carper: mr. president, good afternoon. i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: thank you. thanks, mr. president, mr. president, i would also ask unanimous consent that following people: marion gibson, debra prescott, eric hanson and tim mccroson, detailees to the governmental affairs committee be granted privileges to the floor for the remainder of the second session of the 114th congress. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: thank you, mr. president. we have been on the floor many afternoons, late afternoons. everybody else is packed up and heading for home, you have to listen to me wax i hope eloquently talking about some of the very good people who work at the department of homeland security. and when you look at people who do important work for our country, there is a lot of valuable agencies, a lot of valuable, very valuable people, hardworking people, but some of the best and brightist are -- brightest are folks who work at

>> thank you very much senator carper. it is the practice of taking the names and whatever information is available about an individual and publishing the name and that information and identifying that individual as a potential target of terrorism. so isil and other terrorist organizations will essentially take for example information about military personnel that they pick off a web site and they will publish it and they will identify those individuals as potential targets. >> one last question for you all. with respect to soft targets, protecting soft targets how would we increase secure areas of an airport and in a way that does not further encumbered the waiting times for air travelers? can you give us a step or two good dhs has taken towards a goal please? >> soft targets have been an area of our focus for quite some time. the airport specifically even before brussels as a matter fact i was at the los angeles international airport a little over a month ago and met with the leaders of airport security there to talk abo

senator carper. >> mr. chairman, i didn't plan to address tsa -- came back in through san francisco and connected yesterday morning and landed at dulles. what i witnessed in travel there earlier in the month of may and april, most of the folks on this committee have tsa pre-check and that's how we get through airport. time and again i would quickly through tsa pre-checks. long lines of people were waiting to go. we talked to admiral neffenger a lot in the last two weeks. one of the things that got to do as a collective responsibility. we got to get more people in the numbers you just cited up to 60,000 per week. we would triple that. we want to continue to do that. tsa used to have a program. they have bio. i want to get the message out again. could be good tv commercial. people waiting for 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes to get the regular checks and people zipping back pre-check to understand. they've got a tough job. they've got all kinds of people to get through the security and go someplace. by the same token,

. >> reporter: caroline and cole carper have been through more than your typical siblings. >> i can't imagine it being any different than the two of them together going through thi they've had to learn braille together, they've had canes together, they've gone to school for the blind together. >> reporter: early in life they were diagnosed with a rare genetic retinal disease, lca, lieber congenital aberosis. >> the doctor said, there's nothing. there's no medical treatments at this time. >> reporter: caroline and cole were expected eventually to go blind. but their parents found an experimental treatment. two years ago the kids enrolled together in a clinical trial. it was the spark therapeutics, a young biotech company formed out of research from the children's hospital of philadelphia. >> the idea is that we are taking a cracked functional copy of a gene and adding it back into the cells that have dysfunctional or missing copy of that gene or blueprint. >> reporter: it's called gene therapy. it's relatively uncharted territory in medicine. the technology uses a modified virus to del

tactic is senator carper's situation of this committee to swear and witnesses so you with with -- ifyou will both rise and raise your right hand raise your right hand. you swear the testimony will give up for the study will be the truth all truth the truth altered the nothing but the truth so help you god? you may be seated our first witness is mr. alejandro mayorkas. mr. mayorkas said deputy secretary of the department department, to get up your spicer distractor icy citizenship and immigration services or uscis at dhs. a lot of acronyms in this business. he's a parking lot from the youngest a turn to serve the nation when he was senate confirmed that 1998 as the u.s. attorney for the central district of california. in that capacity he served as the vice chair of the attorney general's advisory subcommittee on civil rights is a member of the subcommittee on ethics in government. mr. mayorkas. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. chairman johnson, ranking member carper and distinguished members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss priorities

when i took over as chairman of this committee, working with senator carper -- >> it was a bloodless coup. >> is looking good having traveled to vietnam and just getting back yesterday. a good nights sleep. appreciate that. one of the first things we do is develop the mission statement to enhance the economic national security of america. the homeland security said that the committee established for basic priorities. order security. we feel 18 hearings on some aspect of our unsecure border. cybersecurity. we passed the federal cybersecurity enhancement act of a good measure. protecting our critical interest lecture them are particularly terror attack on a cyberattack from emp mgm v. finally, what can we do as a nation to protect our homeland against islamic terrorists another violent extremists. the hearing is about the last priority, addressing islamic terror and trying to secure our homeland and keep it safe. not an easy task. every last one of these hearings goal is primarily to layout of reality as best we can so that we can identify, find the problem and it happened so we can wo

