrying about the next generation. and you're right, senator mccaskill, this republican-led senate has not done its job. does a hardworking nurse wait until after election day to

insert the i.v.? no, they go to work. you wouldn't hire that nurse, in fact, if that happened. does a teacher walk into the classroom and say, you know, it's the middle of september, election day is november 8, so you guys don't have to come back to school until after the election? no. no, i served on the school board for a good number of years. that teacher wouldn't have been working. wouldn't have been getting paid. and i will also tell you i know firsthand a farmer would not paid for the polls to close to harvest their crop. if they did, they would be out of business. and we wonder, we wonder why people are so upset with us. the american people have to do their job day in, day out. no matter what, they expect the same from the people they elect to this body. so what's the problem? what is the problem? the republicans control the senate, they control the house. why can't they get anything done? i think it's because of a total

lack of leadership. you need to look no further than zika. and the current impasse and the political games that are being played with that. this is a horrible disease. i've talked with the researchers. they don't know all the impacts. we need to do the research to find that out. we do know that it impacts the unborn. it can be sexually transmitted. we don't know if there is long-term impacts to people that may get it now that don't see any symptoms but could see symptoms later. now, we passed a bipartisan bill by 89 votes, addressed this crisis head on, but the senate and the house leadership got together, they shut the doors, they smoked a few cigars, probably ate a few steaks and said you know what? we're going to make this into a political football, and that's exactly what they do. they inserted partisan politics into a solution. and right now we have no bill passed that deals with the zika crisis, and it is a health crisis in this country. but that's not the only one.

when i go back to montana whose population is fully 10% veterans, they talk about the needs veterans have. and we have a bill under the leadership of dick blumenthal and johnny isakson that takes care of our veterans, it helps fix the veterans problems in this country. it helps fix leadership vacancies, helps fix the shortage of doctors, helps veterans get access to the v.a. passed out of committee unanimously. it's called the veterans first act. it passed out of committee last may, 125 days ago. the senate won't take the bill up. it is a step in the right direction to take care of our veterans, yet we won't take it up because we've got to go home. claire showed you the map. you would think congress could do their job on behalf of veterans, but they're wrong. and then we have the supreme

court. you know, the constitution which people cite in this body a lot and should is very clear that the senate has a duty to advise and consent to the president's supreme court nominees. i just heard the republican leader the other day say there will be no supreme court nominee taken up this year. that's great. now the supreme court is as dysfunctional as congress. and we see it with the decisions that come out on tie votes. they won't even give judge garland a meeting much less a hearing. i think the american people deserve better. they need an opportunity to see the nominee in action. but my colleagues here set on their hands. it will be probably 15 months before the supreme court gets another nominee and maybe not then either because who knows what kind of antics are in store? and there's more. not only zika, not only the v.a., not only the supreme court, but we have the appropriations bill. instead we're going to pass a

short-term resolution. we have campaign finance. it's expected that more than $1.4 billion will be spent in this presidential race. congress has done nothing to ensure that i.d.'s and voters, not money, decide elections. we need campaign finance reform. everybody in this body knows it. but instead we continue to ignore the problem that faces this country in campaign finance. wildfire disaster funding. how we pay for wildfires is broken. if you live in the west, you know that. we're not going to deal with that. we need to fervently fund and reauthorize land and water conservation fund. now it's not going to happen. we're going to restore -- we have a restoring rural residencies act to take care of the doctor shortage in this country. no, it's not going to happen. don't have time. but we do have time, we just choose not to tackle any issues here. year-round pell grants. we have students that are coming out of college with a mountain of debt. not going to deal with that. we have a bill to give

regulatory relief to community banks, credit unions. we're not going to debate that on the floor. no, not going to happen. we've got schools initiative, payment of taxes, both need our attention. this year senator crapo and i called on leadership to find a path forward so these counties can have some certainty. not going to happen. over the bast few years we've seen our national security compromised with faulty background checks. we have produced legislation that will help prevent insider attacks. not going to havment notice a pattern? the whole country is waiting. they're waiting for congress to do their job. i just turned 60 years old on august 21. in my lifetime, we've never worked less days in the united states senate than we have this year. it's unbelievable. we're leaving americans hung tout dry. we're leaving out doing our job.

we're leaving because of the next election. and this is criminal. there are solutions. this is supposed to be the greatest deliberate tife -- deln the world. the only problem is, we're not in session to deliver it. i yield the floor, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. here's an explanation for why we've worked the shortest number of days in the last 60 years. everything must be fine. everybody must just be great. everybody must be working. everybody must be able to afford college. the streets have to be safe. that would be a good reason not to work, if everything was just going great for the people of this country. but it's not. poll after poll people tell us that they're not happy with the direction of this country.

conversation after conversation that we have with our constituents is, as i did during our very, very long summer break, educate us on a simple reality, which is that people are struggling more today than ever before. people and families and businesses are hurting out there. there are massive problems in this country that, as senator tester said, many of which have bipartisan solutions. and still we're not working. if everything was great, if there were no problems to be solved, then maybe that schedule makes sense. but nays not what people -- but that's not what people think in this country. they know the system is rigged against them. they know that their life can be better. and they are furious, as senator mccaskill pointed out, when they see that we aren't even trying -- we aren't even attempting to solve their problems. because republicans would rather

be home than be working here in washington. ask the family of stef phon st -- stefan strauder if everything is okay. he was one of the best basketball players in florida, on his high school team. everybody wanted to be like steph. his sisters said no matter where he went, everybody invited him into their home. people loved him. stefan was killed this summer at another mass shooting, this time in fort meyers, florida, at a team party. kids from 12 years old to 17 years old were shot. stefan lost his life. how about the 13 people that were shot in bridgeport, connecticut, at the end of august? you haven't even heard about

this. 13 people were shot at a party. none of them were killed, but 13 people's lives are permanently altered because of that mass shooting. or how about what happened this summer in chicago: 400 people were shot in chicago in the month of august alone. think about that. that's the worst month of shootings in chicago's history in the last two decades. people lost their life like arshel dennis, who just was coming home to surprise his mom on her brnlg day before he went -- birthday before he went back to take up his junior year at the university. and he was shot while he was shight on the porch with a friend. he was in the college prep program. he spent previous summers as an ambassador mentoring other students. he wanted to help kids that he said were a lot of kids who

didn't make it out like me. 4,000 people were killed in this country by guns while we were gone for the longest break in recent memory. 400 in one month in chicago. and here's what -- makes me so mad. i get it. this year we're not going to pass a still passing background checks. but i listen to my republican colleagues tell me all the time that the real problem is mental health. now, i don't actually agree that that's the panacea for what ails in country when it comes to gun violence, but if you want to work on mental health, then we can. we have a bipartisan comprehensive mental health reform bill, that like the veterans bill that senator tester referenced, passed through the health and education committee unanimously -- conservative republicans,

progressive democrats supporting it -- that has passed the house of representatives, and is sitting pending on the floor of the? the. -- of the senate. and what we're told is that we can't do a mental health reform bill, not because we don't have consensus but because we don't have time. bull. we have time. we had all of july and all of august. we can stay here through september and october to pass a mental health reform bill that would probably pass unanimously in the this -- in this chamber that would bring new mental health resources to millions of people. i'm not going to he will you that i think that's-- --tell you that i think that's what would solve the epidemic of mass shootings in this country, blue it is just one of -- but it is just one of many pieces of legislation that would make people's lives better that has broad, bipartisan consensus that we aren't doing simply because we aren't working.

senator mis-caskill,er -- senator mccaskill, i thank you for putting that chart up and letting people know. for all of the lecturing we got from republicans when we were in charge about not passing a budget, or not moving forward on legislation that they supported, nothing is getting done right, simply because republicans have made a choice to stop doing their job. i'd yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: mr. president, i'm joining with the others whoever here -- who are here on the floor today who have called on the majority leadership in the senate to stay here to take action on matters of critical forns -- importance to the american people p on the first monday in october, the supreme court will begin its new term and it will do so with a vacancy that has remained unfilled for the last six months. regrettably, the president's nominee to the court, judge

merrick garland, has not even been given the courtesy of a nomination hearing. this is the first time in the history of this country -- in the history of the country -- that the majority party in leadership has refused to have a hearing on a supreme court nominee. it's unconscionable. no wonder the people of america are frustrated with the congress. likewise, the senate has failed to act with urgency to address the zika outbreak. i'll have more to say about this shortly. but, first and another most, i wanted to come to the -- but, first and foremost, i wanted to come to the floor to discuss the senate's failure to provide appropriate funding to address the heroin and opioid epidemic. this epidemic is raging in all 50 states. it's an uncontrolled public health epidemic of the first order.

in 2014, some 47,000 people in this country died from drug overdoses, far more than we lose in motor vehicle accidents. yet, despite the staggering death toll, the majority in the senate has failed to pass legislation to provide emergency funding to first responders, to treatment providers, to law enforcement, to those who are on the front lines in this crisis. now, in july congress passed the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, cara. it's a good, bipartisan bill. it's a bill i cosponsored and i voted for. burkes as we all know -- but, as we all know here, if we're being honest with the public, cara is an authorizing bill; i it is noa appropriations bill. it doesn't provide one penny to fight the opioid epidemic. and even if congress approves the funding necessary for cara,

it will be about two years before new hampshire and other states see that additional funding. so in new hampshire we have the highest percentage of overdose deaths in the country. and what i've heard everywhere i go in the state is that, what people need are resources to address this crisis. that's why early this year i introduced an emergency funding bill to provide an additional $600 million for policing, prevention, treatment, and recovery. i offered this legislation as an amendment to the cara bill, but it was defeated with only five of my -- our republican colleagues voting for it. again, this is unconscionable. our nation has addressed other public health crises with emergency funding bills far larger than the one proposed to address the heroin and opioid epidemic.

last year, about a year and a half ago, congress passed nearly $5.4 billion in emergency funding to combat the ebola outbreak in west africa. the ebola outbreak killed one american, one person in america. he wasn't an american. the heroin and opioid epidemic is killing more than 128 people every single day, and we know that treatment is the only effective answer to the opioid addiction, but people are being turned away from treatment due to lack of resources. nationwide in 2013 nearly nine out of ten people needing drug treatment didn't receive it. so the same story on the law enforcement side of the equation. a chronic lack of resources. heroin traffickers expressly target rural states, counties where law enforcement is spread too thin and lacks resorrieses to respond -- resources to

respond effectively, places like northern new hampshire and northern new england. my legislation would provide $200 million in emergency funding for edward burr memorial justice assistance grants. that's the flagship crime fightinfighting program that han cut year after year and a process that has been penny wise and found foolish, budget at its very worst. so, meanwhile, as congress fails to act, as we -- as senator mccaskill has shown so well, as we have not been here to work, the opioid epidemic is on the verge of expanding dramatically. car fentanyl is a synthetic opioid used to tranquilize elephants. it is now available on the street, blamed for a record surge in drug overdoses in the midwest. carfentanil is 100 times more

potent than fentanyl. fentanyl is an additive we have seen turning up in new hampshire and so many other places that makes heroin 50 times more deadly. until recently, hamilton county, ohio, had four or five overdoses a day. now because of carfentanil, the county is reporting 20, 30, sometimes even 50 overdoses a day completely overwhelming complete responders. some public health officials say that the united states has reached a disastrous inflection point in the opioid epidemic. going forward, we may be seeing more and more synthetic opioids in the market -- cheaper, more potent, more addictive and even more deadly. this is just one more wake-up call. the hour is late, and as i trail across -- and as i travel across new hampshire and talk to senate colleagues from across the country, again and again i hear

about the lack of resources to marshal an effective, well-coordinated response. and as the new and more dangerous synthetic opioids hit the streets, the crisis is becoming exponentially worse. the and congress' failure to act, the fact that we are, again, going home here very soon, means that more people will die before we take action. now, if congress can spend billions to fight an ebola outbreak on a distant continent, surely we can allocate $600 million to combat a raging epidemic right here at home, if we stayed here, if we work together to get this done. now, i also want to raise the zika outbreak, as my colleagues have, because, again, this is one more area, while the senate has been out of session, while

congress has been out of session, while we have been at a standstill, zika has been on the move with tragic consequences. local transmission of zika is now taking place in the state of florida. according to the latest data from the cdc, more than 1,750 pregnant women in the united states and puerto rico have tested positive for the zika and ths their babies are at risk. we're not even sure exactly what all their babies might be at risk for because we're still trying to get the research to determine what all of the impacts of zika are. we know microcephaly is one of the birth defects that results from the zika virus. now, since january i joined with other senators in calling for a

robust response to the zika outbreak because we needed congress to act and in fact the senate did act. we acted before we went out in august with a bipartisan vote of 89 people. but then we saw the house. the presiding officer: the democrat's time has expired. a senator: now is time to put politics aside and to work together to stay here and to do what the american people need. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. a senator: i understand the senator from north dakota would like three minutes to speak. mr. alexander: i'll be glad to yield to that. ms. heitkamp: thank you, mr. president. i thank my friend, the senior senator from tennessee, always the statesman and always willing to engage in wonderful debate and a great member of this body. i want to thank my colleague from missouri for shining a bright light on this issue.

the senate work calendar that she displayed is honestly breathtaking. in fact, we're on track to work the fewest numbers of days in 60 years. that doesn't look like a work schedule. anyone from north dakota has, not that they wouldn't want that but that they have. and it shouldn't be a work schedule for the important work that's being done in the united states senate. we are out more than we are in. we were elected to do a job but the senate is refusing to do that job. in the meantime the opioid crisis as my great friend, the senator from new hampshire, has outlined is destroying families across this country and certainly in north dakota. when i held discussions throughout my state, mothers and fathers who had lost children to this crisis pleaded for resources to save other families from losing their children. their stories brought police chiefs to tears. one even watched his own son

serve as a pallbearer for his 19-year-old best friend who had succumbed to addiction. another man i spoke to became addicted after he dislocated his shoulder when he was just 14, and soon began dislocating his own shoulder to obtain prescription drugs that washed away the pain of social situations. but this congress has failed to provide the funding we need to take on the opioid crisis, and now we're headed for the door. senator manchin along with a number of us have introduced a bill that would take just a small measure of prescription drugs, opioids that are prescribed, one cent per milligram and put it in a fund. shockingly one cent per milligram actually raises over a billion dollars. it tells you how rampant the addiction or the prescription for opioids are. and so we need to have a debate on that bill. we can't say we're concerned about the opioid crisis unless we come for resources to treat

addiction and help our communities get well. i think my police chief in fargo said it best. he can't protect a community until he heals the community. we have a role in making that happen. i met with a hundred north dakota retirees who stand to lose as much as half of their pensions, sometimes more after dedicating years of their lives to back breaking labor all to support a secure future for their family and they saw it all disappear in the blink of an eye. that's why we've been calling on congress to step in and come up with a bipartisan solution to protect the workers and their families who paid into central states pension plan. while working to make the funds solvent across the country, nearly half a million hard-working retirees face cuts through no fault of their own. as one retiree who drove a truck for 30 years put it, if you cut my pension 50%, i'm no longer in

the middle class. are you going to kick 400,000 people out of the middle class? is that what congress is prepared to do even when members of this body have the power and actually the responsibility and duty to do something about it. we're headed for the exits but american families are dealing with heartbreaking loss of children. they have lost their savings that they have worked their entire lives to earn, lost their retirement security, and instead the senate, instead of dealing with these issues, we simply are not doing our job. what are members of the congress going to tell american families dealing with tough decisions on how to move forward when they return home from our recess? and how are they going to look them in the eye and explain the possibility of this scheduling getting truncated even more. instead of working until october 7 -- the presiding officer: the time is expired height i just. ms. heitkamp: i just ask that he

we stay here, do our job and that we restore the faith that the american public has in our democracy and we are addressing the issues that we're responsible to address. thank you, mr. chairman, and i thank my friend from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee lex i've been listening carefully to my friends on the other side of the aisle. zika is tewellly an epidemic. it's -- is truly an epidemic. it's terrifying young families all across the country who worry their babies might be born with a birth defect. we're working hard to fund a creation of a vaccine and the center for disease control tells us that that's likely to happen in the next year and a half. but it takes a certain amount of creativity, mr. president, for the democrat senators to come to the floor and complain about not doing our job on zika funding when three separate times the majority leader and republicans have offered $1.1 billion in funding for zika and the

democratic senators have refused to allow a vote. let me say that again. republican senators have offered $1.1 billion in funding for zika early in the summer, at a time when mosquitoes are flying, and the democratic senators have said no, you can't even vote on it. $1.1 billion passed by the house. we're ready to vote on it here and they've said no. so let's be straight up about this. we regard it as an urgent problem. three times we brought it up. we're ready to vote again if that's what we need to do. today, mr. president, i'm here to talk about another issue that is also a real emergency. later today i will introduce with other senators the state flexibility to provide affordable health options act. this bill addresses a real emergency. it provides immediate relief to families who use their obamacare subsidies to buy insurance on

failed obama exchanges for the 2017 health plan year. here's an example. if you're a single mother in memphis who gets an obamacare subsidy to buy health insurance for your family, you might have read that tennessee's insurance commissioner says that your rates may be more than 60% higher for the same health insurance policy for next year, 2017. you may be eligible for an obamacare subsidy. this could soften the blow of some premium increases, but there's also a good chance that the insurance you currently may have will be gone by this november, two months from now, when you sign up for your insurance for next year 2017. you will have to figure out how to stretch your subsidy dollars as your options shrink. maybe the new plan options don't include your doctor in their network. so you'll have to pay a higher copay for your office visits. maybe you need to buy a new plan all together with new doctors. and you can spend the new year

trying to move all your records from your child's old doctor to your child's new doctor if you can get an appointment. so this legislation will do two things for you and the nearly 11 million americans who buy health insurance for themselves or their families on obamacare exchanges. number one, it gives states with a failing obamacare exchange the authority to allow residents to use their obamacare subsidy to purchase any health care plan of their choice, even those off the exchange for the 2017 plan year. this opportunity would be available in every single state. it will give governors the opportunity to step in if he or she determines this emergency relief is -- quote -- necessary to ensure that residents of the state have access to an adequate number of affordable private health insurance options in the individual or small group

markets -- unquote . so this bill means the mother in memphis can shop around for health insurance policy that meets her family's needs but is unavailable on the exchange in tennessee. and now when she goes to pay for it, she can use the obamacare subsidy currently limited to exchange plans. the second thing this bill does is this. if the state chooses to use this authority to allow residents to use subsidies outside of the exchange, the legislation will waive the obamacare law's requirement that you must buy a specific health plan or pay a fine of as much as $2,000 for a family of four next year. in other words, if that mother can't find affordable insurance options that meet her family's needs, meaning a plan that covers the right doctors and services, on the obamacare exchange, then she doesn't have to waste her money or the taxpayer's money on a plan that

she doesn't want or doesn't need. and she won't be threatened with paying a fine if she doesn't. the individual mandate and its penalty will be lifted. without this emergency bill, mr. president, she is locked into a failing exchange. the only place her subsidy works is the exchange and in the words of tennessee's insurance commissioner last week, tennessee's exchange is -- quote -- very near collapse -- unquot. obamacare is unraveling at an alarming rate. in november, americans and near -- in one-third of the nation's counties will have only one insurance to choose from when they have to buy health insurance on their regional obamacare exchange. and most americans on the exchanges will face higher rates. in my home state of tennessee, residents will see their rates increase between 44% and 62% on the afternoon next year. so -- on the average next year.

even for a healthy 40-year-old non-smoking tennessean with a silver price on tennessee's exchange, premiums increased last year to $262 a month. next year it's $333 a month. tennessee had to take extreme measures to allow these increases because insurance companies told the state if you don't let us file for rate increases, we'll have to leave. if that happened, tennesseans might have had only one insurer to choose from. that's what's happening in states all over the country. as obamacare plans rates get locked in for next year. according to the consulting firm arve leer health, americans buying insurance in one-third of obamacare exchange regions next year may have only one insurer to choose from. people buying on obamacare exchanges will have only one insurance to choose from in the following states: alaska, alabama, oklahoma, south

carolina, and wyoming according to the kaiser family foundation. the same kaiser family foundation report found that in a growing number of states, multiple insurance will have -- multiple insurers, states that now have multiple insurers will have only one insurer selling policies in a majority of counties. tennessee is one of those states. last year tennesseans could choose obamacare care plans between at least two insurers in all 9 a counties our state -- 95 counties in our state. next year it's estimated that 60% of tennessee's counties will have only one insurer offering obamacare plans. north carolina is experiencing the same thing. next year 90% of the county's in north carolina are estimated to have only one insurer offering obamacare plans up from 23% last year. there's a similar picture in west virginia, utah, south

carolina, nevada, arizona, mississippi, missouri, florida. just last week the concord monitor in new hampshire published an article with this headline -- quote -- "main health insurance co-op leaves new hampshire market reeling from los angeles" -- unquote . that's their headline. the story goes on to stripe how this insurance plan will no longer are operating after experiencing over $10 million in losses in the obamacare exchange over just the first two quarters of this year alone. that move leaves more than 11,000 individuals in the granite state looking for new health plans. the bill i'm introducing will not fix obamacare for americans. it's not a permanent solution. but it does give the mom in memphis a real solution for next year, for 2017. and it lets her know we are on her side. and that we haven't forgotten her and her family as we seek to

repeal obamacare and replace it with step-by-step reforms that transform the health care delivery system by putting patients in charge, giving them more choices, and reducing the cost of health care so that more people can afford it which is precisely the alternative that americans offered in 2008, 2009 and 200010 when obamacare was voted in. it highlights the structural change we will need to make in the near future to avoid collapse of our nation's health insurance market. mr. president, the nation gets our insurance through many different places. some from medicare, some from medicaid, most from their employers. but nearly 11 million buy their insurance through the exchanges. if the obamacare policy isn't paying the higher premiums i just described, then you, the taxpayer, will. because a large portion of obamacare premiums are subsidized with tax dollars.

there's no excuse for having a failing insurance market where taxpayers are paying most of the bill and costs are so out of control that we may soon have a situation where no insurance company is willing to sell insurance on an obamacare exchange. where does that leave these 11 million americans? obamacare and its one-size-fits-all takeover of health insurance robs states of their ability to provide access to affordable health plans in a way that made sense for their state populations and economies. obamacare was supposed to create a marketplace where people would have more access to affordable private health insurance plans. robust private market competition was supposed to spur innovative insurance design and help drive down costs. but just the opposite has happened as those stuck in obamacare are facing fewer and more expensive options.

long-term, americans should have freedom to make their own choices about their families' health care needs. but short term -- in november november -- nearly 11 million americans need freedom from the exchanges, and this legislation that i will introduce later today with other senators will provide that immediately. thank you. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak, i suppose out of turn. i understand the republicans, the majority, have control of the floor. i would ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for ten minutes since there are no other -- the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. alexander: mr. president, through the chair, may i ask the question which would be that republican minutes will be preserved. the presiding officer: will the senator state his infirry. mr. alexander: that the republican minutes be preserved.

the presiding officer: will the senator from delaware so modify his request. mr. carper: i'm not sure what the senator from tennessee is saying. mr. alexander: mr. president, following the senator from delaware, that whatever republican minutes are remaining would be reserved for senators. mr. carper: that would be fine. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: no objection. mr. carper: i thank the senator from tennessee. i'm a huge fan of his and have been for a long time and respect him as a colleague, respect him as a governor, respected him long before that when he was principal aide to howard baker one of the greatest senators who served in this body over the last century. he and i have worked on a lot of things together and been a source of joy for me. i like to tell the story about at the senate finance committee about two years ago where we had a bunch of really smart people that came in to talk to us about what we're going to do about continuing to reduce the

deficit. we got it down to $11.4 trillion about four years ago. the hearing was designed to say what are some things we can do to further reduce our budget deficit. one of our witnesses was a fellow, used to be vice chairman of the federal reserve, alan blinder, at the time. when he testified two years ago he was back at princeton teaching economics. and his comments as a witness before our committee on reducing federal budgets, he said the 800-pound gorilla in the room on deficit reduction is health care costs. that's what he said. that's the biggest one. medicare, medicaid, so forth, v.a., system, he said that's where the money lies. that's where we have to focus. and when it came time to ask questions of our witnesses, i asked dr. blinder, i said you mentioned the health care is the 800-pound gorilla in the room on deficit reduction.

