heinrich: now, the senator from florida also, mr. president, brought up another issue that i think is worth exploring, and it's my understanding that he was recently briefed on the relationship that existed between these drug cartels and the entities that are actually engaging in human trafficking and moving people through central america, through mexico, and to u.s. border. can you tell us a little bit about the nature of that relationship. mr. nelson: the senator is correct on how all of these things are interlocked. you can imagine that when drugs come in of sufficient quantities that are worth so much, how that is a corrupting influence on any kind of law and order. and, thus, the systems of governments, even though -- and i just met -- senator kaine and i both met with the president of honduras. he's trying as hard as he can. he's got a bounty on his head by these drug lords because he is opposing them. the judicial system is corrupted. the local police are corrupted. okay, when that happens, then you can imagine, when there are

heinrich: mr. president, when congress unanimously passed the bipartisan trafficking victims protection act back in 2008 to strengthen federal trafficking laws and ensure unaccompanied and undocumented children receive humane treatment, it was welcomed by the bush administration as a prior priority issue in preventing the trafficking of persons around the world. at the time, southern baptist ethics commission president richard lamb said it shows a broad coalition all the way from the left to the right and in between when it comes to significant human rights issues" -- unquote. the law itself was named for william wilberforce an evangelical christian who led the effort in britain's parliament to end the slave trade-trade in britain in the 19th century. now, six years later, too many of my republican colleagues are calling to roll back the very protections that just a few years ago were rightfully lauded as a tremendous victory for human rights. many of us believe that the current central american re

heinrich: mr. president, for the next hour, a number of us from the democratic caucus will be talking about the central american refugee crisis, and we are lucky to be joined by senator mikulski, the chairwoman of the senate appropriation committee, to get us started today. so i look forward very much to hearing what she has to say. and then you will be hearing from me in a little bit. ms. mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i urge today -- i rise today to talk about really an urgent crisis at our border in which over 250 children a week are coming from central america, fleeing horrific gang violence, horrific gang violence to seek refuge and asylum in the united states of america. this is being equaled a crisis at the border. a border crisis, but the crisis actually begins in central america where brutal, violent gangs based on organized crime are either trying to recruit the boys into organized crime, drug smuggling

reid, hagan, leahy, kaine, king, carper, nelson, tester, murray, mccaskill, begich, whitehouse, heinrich, stabenow, harkin, udall of new mexico and donnelly. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to calendar number 438, s. 2244. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: motion to proceed to the consideration of s. 2244, bill to extend the termination date of the terrorism insurance program, and so forth and for other purposes. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i want the record to reflect how much i appreciate the hard work of the senator from north carolina, senator hagan, working on this bipartisan bill. she did it with the ranking member of the energy and natural resources committee, senator murkowski, and they have done good work coming up with this bill. but, mr. president, the senator from alaska spoke this morning about her desire for consideration of amendments. typical,

requests for the sterilizations came out of one doctor's office the office of dr james hi rick dr heinrich told the center for investigative reporting that the money spent sterilizing inmate was a minute. compared to what you save in welfare paying for these are unwanted children in other words these sterilizations sound pretty targeted and that's what's not being discussed in this case everyone is focusing on how screwed up our prison systems are and they are very screwed up but this story goes beyond our prison problems into the land of eugenics when you've got people being coerced into sterilization by doctors who say they're doing it to save money on welfare that's eugenics regulated breeding and population control we've seen eugenics before states used to have eugenics boards that sterilized people they deemed fit for procreation north carolina is in the process right now of compensating victims of their eugenics board which was shuttered in the one nine hundred seventy s. people like to think such social abominations as eugenics are a thing of the past but now here we see evidence of

the bulls also agreed to bring back kirk heinrich. big league debut, tied in the one at the gates and garcia has a bouncer under the glove. the gum comes around the lead to-one. bottom of the inning, and man is on the go to the opposite field, it to run home run. the indians take the lead and that's the final period the cubs wrap up their home stand in a throwback uniform from 1969. already 4-0. johnson a straightaway to center third home run in 24 hours. 7-04 atlanta. the debut of the rookie yesterday his first big league home run zero to pitch. the cubs rallied 3 the eighth but the braves hold on for the win 10-7. world cup final, the host nation brazil fought it would be playing. instead it was argentina and germany. scoreless for 113 minutes, the only goal of the match germany leaves argentina and the stark dejected. the win ones thathey it's expected to be a busy week on wall street as many of the big banks, retailers and tech giants are scheduled to release their earnings. friday - markets closed on the positive side across the

martin heinrich talked to the caucus today. he is, border state senator. he said he can say without any equivocation that the border is secure. >> wow. reid's comments, mystifying, syndicated columnist charles krauthamer. >> when you get harry reid saying border is secure. >> definitely. >> you have to wonder whether he is on medication or not. that is so detached from reality. >> then there is this. the pope, pope francis is weighing in on what our country is doing with its democracy, if you can believe it on this issue. the pontiff is calling for urgent intervention to protect tens of thousands of children who cross the border themselves. the pope is weighing in. tucker? >> well, i'm as an after individual protestant i will take a pass on pope thing. if he is weighing in on humanitarian crisis, good for him. i think that his role. >> we're supposed to be beacon for around the world. >> we are. democrats are not even preending anymore. they want more people in the country, more low-wage workers. it helps their donors who are rich. it helps their donors, h