morning about 1.5 miles from her home crossing 7th and newton and she was struck by two men in a stolen carper- car, pursued by the police. and she later died at the medical center. >> you want to take your life and not think nothing about it? leave and run? i can't imagine that, what does that -- how insane and inhumane of a person can you be. >> in the household, a sea of cards from relatives and friends and decorations for an upcoming wedding, trying to move beyond the pain. >> she was preparing for my wedding in four months and will not be here to see me walk down the aisle and i am in shock still. i am in pain. >> witnesses on the scene, but so far no one came forward to identify the two men still being sought. >> if anybody knows any information, you know what i am saying, like please give us some closure because we're not going to ever get her back. >> a spokesman for the prosecutor's office says they are dedicating resources to find out who the driver is and they are working diligently so find answers for the family. dann cuellar channel 6 "action news." >> thank you. >>> a philadelphi

>> first of all, on tpp angela, i haven't been around as long as senators carper or second kerry but i spent enough time in the senate to know that every trade deal is painful. because folks are always seeing if they can get a better deal. especially if you have multiple parties involved. in an election year you can anticipate that folks will try to score political points off of it. but i remain confident we will get it done. the reason i am is because it is good for the country. good for america. good for the region. good for the world. i know i have sold this to you before. but let me reiterate. this is the fastest-growing part of the world. this represents an enormous market for the united states. most countries here already sell their stuff to the united states and we have relatively low tariffs. in other words we put relatively low taxes on goods that are coming in to the united states. in contrast tariffs are significantly higher for u.s. goods being sold here. so a deal that gets rid of 18,000 taxes on u.s. goods into the fastest-growing markets in the world, that is a good de

>> so first of all, on tpp, angela, i haven't been around as long as senators carper or secretary kerry, but i've spent enough time in the senate to know that every trade deal is painful because folks are always seeing if they can get an even better deal. and especially when you have multiple parties involved, folks are going to be scrutinizing it. they're going to be debating it. and in an election year, you can anticipate that some folks are going to try to score political points off it. having said that, i remain confident we're going to get it done, and the reason i'm confident is because it's the right thing to do. it's good for the country. it's good for america. it's good for the region. it's good for the world. and i know i've sold this to you before, but let me reiterate. this is the fastest-growing part of the world. this represents an enormous market for the united states. most countries here already sell their stuff to the united states, and we have relatively low tariffs. in other words, we put relatively low taxes on goods that are coming into the united states. in contras

carper: thank you. mr. president, i rise today in support of emergency supplemental funding for federal efforts to combat the impending threat of the zika virus. reports of the spread of this virus are concerning. they're not just for public -- actually they're troubling. they're not just for public health officials but for many americans who are reading about it in the paper and seeing coverage on the news almost by the hour. families are reconsidering vacations they had planned, especially to more tropical locations. as we approach the mosquito season, people are understandably worried about how this outbreak will affect them and their families, not just to go on a vacation and go camping but literally go outside and how to -- have a cookout and eat out on the porch. we're going to need to continue working to fully understand and combat the health risks that are posed by zika. and just like with our response to ebola, our response to zika must be an all hands on deck effort. in february, president obama s

democratic senator tom carper was also there to help honor newark residents steve lonzo.whose idea spurred the naming of the uss delaware. there was an empty chair in remembrance of former state attorney general and veteran beau biden. >> people in avalon took tomorrow to remember the men and women who pay with the ultimate sacrifice. rainy weather forced organizers to move the ceremony indoors. carrying flags and wearing patriotic colors crowds gathered at the community hall at 9 o'clock. borough leaders along with representatives from american legion post 331 led the program honoring those local heroes. >> meteorologist adam joseph joining us now and good to see those programs still go on because it is such an important day. >> it really is. >> and they had to move inside for many people. >> yes, forl for many especially southern new jersey and delaware. it's been rather humid. as we take a look region by region, this will really tell the story. it is dry, it is cloudy but it is very muggy here in center city. 78 degrees with that dewpoint pretty high at 66 with that so

blanche lincoln, tom carper, thadcochran. i know ruby, i know her family quite well. her husband worked on the senate floor for many years. he was instrumental to majority leader george mitchell, tom daschle, me. no one knows the rules of the senate better than marty paone. he now works for president obama in the legislative affairs office. he is a very special person and i have such admiration for him. when their children were in high school, we would often talk about our children, how they laid ball -- played ball, how they did well, how they didn't do so well the night before. that's what our conversations were about. we didn't talk a lot of senate business unless we had to. i'm sorry to say we had to lots of times. marty helped me so many times through very difficult situations here on the floor. so to say that i'll miss ruby is an understatement. i would be able to come to ruby and say how's marty, how is he doing? but throughout my time in the senate, she's always been here with a smile and a kind word. she's as much a part of this place anyone who has ever serv

they have made some very good moves and carper it governance reform. -- in corporate governance reform have not done too much in the labor reform area and there are a few other areas, particularly energy policy with a need to focus more on technology. after the election this summer, the upper house election, that is the time to get back and agenda. the feldman, when you speak to morgan stanley clients worldwide in london and europe, how do you respond to the idea is europe becoming japan? i am fascinated by the view from tokyo of the idea that everybody else is becoming like japan. mean whenat it would we say becoming like japan, do we mean a country that will have 20 years of deflation because of troubles? i think there are some parallels but some differences. the government structure of japan is a single country so when a leader comes in and says we have to do something, it is easy to get behind him and do things. europe is very different, or of a collegial group of countries that has difficulty coming up with a single project. if europe wants to do fiscal policy, who do they call? j

kearlg, senator manchin, senator tom coburn, my friend from oklahoma, senator alexander, senator tom carper, senator dick durbin, and senator tom harkin. we had a lot of meetings, we had a lot of discussions, we had a lot of negotiations, and ultimately worked together to determine a fair and equitable way to set the rate for student loans from the federal government based upon the federal government's own cost of borrowing money and combine the best ideas from both plans. we got the strong support of the president who encouraged the democratic members of our group to join in these negotiations and we reached a consensus. the bipartisan student loan certainty act which passed this body with something like 80 votes, and that has made a real difference for our students. here are some numbers: 50 billion, 5 billion, 277 billion. those are the answers. what are the questions? the first is $50 billion is the amount of money that students will save over the next ten years based upon the difference of what the interest rate would have been and what it's going to be. this says 3.8%. it is lower. it

colleague from the other side, dennis moore of kansas, in a similar bipartisan fashion, senator tom carper from quare and senator tom coburn from oklahoma introduced companion legislation in the senate. several years ago, the office of management and budget had found 21,000 federal properties that the federal government no longer wanted or needed worth at that ime $18 billion and $9 billion were real property assets that the federal government wanted to dispose of. the then-office of management and budget director wrote a letter endorsing what these bills are attempting to do here tonight he said to reach this objective, i believe we must improve and streamline the federal process, the federal agencies face in disposing of real property assets. some extremists never want the government to sell any property and government at all levels cants to acquire more and more land every year. but we keep shrinking the tax base, mr. speaker, if the time that schools and policemen and all these other government employees want and need more funding. this legislation as we've worked on this through the t

senator carper. >> thanks, mr. chair. i just want to return to the last part of the conversation. i'm going to go back to what -- i quoted peter just a moment, i will ask my staff to find the quote for me. we have been down to the border in central america and as we know the reason why those people, kids, families are coming up here is because dangerous and lack of hope opportunity and the chairman put a finger on the root cause and that's demand for drugs. we seend money and guns down to honduras, guatemala and el salvador and the gangs use it to make life miserable for them. thank you. make life miserable for folks. if we had kids we probably wanted to come up here as well. the border is a needle in the hay stack problem. but we also need to make the a sack a lot smaller and part of is through partnership with the three central american countries and version of colombia, partnership that they've established and that we are helping to support. i want to go back to -- i told the chairman i thought a few minutes ago asked a number of important questions. one of was to rank the orde