what do you think we ought to do? he sat there for awhile. he sat there for awhile. and he sat there for awhile. and finally he said i'm not an expert on health care, i'm not a health economist. but if i were you here's what i would do. i would find what works and do more of that. that's all he said. i said you mean find out what doesn't work and do less of that? he said yes. well, if you go back -- oh, lord. this is 2016. if you go back about 22 years in our nation's history, there is a big debate on capitol hill on an idea actually proposed or put forward by the first lady of our country, hillary clinton. and she proposed not obamacare. she worked on something that was called hillarycare, with the idea we had like a lot of people in this country who were not

covered with health insurance, millions, tens of millions of them, we spent way more money on health care costs than just about any other developed nation. we didn't get better results. just like, i think, every president since truman basically said we have to do something about extending health care coverage to people who don't have it and try to make sure it's affordable. nobody really came up with anything, so the first lady of this country, of all people, said i'm going to work on this. and she went to work on it. she came up with a concept, a proposal called hillarycare, ultimately not adopted. but our republican friends came up with, as they should have, an alternative to hillarycare. and one of the key components of their proposal was something actually, it looks a lot like obamacare. and what they came up with is this idea of creating health care exchanges, purchasing pools, large purchasing pools that people who don't have health care coverage could elect

to join. and as with thousands, maybe tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who join in states, these exchanges could provide the opportunity for people who don't get health care coverage, are not part of a large working pool who provide health care coverage but they could provide the same advantages as those who do have that kind of employment opportunity. that was the republican alternative. and at the end of the day, it didn't go anywhere. but at the time i thought that's a good idea. that's a good idea. i wasn't here at the time. i was governor in my state, very active in the national governors association. i said i think those republicans may have a good idea creating these exchanges with large purchasing pools, maybe providing a tax credit from the federal government to buy down the cost of premium coverage. but neither idea ended up flying. hillarycare ended up going away.

the republican alternative which have also a lot like obamacare today, was not enacted. fast forward to 2009, new president, and new president who wanted to finally do something about reining in health care costs, covering people who didn't have coverage, tens of millions of people, and trying to figure out how do we bring down not only the cost of health care, but how do we get better results. at the end of the day a white paper was issued for those of us in the finance committee to consider as we took up our debate in 2009, and the way the negotiations ended up proceeding was in order to try to find a starting point, work off the white paper on health care reform. but then have three democrats, three republicans who would join with one another, people pretty good at finding the middle, the consensus, senior members of our committee. the idea was for them to try to negotiate an agreement, a bill.

they tried not for just days, not for just weeks. they tried for months. and i'm a pretty bipartisan guy around here, but i'm not sure there was a real bipartisan intent to get to a compromise. and the -- i would not cast apersians but i think there is a little more blame to lie on the other side of the aisle than on this one. so we pretty much as democrats decided to put something together. we took two good republican ideas, and one of those is these large purchasing pools, these exchanges. we said every state should have one. we give the opportunity for people to be part of a larger purchasing pool if they don't have health care coverage or don't work for an employer that provides health care coverage, get the advantage of buying in bulk, if you will, health care coverage and having stronger negotiating position, more leverage. that was the republican idea, and i thought it was a good idea

in 1994 and, frankly, i thought it was a good idea in 2009 as a member of the finance committee. another good republican idea that was put forward at the time was the individual mandate, the individual mandate. that's not a democrat idea. that was an idea that came from governor romney in massachusetts where they put in place to have their own romneycare plan, which has actually worked pretty well. they have purchasing pools just like we have in states across this country, these exchanges. but they also have something in place that is an individual mandate if somebody didn't get coverage. they want everybody in massachusetts to be covered. but if they elected not to be covered after a year or two or three, they just -- people said i'm not gk -- not going to get covered. i'm young and invincible. i don't need health care coverage. can't afford it even with the tax credit they got through romneycare. they said you're going to have to pay a tax or fee if you don't

get coverage, if you don't signed up. you can't just get away with it. you're going to have to pay something. the idea was to have an escalating fee so that eventually people would say it's one thing to be fined $100 if you don't sign up for health care coverage. how about when it's $300 a year, $700 a year, $800 a year. eventually people signed up. in this country as well we have the exchanges. we have the exchanges. it was a gift from our republican friends and i think a good idea then and now. and we also have the individual mandate, which is gradually ramping up so that the young invincibles, the young people who aren't getting health care coverage will get coverage and as more and more young people, healthier people join the purchasing pools the idea will be it will bring down the cost of health care coverage overall so it's not just the sick, the elderly. but it's a healthy group of people. and that's sort of like where we

are today. the idea like pulling the plug on the affordable care act or significant parts of it because a principal component of it -- and that is the purchasing pools, these exchanges, is not working as advertised, i think would be a mistake. if it isn't perfect, make it better. and we have the chance in 2009 to negotiate real bipartisan health care reform plan. we didn't do that unfortunately. and we're going to have a chance again, mr. president, in the early part of next year with a new president and we'll have a new congress to take up again that which is flawed, which is imperfect. and that's the affordable care act. but to make it better, not to get rid of it. to make it better. and senator alexander is a very wise and highly regarded colleague. he may have a very good idea.

i just heard about it here on the fly today. but my hope is that lamar and the rest of us who want to get things done to do our jobs will take seriously this challenge that's before us and take that original good republican idea from 1994 on the exchanges and creating purchasing pools and make it better. take a look at the individual mandates which governor romney adopted in massachusetts and see how that is working. and to look at other changes we need to make as well. but the long story short is when we took up the affordable care act in 2009, here's where we were as a country: we were spending 18% of g.d.p. for health care costs. 18%. in japan, they spent 8%. we were spending 18% of g.d.p. they were spending 8%. they were getting better results, longer life, longevity, lower rates of infant mortality. and they covered everybody. they covered everybody in 2009.

where were we? spending 18% of g.d.p. we had 40 million people going to bed at night without health care coverage at you will a. one of the reasons why the cost of coverage has gone up pretty high right now for people in these new exchanges, because a lot people signing up haven't had health care coverage for years. they have been sick and they have not had access to a doctor except for going to an emergency room for access to doctors and nurses. this is not a time to throw up our hands and walk away. this is a problem. this is a problem. and this is a problem we can fix. and we can fix it by, i would say, mr. president, embracing what i call the three c's: communicate, compromise, collaborate. and we need to embrace those, wh this congress is over to embrace those. zika funding was discussed here earlier today. on zika funding, we had a bipartisan round table in the homeland security committee not

too long ago. two reasons why we need to resolve this funding issue: one, that we would have money to continue development of a vaccine. that is the most important thing. and, two, to provide for contraception and family planning. those are two important things we need to do as we tried to avoid this endemic. and with that, i yield the floor. i thank my republican friends for allowing me to speak on their time. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 12:00 noon today. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i understand there is a bill at the desk due a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: s. 3318, a bill to amend the consumer financial protection act of 2010, to subject the bureau of consumer financial protection to the regular appropriations process, and for other purposes.

mr. mcconnell: in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to further proceedings. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, let me start by stating the obvious. obamacare is a direct attack on the middle class. premiums are shooting up by double digits. co-pays are spiking and deductibles are skyrocketing. co-ops are collapsing and insurers are withdrawing. we all know the statistics, and they are literally shocking, and yet they still do truly capture the toll this partisan law is taking on america's middle class. because behind every premium increase headline is a family budget stretched to its limits, and beyond every co-op collapse is an agonizing uncertainty about where a family will find

insurance. this is what too often gets lost in the debate over obamacare, especially amongst our democratic friends. perhaps because it helps them rationalize away the pain of this law. but this is not some theoretical discussion. these are people's lives that this law is hurting. that's why i share the story of a mom in louisville who said her family's health care costs would consume nearly a fifth, a fifth of their budget this year. i wish somebody would explain to us, she wrote, how a hardworking middle-class family paying this much for health insurance became a loser under obamacare. that's why i share the story of the campbellsburg man who had just lost his health insurance he had had for many years. instead of something affordable, he wrote, i now face the possibility of struggling to purchase an obamacare health plan that costs two to three times what i had been paying.

that's why i shared the story of a small business man in lexington who may have to end his decades-long practice of providing insurance to his employees at no cost, thanks to, as he wrote, the cynically named affordable care act. i shared stories from other states, too. there is the new jersey man with chronic health issues who lost access to his doctor the moment obamacare placed him on medicaid. you have a card saying you have health insurance, he said. but if no doctors take it, it's almost like having one of those fake i.d.'s. he reminded us that having health insurance under obamacare is not the same thing as actually having health coverage. there's a woman from ohio who lost her plan after obamacare forced out her insurer. they fine you if you don't have insurance, she said. then they take your options

away. she put words to the frustration of literally millions. i explained how obamacare chasing out insurers in states like ohio and arizona and alabama, throwing thousands off their plans all over again. i explained how obamacare's co-ops are failing in states like new hampshire, new jersey and connecticut, massively disrupting coverage for thousands more. i explained how obamacare is shooting premiums up by almost unimaginable amounts in states like minnesota, illinois and montana, forcing more americans to make impossible financial decisions. so i invite democrats to recognize that obamacare's human toll is evident from north to south, from east to west. that includes states like california where, according to what the democratic leader told us yesterday, obamacare is

supposedly working beautifully. really? is it wonderful that premiums in california are set to spike by more than three times the average of recent years? is it wonderful that obamacare is causing huge double-digit increases in the golden state while reducing access to doctors and hospitals at the same time? the "los angeles times" quoted a left-wing activist summarizing the situation this way. this is a left-wing activist. we're paying more for less. indeed, before these massive increases had even been announced, polling showed californians more concerned about the costs of health care than whether they even had insurance. two-thirds reported they worried very much about rising health costs, and a majority credited obamacare for causing costs to go up a lot for average

americans. it's similar to what americans said nationwide when they cited health care as their biggest financial worry. that was ahead of wages, ahead of college costs and even job loss. more concern about health care. no wonder even some on the left have taken to calling obamacare the unaffordable care act. what we're seeing with obamacare may be shocking but it's not surprising because their never -- because there are inevitable consequences to this partisan law, a partisan law littered with broken promises. democrats said premiums would be lower. remember that? democrats said co-pays and deductibles would be affordable, too. obviously, that was wrong. democrats said americans could keep their health plans. remember that promise? democrats said americans could keep their doctors. of course that wasn't true. democrats said obamacare

wouldn't touch medicare. democrats said that taxes wouldn't increase on the middle class. democrats said that shopping for obamacare would be as simple as shopping for a tv on amazon. wrong, wrong and wrong again. democrats have broken one promise after the next on obamacare, but now, get this, they're asking americans to trust them to fix, they want to fix the mess that they created. they say they have the perfect solution, too, more obamacare. really, seriously, i'm not kidding. they actually think they can pull another fast one on the american people. they're actually pushing government-run obamacare 2.0 as some kind of solution, and they're doing this with a straight face. so look, we already know what we could expect from a

democratic-run congress next year on obamacare. more broken promises, more stonewalling, more of the same. obamacare's attack against the middle class is a nationwide phenomenon. it's hurting the very people we were sent here to represent. and the only way to deliver true relief for the middle class is to finally build a bridge away, a bridge away from obamacare. that's why we passed a bill to repeal this partisan law and send it to the president, because the middle class deserves better than the pain of obamacare. and i think even president obama, if he is being honest with himself, should be able to recognize that as well. here's what he said himself last month. too many americans still strain

to pay for their physician visits and prescriptions, cover their deductibles or pay their monthly insurance bills, struggle to navigate a complex, sometimes bewildering system and remain uninsured. that's the president himself. that's not the description of a law that's working. it's time to leave this failed experiment in the past and move toward the real care that americans deserve. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: mr. president, a fox news poll released this month found that, and i quote, a record high 54% of american voters feel the u.s. is less safe today than it was before 9/11. 54% of americans think that they are less safe than they were

before 9/11. the article went on to say, and i quote, that major -- this is what voters also think -- a major terrorist attack is likely in the near future. last year's u.s.-iran agreement on iran's nuclear program made the u.s. less safe. the $400 million the united states paid iran after american parissers in' release was ransom. terrorism is one of the most important issues facing the country. those are all comments, quotes, from the survey that was done where 54% of americans thought they were less safe today than they were before 9/11. well, mr. president, it's not surprising that americans are worried. when president obama was elected, he was widely regarded as america's next great foreign policy president. here was a president who would restore america's standing in the world and calm the troubled waters of international conflict. confidence in his abilities was so high that he was awarded a

nobel peace prize before he had actually done anything to bring peace. but after eight years of the obama administration, the world is less, not more safe. america's standing in the world has been weakened. terrorism is spreading. the middle east is more hostile and dangerous. iran is counting pallets of ransom money and is in a better position to develop a nuclear weapon. and all too often, president obama and hillary clinton's foreign policies have been a contributing factor. take the rise of isis, mr. president. when president obama came into office, he was determined to fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw u.s. troops from iraq, and that's exactly what he and secretary clinton proceeded to do on a timetable that he announced to our enemies. america's hasty withdrawal left gaping holes in iraq's security

before too long isis had stepped in to fill the void. by mid 2014, isis had made significant territorial gains in iraq and neighboring syria, and although isis has since lost territory in both syria and iraq, it was able to establish a foothold from which to expand its global terror reach. mr. president, the list of isis-linked attacks has grown very long. nice in france, istanbul, brussels, paris, orlando, san bernadino, and on and on and on. in the past two months alone, isis has been linked to a suicide bombing at a turkish wedding, a suicide bombing at a hospital in pakistan, a suicide bombing in yemen and a gruesome attack at a church in northern france. isis has also been linked to an attack on police officers in

belgium, a music festival bombing in germany and another railway attack there. and, mr. president, that's just in the past two months. yet, despite this ever-growing stream of attacks, the president has never seemed to understand the depth of the threat. while u.s. efforts have succeeded in reclaiming some territory from isis, the group's terrorist activities continue unabated and its international profile is increasing. its communications have grown especially sophisticated, making intercepting and decoding isis messages and tracking its recruitment efforts increasingly difficult. in june, the president's own c.i.a. director told congress, and i quote, "our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach." that from the president's own c.i.a. director. yet just days before the c.i.a. director's testimony, the president claimed that we were -- quote -- making significant

progress against isis. mr. president, as long as isis' global terrorism capability remains unchecked, we are not making significant progress. unfortunately, president obama's foreign policy failures are not confined to his halfhearted campaign against isis. take the president's nuclear agreement with iran. this agreement was supposed to protect our nation and the world from the threat of a nuclear-armed iran. the actual deal that emerged, however, doesn't even come close to that goal. even if iran complies with all aspects of the deal, which doesn't seem likely, it will not fail to stop iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. in fact, the deal will actually make it easier for iran to acquire advanced nuclear weapons down the road. on top of this, recent reports suggest that the united states

and the other signatories to the deal have actually already allowed iran to evade full compliance with some of the deal's provisions. it's no surprise that even some of the deal supporters are getting worried. iran has been in the news for other reasons. in august news emerged that the obama administration has delivered a $400 million cash payment to iran on the same day that four american hostages were freed. furthermore, the administration had paid the money over the objections of justice department officials who were concerned that iranians would regard it as a ransom payment. the administration, of course, strenuously denied that the payment was a ransom, but it's pretty hard to get away from the fact that there had been a defacto exchange of money for prisoners. two weeks after news of the

ransom broke, a state department spokesman admitted that the administration held the money until three american hostages had departed the country by plane. mr. president, the ransom payment is troubling for more than one reason. first, of course, tying the receipt of a large cash payment to the release of prisoners could easily encourage iran to expand its hostage taking. since the ransom payment in january, iran has continued to detain individuals on spurious grounds. in late august the state department warned u.s. citizens not to travel to iran because the danger of being detained by the iranian government. $400 million in cash in the hands of the iranians, mr. president, is a disturbing proses expect. -- prospect. iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and has a finger in many of the world's worst conflicts, particularly the middle east. there's a good chance that at least a chunk of that $400

million will go to funding iran's illicit activities from support for syrian dictator bashar al-assad to funds for terrorist organizations like hezbollah. atop of all this there's the fact that every time iran gets the better end of a bargain, it feels even more free to act aggressively. recently iranian fast boat vs been harassing u.s. navy ships and warning shots have been fired. it's not a stretch to think this aggression and boldness springs from the administration's position of weakness when it comes to iran. mr. president, teddy roosevelt used to say speak softly and carry a big stick. president obama's foreign policy has reversed that. the president talks a big game but he has no follow-through. to our adversaries the statements have become no more than empty threats. take syria. the president drew a red line four years ago of syrian

president bashar al-assad, used chemical weapons against his own people, the united states would respond. well, assad used chemical weapons and the united states did nothing. it should shock no one that a recent u.n. investigation found that assad has continued to use chemical weapons against his citizens. after more than four years of inaction from our president and five years of civil war, syrian cities lie in ruin, millions are displaced, and tens of thousan thousands, literally tens of thousands have been slaughtered. the world's eyes are now on the tenuous cease-fire in hopes that it may lead to peace talks and permit humanitarian aid to reach those most in need. but, mr. president, we must ask how we got here and what lessons can be learned. the consequence of empty threats is bolder and stronger enemies.

when the united states fails to follow through, we send a message that the united states can be ignored at will. we can see the results in chemical attacks on civilians in syria. the belligerent acts of the iranian navy and a defiant north korea testing nuclear bombs. in china boldly asserting territorial claims and building up reefs in disputed waters. in russia annexting crimea and flexing military and political influence in ukraine. mr. president, in 2008 then candidate obama spoke of the need for tough direct diplomacy where the president of the united states isn't afraid to let any petty dictator know where america stands and what we stand for. that's a direct quote from the president back when he was running for president. mr. president, candidate obama was right. that is the kind of diplomacy that we need, but unfortunately it's never been the kind of

diplomacy actually displayed by president obama. mr. president, that same speech then candidate obama spoke of the need for the courage and the conviction to lead the free world. that's something that we need even more today. after eight years of an administration which has frequently lacked the conviction to lead at all. senate republicans will continue to do what we can in congress to restore america's leadership and to strengthen our country's security. this includes working to advance the essential national defense authorization act and defense appropriation measures, the latter of which have been blocked repeatedly in this chamber by democrats. mr. president, i hope my colleagues across the aisle will work with us. our nation is already in a more dangerous position today thanks to the foreign policy failures of the obama administration. if we don't start getting our foreign policy right, the

consequences could haunt us for generations. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island white mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak up to 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection white i'm here for the 146th time to wake the chamber up to the consequences of climate change. mr. whitehouse: the leading edge of consequence is already upon us and it threatens the people and economies of all 50 states. because of the dark influence of the fossil fuel industry, we can't have an honest bipartisan conversation here in the senate about climate change. so i travel. i've been to 13 states. last months i visited utah and

met with local business, policy and science leaders to learn more about the effects of climate change in utah. coastal rhode island and landlocked utah may seem worlds apart but we share a common future under climate change and both utahans and rhode islanders share a deep connection to our home states' natural environment. generations of rhode islanders have been drawn to narragansett bay and our coasts. it's not just for love and beauty. in 2013 rhode island's ocean economy generated $2.1 billion and supported more than 41,000 rhode island jobs. the presiding officer from alaska can appreciate the importance of an ocean's economy. narragansett bay comes alive in the summer's warmth but it's

mostly frozen water that brings people to the mountains of utah with what they call the greatest snow on earth, winter blesses utah. during the last ski season nearly four and a half million skiers and snowboarders visited the state generating over $1.3 billion in spending. according to the utah office of tourism and the university of utah, almost one in ten jobs in utah is in tourism. well, whether it's ski boots or boat shoes, there's no question that significant portions of both utah's and rhode island's economies are tangled in the consequences of climate change. rhode island has already seen winter surface temperatures in narragansett bay increase by about four degrees fahrenheit since the 1960's and the sea level at the newport naval station tide gauge is up almost 10 inches since the 1930's.

we're seeing more flooding and erosion along our coast, threatening our shoreside businesses and homes. fish stocks are shifting in search of cooler waters upsetting the ecological balance of narragansett bay and endangering rhode island's traditional fisheries. out in utah, not much of saltwater fishing going on, but they have their own issues. according to the environmental protection agency, average temperatures have already risen two full grows fahrenheit there over the past hundred years. during my visit in early august, the national weather service reported that for the first time in the 144 years that they've been measuring, salt lake city had five nights in a row with low temperatures over 78 degrees and 21 straight days with high temperatures over 95 degrees. heat waves can have public health consequences, especially

for the young and the elderly, but this warming also has serious implications for utah's fabled ski industry. i visited with ski utah and with professional skiers from the group protect our winters, folks who make their living out on the slopes. they spoke about the shortened winter seasons and depleting snow pack. snowy thanksgivings have historically kicked off the resort's winter season but utah is seeing more and more weeks of rain. resorts are forced to make snow but manmade snow can't match nature's greatest snow on earth. it is book secrets of the greatest snow on earth, dr. summarizes how utah meetologyists foresee snow versus rain at major utah ski

resorts under different claim mat change scenarios. seenberg writes and i quote, for a temperature rise of one degree centigrade, about 1.8 degrees fahrenheit, about 10% of the precipitation that currently falls as snow would instead fall as rain at 7,000 feet, roughly the base elevation of canyons, park city and deer valley. at 9500 feet, mid mountain at snowbird and alta and upper mountain at canyon's park city in deer valley it's only 3%. the numbers get worse, however, with greater warming. for a 4-degree sent grade temperature increase, about 7.2 degrees fahrenheit, about 40% of the precipitation that currently falls as snow would instead fall as rain at 7,000 feet. at 9500 feet it's about 20% --

end quote. this troubling future led ski utah's 14 resorts to get together and send a letter last year to utah governor gary herbert asking the state to take action on climate change by implementing the e.p.a.'s clean power plan. diminishing snow pack in these mountains is not only troubling for the ski and snowboard industry, it also jeopardizes utah's water supply. roughly 7 on% of -- 70% of salt lake city's drinking water comes from snow pack melt in the spring and summer. snow pack is utah's natural reservoir. utah is the second driest state in the union but it has one of the highest afternoon per capita rates of water usage, and utah's population is growing as well expected to double by 2050 to around 6 million souls. agriculture is the largest consumer of fresh water in the

state. over 80% of utah water goes to farmers and ranchers. abbreviated winters mean less snowfall which means less snow pack which means less water for utah's rivers and lakes and farms in the summer months. with increasingly hot, dry summers utah is prime for drought. according to the united states drought portal, as of august 30, over half the state was experiencing abnormally dry conditions. around 5% of the state was in moderate drought. as recently as the summer of 2012, utah had seen upwards of 30% of the state in extreme drought. usda's natural resources conservation service says utah's traditional reservoirs were at just 47% of capacity in august, down from only 51% of capacity at the same time last year.

