ms. hirono: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president i rise today to speak against the bill to defund planned parenthood. i see this bill and others like it as nothing less than an assault on women's health. what else can you call it when defunding planned parenthood will result in 2.7 million women in this country -- that's more than twice the population of the state of hawaii -- not getting the cervical cancer screenings, the mammograms, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and other health care that they need? for over 100 years, planned parenthood has been a leader in improving the health and well-being of women throughout the united states. for many women especially low-income women survivors of domestic and sexual assault young women and others, planned parenthood health centers are their primary their primary health care provider, who they go to for life-saving cancer screenings, birth control disease testing and other essential health care services. one out of five women in this country will pass through a plann

ms. hirono: thank you.o know that you share my view that the rebalance of the asia-pacific is more than just rhetoric. the navy's intentions, for example, are to place 60% of its ships in this area of responsibility. what do you see as the major components of our rebalance strategy? mr. milley: i think that right now, as i mentioned earlier, two of that list of threats that were asked to me included both china and north korea. so the united states army plays a key role. eight of the 10 largest armies in the world are in the pacific. clearly navy and air force and marines are fundamental to success to u.s. national security in the pacific. but the army is too. and we currently have forward deployed forces in keystone x.l. that have significantly -- korea that made a significant contribution to keeping peace since the end of the korean war. we also have forces in alaska, at fort lewis, joint base lewis mccord in washington state and, most importantly, in the state of hawaii. so there's a considerable amount o

ms. hirono: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. hirono: mr. president i rise today to discuss the every child achieves act s. 1177, which replaces the education law better known as no child left behind. i wanted to thank help committee chairman lamar alexander and ranking member patty murray for their hard work on today's bipartisan compromise bill. today's every child achieves act isn't perfect but it makes good progress. for years, i have heard from hawaii's teachers, educators parents, administrators that no child left behind or nclb is broken. it's time to leave nclb behind. i have been working to fix this broken law first as a member of the u.s. house of representatives committee on education and labor committee in 2007 and now as a senator. i also began to work on education reform when i was lieutenant governor of the state of hawaii. let me start with one of

ms. hirono: i ask my colleagues to support the hirono-heller amendment 2109. the current aapi, or the american asian pacific islander category highlights huge achievement gaps between subgroups, i.e. filipino, japanese, et cetera. with better subgroup data, teachers policy-makers and community organizations will know where they can target support to the students who need the help most. our amendment only applies to districts with over 1,000 aapi students. we're not talking about 1,000 students but 1,000 aapi students which intervenes fewer than 3% of school districts nationwide would be affected. that's about 400 out of over 16,000 school districts. in fact, currently delaware, maine, mississippi montana, new hampshire, north dakota, south dakota vermont, west virginia and wyoming have no districts that would be affected. our amendment is endorsed by over 100 groups including teachers principals, school choice and charter school groups not to mention a coalition of aapi, latino, african-american women and disability rights groups. this is not an onerous requir

fischer cotton, rounds, graham, reed of rhode island, nelson manchin gillibrand, donnelly hirono and kaine. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president i rise today to talk about the important bill before us today the every child achieves act which reauthorized the elementary and secondary education act and fixes no child left behind. i also rise today to talk about the reauthorization of the export-import bank, which is also a very important matter for our country. i want to thank senators alexander and murray for their great leadership in crafting a bipartisan bill that makes critical updates to no child left behind which will help ensure that all students receive a quality education. this very important and they have worked together from the very beginning on the bill, and i think the results show how important it is. i want to talk today about three amendments in this bill, one of them that i have with the presiding officer about stem education. i think we all know that in today's global economy education is key to our econo