mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of s. 1982, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 301, s. 1982, a bill to improve the provision of medical services and benefits to veterans and for other purposes. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the time until 2:00 p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. mr. merkley: thank you very much, mr. president. i'm -- i am thrilled that we are here at this moment debating benefits for our veterans. our veterans have stood up for america, fighting for us overseas. when they come home, weentsdz to be -- we need to be standing up for them. over time, we've come to recognize that there are a number of shortfalls in the way we address our benefits for veterans that need to be improved, and that's what this bill is all about. and so yesterd

gillibrand, whitehouse, schatz, boxer, casey, carper, warren, murray, begich, brown, merkley, king, schumer, nelson, coons. mr. reid: i have a motion to commit s. 1845 with instructions. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to commit the bill to the committee on finance with instructions to report back being amendment number 2716. mr. reid: on this, mr. president, i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. mr. reid: i have an amendment to the instructions at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes an amendment number 2717 to the instructions of the motion to commit. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays, mr. president. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have a second-degree amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid proposes amendment numbered 2718 to amendment numbered

senator merkley, senator murray, senator reed, senator shaheen, senator whitehouse, senator rockefeller, senator tester, and senator can' cantwell. i thank all of them for their strong support. mr. president, let me take a few minutes to touch on -- just touch on -- some of the areas that this bill -- this comprehensive bill covers. and as i return to the floor in the coming days, i will go into greater length about each of these provisions, because each of these provisions, unto themselves, is enormously important in terms of the needs of of our veterans. as i mentioned earlier, and consistent with what's on the bill right now, the pryor bill, the bipartisan budget act of 20 -- the bill -- our comprehensive veterans bill will restore the cuts made in the bipartisan budget act of 2013 to military retirees. so in our bill, we address that issue. this comprehensive veterans legislation deals with another issue -- not necessarily a sexy issue -- buissue, but one that a large number of veterans all over america. that is, it will allow v.a. to enter into 27 major medical leases in 18 states and puerto rico. for a variety of reasons too complicated to get into right now, we have cbuc