i saw firsthand the consequences of utah's water problem during my visit to the great salt lake. i joined the nature conservancy at the great salt lake shore lines preserve. we walked out on wooden walkways over the marshes but there was no need. the ground below was bone dry. the preserve is an important stopover for several million migratory shore birds according to the u.s. geological survey. now this is perhaps a small thing but there is a beautiful birlgd called wilson's fallerope that flies a 3,000 mile migration if the lowlands in south america. around a third of the world's population comes to the great salt lake. it's migration of more than 3,000 miles is just one more of god's natural miracles. researchers from utah state

university, salt lake community ledge and -- college and the utah water resources found that the lake's volume has fallen by nearly half since the first pioneers reached its shores in 1847. the lake's surface has dropped 11 feet. this has left roughly half of the former lake bed marked here in white now dry. and it has driven up the remaininremaining lake's area sy -- remaining lake's area salinity and its conteam nation. less tab hat for the birds and other critters that they hunt. the exposed lake bed contains contaminants of utah's and this lake's industrial past. and the dust containing those

contaminants now compromises air quality in salt lake city, whipped up from the old lake bed. it also affects the other cities along utah's wit utah's wasatch. i met with utah's mom's for clean air who described the poor air quality. given its topography, this region is prone to ground-level ozone in the summer and inversions in the winter. inversions are layers of air which trap particulate matter in the valley. they can cause respiratory problems particularly in children. due to that, salt lake county gets an "f" from the american lung association for both ozone and particulates. the state as a whole didn't do much better, averaging an "f" for ozone and "d" for particulate matter. world-class athletes can't train in that air.

and world-beating companies don't want to move employees into that air. so utah takes this seriously, and utahans are taking action. utah gets a lot of sunshine, and utah is a leader in solar energy. i met with some of utah's: energy leaders at the -- utah's compleeutah'sclean energy leadee of the panel arrays provides more than 70% of the energy needs. a utah company that installed the solar panels has averaged more than 107% annual growth since 120678 120. s-power headquartered in salt lake city told me that their various projects are installing in total tanders 3 megawatts much solar generation every day. on july 13, salt lake city mayor jackie bascupski signed a joint

resolution pledging to move the city to 150% renewable energy sources by 203 a understand to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2040. that's in utah. i also stopped in park city, utah. park city has its own goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to below 2005 levels by 2020 through increased access to renewable energy and expanded recycling. park city is often seans an affluent resort, but a quufort its residents live below the poverty line. outside of park city, the rest of summit county is mostly rural and it was the county and city governments that partnered up along with local power providers to form the summit community power works, effort to encourage

energy efficiency improvement across all levels of the county. they've done things like retrofit the town's affordable housing units taking steps to reduce carbon footprints. they don't have the ability to change zoning laws or building laws. that's all controlled by the state. offering just the economic benefits of efficiency, they are already seeing inspiring results. mr. president, i left utah optimistic. state climate toll gist rob gillies and the other scientists that i met with from utah state university and bringin brigham e eager to see their research on climate change reflect in their state's clean energy goals. in all of my meetings and tours i was struck by the industriousness and self-reliance demonstrated by utah's climate and clean energy leaders. they are determined to stave off

climate change and provide a healthy future for their children and grandchildren. we in congress owe it to them, mr. president, and to americans in every state working to preserve a healthy climate to be every bit as serious as they are about the science and just as committed as they are to tackling the greatest environmental challenge of our lifetime. it may mean telling the fossil fuel industry to shove off. they have far too much control of this body. but i will at the you this: if the earth's greatest democracy can't handle one greedy special interest, even if it's the world's biggest greedy special interest, then we will deserve and earn our fate. mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. cornyn: mr. president, it is always good to hear our friend and colleague, senator whitehouse, and see his chart. i know he's given that speech or something like this many, many time, and i'm tempted to respond to some of the things he said, but i won't, because there's something else i wanted to talk about. yesterday i came to the floor to talk about president obama's dougpresident obamadomestic pole number-one attribute of that is the -- is obamacare. and how obamacare failed to deliver on the promises that the

president and the people who supported it made, in terms of bringing down costs, making care available, not disrupting people with coverage that they already had and liked. and so now the verdict is in on obamacare. costs are up, access to care is down, and i've talked about the huge premium increases that my constituents back in texas are going to experience because this -- the masters of the university who dreamed this up simply did not reflect reality or anticipate the unintended consequences of their actions. so today i'd luke to talk a little bit about president obama's foreign policy and national security legacy. and the main takeaway after almost eight years of this administration is that the world is more dangerous and the world

is less stable than it was when president obama took office eight years ago. and as the director of the national intelligence, james clapper, has pointed out, the array of threats confronting us and threatening our national security has never been greater -- at least he said in his 50 years in the intelligence community. last month i had a chance once again to visit afghanistan and iraq, and i want toagd back and -- and i wanted to go back and to get up to speed on exactly what conditions were and the challenges that we were facing there and to meet with our military leaders as well as constituents from texas. i had a chance to also visit with a umin of foreign leaders -- with a number of foreign leaders and of course discuss our on-going efforts to combat terrorism and help those countries achieve some sort of stability. obviously, the biggest focus right now is isis, the islamic state, known in arabic, i'm

told, as daesh, which is more of a pejorative connotation. people resist the islamic state because they say it is not a state, and indeed what i learned is that in mosul and rakka, efforts are under way to basically destroy what isis now claims is its burgeoning caliphate. so the good news is we have some of the best and brightest pay trouts in the world -- patriots in the world working in very difficult places to advance our interests. but the bad news is they're not getting the strategic guidance and leadership that we need from the white house. and because of that, success in the region is limited. because our goals appear to be not actually disrupting and destroying the threat of islamic radicalism, manifest in the name of isis or al qaeda; it appears

to be more of a containment approach. let's pass -- let's do the best we can to contain it, but let's let the next president and the next congress worry about it. we just completed a major offensive against isis in afghanistan, but the taliban and its ally, the haqqani network, are kidnapping americans and overrunning regional outposts that have been held by the afghans. one of the biggest problems in afghanistan, i was reminded once again, is the fact that we have an unreliable partner in pakistan because what happens senior senator many of the taliban come from -- what happens is many of the taliban come over and attack afghan security forces and then they go back to this protective hideout in pakistan. we know isis still holds large

swaths of territory in syria and iraq. if you look at a map, you'd actually see a line between syria and iraq, but that border has slings been obliterated. we know that isis continues to export its terrorist ideology to europe and the west, where there have been spectacular and deadly attacks, eitherinstigated by or inspired by this ideology. the strategic and humanitarian crisis in syria continues unabated, and it's really beyond horrible. but now because of our weakened strategic, we've been apparently forced to rely on the russians to negotiate a cease-fire. and last week four years after president obama promised that using a chemical weapon would constitute a red line that must

not be crossed and that would result in a firm united states response, it was reported that the syrian government has once again carried out gas attacks, this time with chlorine. many were wounded. two civilians were killed, one including a 13-year-old girl. so obviously the threats of red lines that must not be crossed because they weren't -- there were no consequences associated with crossing the red line, obviously bashar al-assad feels he has impunity do to do whatever he wants in order to maintain power because he probably realizes that the alternative to doing that is not very good for him. so the line that president obama drew has now been repeatedly crossed by the murderous assad

regime. isis is still strong and the war criminal, al-assad, continues to use those chemical weapons against civilians. and we've also seen that when we don't do everything in our power to root out and extinguish a serious jihadist threat abroad, like the one posed by isis in syria and iraq, that threat can make its way wit to our shores, through isis- inspired attacks right here. the most recent one being the orlando shooter that killed 49 people and wounded many, many more, who claimed allegiance to the leader of isis, al-baghdadi. and that explains why, according to a recent poll, a majority of voters feel less safe today than they did before 9/11. unfortunately, on the gentleman security issues -- unfortunately, on national security issues, president obama spent most of his time cutting a deal with the foremost sponsor

of state terrorism: iran -- and priorized our relationship with this enemy over long-standing allies like israel and gulf states. well now i am afraid those birds have come home to roorveghts and we're all -- to roost, and we're all paying a terrible price. and, unfortunately, the families of the victims of the single biggest terrorist attack on american soil -- 9/11, september 11, 2001 -- are paying a price, too. we'll be hearing more about this but recently of course the senate and the house unanimously passed the justice against sponsors of terrorism act. this is bipartisan legislation that passed the senate, as i said, by unanimous consent and passed with every single member of the house of representatives voting for it just last friday. just to refresh everyone's mammogramry, this -- memory, this bill would provide victims

of terrorism access to justice to seek restitution from those who fund terrorist attacks on american soil. now, some have said, well, this is my -- this is fighting terrorism by lawsuit. no, it's not. that's not the goal. the goal is simple justice for those injured and the families who lost loved ones as a result of the largest terror attack on american soil on 9/11/2001. president obama for some reason has said that he intends to veto the legislation because he thinks it will somehow interfere with his diplomatic and u.s. diplomatic relations with other countries. but this legislation, all this legislation does is it amends a law that's been on the books since the late 1970's, the foreign sovereign immunity act. and over time we've had a number of exceptions carved out to this

doctrine of sovereign immunity. and all this does is it gives people an opportunity to make their case in court without being thrown out summarily based on invocation of this doctrine of sovereign immunity. so it's really inexplicable to me that the president would talk about vetoing this opportunity for the victims of 9/11 and their families to be able to make their case in court. but if he does so, i hope he will do so quickly. we sent the legislation over to him on monday, and i hope he does whatever he's going to do. i'd love to have him sign the legislation into law. but if he decides to veto it, i hope he does it quickly so we can just as quickly vote to override that veto. there's no reason why we need to make these families wait any longer.

it's worth noting that the middle east isn't the only region of the country that's more unstable since president obama took office. just over the weekend it was reported that north korea completed yet another nuclear test. its fifth. according to reports the warhead detonated was about twice as large as it was at the beginning of the year, in january. president obama called the test a threat, and that's about all all, giving lip service to two of our strongest allies: japan and south korea, but with no visible or tangible commitment to do anything about it. he said our commitment to them was unshakeable. and so it is. but you certainly couldn't tell that by the reaction to this fifth nuclear test by north korea. but just like our partners in the middle east, not to mention europe, these two east asian

allies don't have reason to put much faith in the obama doctrine, whatever it is, because unfortunately our timidity in supporting our friends and allies, all that does is it emboldens our adversaries while causing our friends and allies to wonder whether we will keep our commitments to them. well, north korea has accelerated its missile testing. it conducted close to two dozen tests already this year and eventually, of course, the concern is they'll be able to mount nuclear warheads on to missiles that could not only hit our allies in the region but also the mainland united states at some point. and even as enemies of america attempt to grow their arsenal weapons of mass destruction, this administration is reportedly considering handing a

gift to north korea and other rogue regimes by adopting a no-first use policy on nuclear weapons. why in the world would you tell your adversaries beforehand what your intentions would be? this weakens, of course, the effectiveness of our own nuclear deterrent in furtherance of a fantasy goal of a world without nuclear weapons. i wish that it could be true, but it is a fantasy. but the loss of deterrence caused by an announcement like that is indeed, creates an even more frightening and dangerous world. throughout his time in the white house, president obama has done next to nothing to counter the threat posed by north korea, and that's dangerous. president obama has just a few more months left in the oval office.

at this point it would be unrealistic to hope he uses the time to permit -- to promote a solid foreign policy and national security agenda that reflects the best interests of the american people. instead we can only hope that he does no further harm to our national security interests. mr. president, i yield the floor. i have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have been approved by the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. a senator: mr. president? a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mrs. ernst: mr. president, i ask permission to speak as if in morning business for up to ten

minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. ernst: thank you, mr. president. this past weekend we bowed our heads in remembrance of the nearly 3,000 lives we lost on september 11, 2001. the largest attack on u.s. soil since pearl harbor changed our lives drastically, but it did not impact america as our enemy had hoped. we did not falter. we bonded together. we fought back. from places like sub-saharan africa, afghanistan and the philippines, u.s. troops operating under operating enduring freedom showed those responsible for 9/11 the true power of the united states of america. the plan to fight against al qaeda and its hosts was as clear as its name: global war on

terrorism. through a strong american leadership, support from our allies and working alongside local forces, the united states embedded itself in places extremism spread to deny terrorism a safe haven. from combat operations in afghanistan to advising missions in the caribbean, there has long been a global and comprehensive plan for our response to 9/11. since then the global fight on terrorism has continued to become narrower under our current administration, despite the continued threat of al qaeda and the clear expansion of isis. without clear leadership, we are failing to stop the spread of terrorism. ignoring over a decade of lessons forged on the

battlefield, this administration has not only failed to put together a comprehensive plan to fight islamic extremism in the middle east, but they have also dismantled the global effort and allowed groups to come back stronger in other regions of the world. this is especially true in southeast asia, a nearly forgotten safe haven for terrorists determined to cause harm. southeast asia was used for the initial planning of the horrific attack carried out by al qaeda that we all bowed our heads in in remembrance for this past weekend. in 1994, khalid sheik mohammed used the philippines as a safe haven to target the united states. today isis appears to be doing the very same.

the warning signs in southeast asia are all too familiar to the ones we witnessed over a decade ago with al qaeda in that region they used its southeast asia cells to organize and finance its global network. this included planning and financing for 9/11 and the safe harbor of al qaeda operative ramzi yousef who was convicted for organizing the 1993 world trade center bombing. because of this, following the september 11 attacks, u.s. special forces were deployed to southern philippines in support of operation enduring freedom. with an annual cost of less than new f-35, the joint special operations task force in the

philippines partnered with local forces and trained, advised, and assisted our allies in the fight against al qaeda-linked groups. up until the mission was officially ended under this administration, operations and efforts to assist philippine forces in dismantling terror networks were hailed as a success. the threat of terrorism from extremist groups in the philippines, like abu sayef were largely reduced but the success from u.s. support in the region has been short lived. just as we are witnessing throughout the globe, previously weak or splintered terrorist networks in the southeast asia, they're banding together beneath the flag of isis. yet the administration's plans to defeat isis have not

changed, and a comprehensive global strategy still fails to be defined. we cannot allow southeast asia to once again become a safe haven to target america. while it is easy to dismiss the terrorist groups in the region as mere criminal gangs and disorganized rebels, the philippines lost 44 of its special police in a single battle against groups now linked to isis in southeast asia last year. in april, 18 philippine soldiers were killed in a fight quickly claimed by isis. then in june, isis released a call for other fighters to join them after beheading a canadian

hostage. the video proudly displaying the black flag of isis states "if you can't get to syria, join the mujahedin in the philippines. " it is truly alarming. our efforts to counter isis in asia can assist our broward -- broader goals in countering china and dealing with an unstable north korea. just before president obama traveled on his final trip to asia this month, i sent a letter urging him to discuss efforts for a new u.s. counterterrorism strategy in the region, specifically i asked president obama to consider leveraging the five new bases recently announced for u.s. personnel in the philippines to counter the rise of isis and to utilize our freedom of navigation patrols in the south china sea to provide support

capabilities. like many of our efforts under operation enduring freedom, this should be a fight with the support of our allies. the use of u.s. special forces helping train the filipino forces has a successful track record in the region. but it needs to be real support and real training. a commitment with american leadership, or else it will never have the full support of our allies in southeast asia. they have witnessed our failure to appropriately support allies in the middle east like the kurdish peshmerga. we must correct this building perception of poor american leadership and weak support on the battlefield. we cannot allow isis to use

southeast asia as al qaeda did to plan their next attack on u.s. soil. shortly after i sent my letter to president obama urging him to develop a strategy in southeast asia, isis claimed another attack, one that took the lives of ten filipino civilians. we cannot continue to down play or ignore this part of the world when it comes to the threat of terrorism. i stand here today to renew my call for this administration to develop a comprehensive strategy to destroy the enemies abroad that wish to do america harm. , and those that provide them with a safe haven. as the safe havens al qaeda used

15 years ago to target our homeland turned to staging grounds for isis, the need to support our allies and address this issue is far too clear. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president. this week marks a sad milestone for the u.s. senate, a milestone of inaction, of obstruction and of failure. this week marks six months since president obama nominated judge merrick garland to