i want to see my senators from new mexico, heinrich and udall, as well as ron wyden of oregon have been very outspoken. they've been, basically, all but jumping up and down for the last two years going attention to what is going on. so this is just my -- i don't mean to be glib, but, you know, with all this collect it all mentality, i just want to know where those nigerian schoolgirls are, right? come on. and i wallet, i'd really like a definitive answer on that terrible chemical weapons attack in august, last august in syria. was it rebel, was it government? you know, i'd like it -- if we're going to do that, then i'd like some real answers. and i'll let those other two questions are made for david. >> um, no, just briefly on the collect all the hay question, we do now awe peer to have -- appear to have senate reform proposals that they're going to pass, both houses, and that the president will sign into law which will prevent the government from holding the metadata itself. the communications companies will hold it for a limited period of time. the number of jumps, if you query that d

in heinrich over's navy the hard work might find praise or a promotion. on the campaign trail working harder than your opponent an hour earlier every morning or shakinwereshaking more hands woo victory. once in office the result to read every piece of legislation and attention to the minutia of negotiations would ensure success and re- election. carter's term in the white house disrupted that calculus. he faced intractable odds as president, the nation's chronic energy dependence, soaring interest rates and islamic revolution in iran. the political opposition from within his own party that simply wouldn't yield to the hard work or longer hours. carter's electoral loss in 1980 represented not only the end of his political career but also the repudiation of the notion that if he just worked harder and longer his efforts would be reworded. how could the ban debate could they not recognize he was doing everything humanly possible working as hard as he could to solve these problems? after absorbing the defeat and returning to planes, he reaffirmed his commitme

heinrich: i appreciate the majority leader scheduling this vote to confirm mr.rman bay to be a member of the federal energy regulatory commission. ferc is one of the letters known but perhaps one of the most important independent agencies in the federal government. it has jurisdiction over interstate transmission of electricity, oil, and natural gas, as well as licensing of hydroelectric power. i believe mr. bay will be an outstanding member of the federal energy regulatory commission, and i urge all of my colleagues to support his nomination today. since 2009, mr. bay has been the director of the office of enforcement at ferc, where he has gained extensive experience in the regulation of energy markets. the office of enforcement is responsible for market oversight and surveillance and for implementing the anti-manipulation authority that congress enacted in the energy policy act of 2005. this authority provided for new tools to combat the type of market manipulation that produced the devastating power crisis a decade ago across the west. under mr. bay's leaders

johanns, on the committee, and noncommittee members hirono, king, frank in, baldwin, begich, landrieu, heinrich and udall. we seem to be making progress in that regard. there's widespread recording that the white house is considering a list of candidates for the federal reserve with community banking experience, but this specific mandate, just one member, very modest mandate, would help ensure that that happens and would help ensure that that regularly happens into the future, to reverse this trend, to get more balance on the federal reserve board. and this is very important in the context of the too-big-to-fail debate. too-big-to-fail helped lead to the crisis several years ago in the banking industry. it helped lead to the massive bailouts of mega institutions. and unfortunately, i am one who believes -- and there are many, many others -- that too-big-to-fail is alive and well today. that in some ways dodd-frank institutionalized too-big-to-fail. it did not end too-big-to-fail in any way. we need to do a number of things to even the playing field, to make it fair for smaller institutions, com

we have a provision that we've included from senator heinrich, the land reauthorization. it's not just on the access side. but it is also focused on the conservation side as well. so very strong support not only within this body but also within sports organizations all over the country, some 42 different organizations have come together to sign a letter in support of advancing this measure through the senate. we spend a lot of time here on the senate floor talking about, well, we mitt be aibl might be o advance something here in the senate but we don't know how it will fare on the house side. some legislation sponsored by the congresswoman from ohio passed the house on february 5 of this year by over 100-vote margin. so, clearly, the support is not only bipartisan, it's bicameral. so what we have done working together with senator layin hagd her good staff, we've worked hard to coordinate these efforts that the house and senate bills are closely aligned so that when we move something out of here, we don't have to guess as to what might happen; we know that we're going to

heller, senator franken, senator cruz, senator blumenthal, senator tom udall, senator coons and heinrich, markey, klobuchar and whitehouse who have joined on this. this is not a partisan bill. this is not a democratic republican bill. this is a good bill that protects america. i want to note in particular the contributions over many years of senators wyden and mark udall. they worked tirelessly. we cannot let this opportunity go by. this is a debate about americans' fundamental relationship with their government, about whether our government should have the power to create massive databases of information about its citizens or whether we are in control of our own government, not the other way around. i think we have to, i believe we have to impose stronger limits on government surveillance powers. i'm confident that most americans agree with me. i will just close with one quick story that i have used before. about the only thing i have actually saved from a newspaper written about me, i liked it so much i framed it. it's -- as the distinguished presiding officer knows, i live on a dirt r

he told reporters after the senate democrats weekly policy lunch, quote, senator martin heinrich, democrat from new mexico, talked to the caucus today, he's a border state senator. he said he can say without any equivocation the border is secure. well, it's not. and anybody who will be fair and impartial and the least semblance of objectivity who has eyes to see and ears to hear will go to the border as i have a number of times now and find the border is not secure. that's how you have 550,000 people that this president gives mnesty to. -- byhis article from the robert romano, last tuesday, the national council of lara sa issued comments in favor -- of la raza issued comments in favor of regulation. under the regulation, in october the obama administration will be empowered to condition eligibility for community development block grants on redrawing zoning maps to create evenly distributed neighborhoods based on racial composition and ncome. mr. speaker, this is exactly what i'm talking about, the bible warns against wise people throughout time have warned against, if you want to have peac