merkley: thank you mr. president. i rise tonight to urge congress to quit playing political games with our national security. it's time to have a clean homeland security funding bill here on the floor of the senate to be debated. now, we are only days away from a potential shutdown of the homeland security department and it's very clear that the reason why is that members of the house here on capitol hill have decided they want to make a clear statement about certain policy statements. they want to have a policy rider that says that young children who came to this country and know no other country need to be prioritized for deportation. well i happen to think that's just wrong. but if members of this body want to put that into a bill and want to put that on the floor of the house want to put it on the floor of the senate, i'm quite ready to have that debate. yet another policy rider says that the president must no longer prioritize the deportation of those with criminal backgrounds. now, i happen to think we should pr

a drone has to weigh less than 55 pounds used come merkley. fly up to 500 feet in altitude.is pretty high. the washington monument for perspective is 554 feet tall or 555 depending on latest measurement. they have to remain in eyesight of user. that brings up new questions does that mean line of sight or video surveilance. from a commercial perspective that create as new limitations. share with you something we just got from fox news. this is amazon's latest statement. the faa needs to begin and ex-pa dish shouldly complete the formal process to address the needs of our business and ultimately our customers. they would love to have a new business to deliver your packages by drone which i think would be somewhat compelling. hearing from lawmakers on capitol hill from north dakota for example. the today's proposed regulations are a start but they have a ways to go before we'll be able to apply this new and innovative technology in the realm of commerce. jenna, i think overarching message here as they continue to unpack this over the next several months even with the comments p

merkley: thank you mr. president.from ohio and pennsylvania and remarks yet to be made by my colleague from rhode island. we're here on the floor together to raise fundamental issues that should be part of the discussion about a proposed trade deal or a fast-track to a trade deal. now, i love the concept of trade trade. the idea that our particular economy, based on our natural resources and based on our skills do certain things very, very well and we would like to be able to take and sell those products to the world and that other nations do other things very well and we can benefit by their expertise and import those products. that's a win-win on a level playing field between nations that have roughly the same structure of environmental laws roughly the same structure of labor laws, roughly the same level of wages. that's a win-win for both nations or multiple nations involved in an agreement. and, indeed, our trade agreements after world war ii were very much in that line as we expanded to the economies of europe w

merkley: thank you. i rise today to urge this body for our colleagues toly co- together quickly to passes a -- to come together quickly to pass a homeland security bill. we are just now 16 days away from a homeland security shutdown. the clock is ticking. and a shutdown would be wholly unnecessary and quite frankly completely dangerous. we know that we don't lack for security threats. it was less than two years ago that terrorists attacked the boston marathon. it was just weeks ago when we witnessed a horrific series of terror attacks on our friends in paris. and we know that the brutal destabilizing force known as islamic state or isil is determined to hurt our nation and our citizens. the world is a dangerous place. so at a time like this, we should be working together on a bipartisan basis to fund and strengthen homeland security. but instead, we are facing insecurity instability uncertainty because some want to hold the funding for the department of homeland security hostage, hostage to a partisan po

ing i was speaking with senator franken, senator whitehouse, senator merkley heitkamp and tester, all of them. i think they all genuinely believe they may actually be able to get more done under leader mcconnell than they got done under senator reid over the last couple of years. and i believe that to be true. and i think that that serves as basis for us working together, moving things along. there's a lot of things we do here you can try and make partisan if you want to, but you could probably attenuate the policy to where you can get things done. maybe not as much as i want done certainly not as much as the minority does, but progress. >> touch on a couple of the issues where you think there's some potential to build some momentum both with your colleagues across the caucus and also with the administration. >> you know, i think if you go down -- my bias really is towards regulatory reform. we talk about tax reform a number of other things that we want to do, but i think if we really go back and examine some of the problems that we have with regulatory overreach and really expose som

he tweets at that bipartisan lunch, reid is sitting next to sell by merkley and rubio. on the house side of things tweeting boehner meets with ka nes et speaker without pelosi and comes off the ambassadors on the hill doing damage control with the democrats. jennifer from the huffington post tweets pelosi is meeting with the israeli speaker 2 p.m. today. and there's news from the white house too. staffing changes down there and that's from julie who tweets, the last of obama's originals is heading out of the white house in late february early march. ashton carter served in the obama administration already from 201 to 2013. he would be the fourth secretary of defense if approved by the senate. we spoke to a capitol hill reporter earlier for more details on the nominee and today's hearing. >> he's covering the ashton carter hearing with his experience in two administrations in the defense department. how is ashton carter viewed on capitol hill? >> he's pretty widely respected. a pretty deeper on defense issues. senator mccain and a lot of the other members of the armed se

we have republican senators cornyn moran and gardner and democratic senators shaheen merkley and blumenthal. i hope and expect that we'll have a lot of additional senators of both political parties who will join us in this effort. the house version of this bill has 228 additional cosponsors, a very critical majority. by working together as a democrat from vermont and a republican from utah, we hope that all senators will join with us to pass this meaningful bipartisan legislation that would benefit all americans. congress should pass ecpa reform this year and president obama should sign these important privacy reforms into law. i'll end this discussion as i began. what were you doing in 198?6? as it relates to your interaction with the digital world, with computers. i would imagine that even though your life might be in many respects similar to what it was in 1986 it's very, very different in the way that you interact with computers with technology with the on-line world which basically no one was even aware of in 1986. since 1986, the world has changed. we need to change our law to keep up

business to come before the senate i ask that it stand adjourned following the remarks of senators merkley and coons for up to 10 minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: