mr. alexander: i do not. i think in summary, after 22 years and 8 extensions, it's time for the wind production tax credit to step on its own into the marketplace. let's save $13 billion. let's stop distorting the marketplace and undercutting nuclear plants as well as coal plants, and let's stop destroying the environment in the name of saving the environment. i thank the senator from arizona for his leadership. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. alexander: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: may i ask consent to vitiate the quorum? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i ask consent to include in the record following our colloquy, an op-ed in the "wall street journal" from may 7 in 2014 entitled "wind power tax credits need to be blown away." the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call

mr. alexander: mr. president, i would ask the chair, does the senator from massachusetts plan to address the senate? if he does, we'll be glad to defer to him. mr. markey: i would ask that you recognize the senator from tennessee. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. the senate will be in order. mr. alexander: thank you mr. chairman. i thank the senator from massachusetts. i ask the consent that the junior senator from tennessee and i be allowed to engage in a colloquy and i ask for the attention of the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate will be in order. senators, please take your conversations out of the well. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, a few days ago we lost a prominent tennesseean, harlan mathews. 87 years old, lived a long and distinguished life. he served in the senate seat which i -- in which i now have the privilege of serving. when senator al gore was elected vice president; so 20 years ago harlan mathews retired from the sena

mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the sphror tennessee. mr. alexander: on behalf of the distinguished senator from the distinguished senator from >> mr. president, on behalf of the listing was senator from, illinois and mnar. durbin enzi,r from north dakota, senator heitkamp, be permitted to engage in a colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, the colloquy is for the purpose of marking an important day in this body, the united states senate, because it was on this day one year ago that the senate overwhelmingly passed the marketplace fairness act. we did this by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. 69 senators, including about half of our republican caucus, 21 republicans, supported an 11-page bill, a rarity in this body, that is about just two words, and the words are "states' rights." the marketplace fairness act, simply described, gives states the right to decide for themselves whether to collect or not collect state sales taxes that are already owed. this the ability to collec

mr. alexander, the acting president of ukraine.terrorists seven tors and those who raise arms in our country lay down their arms, surrender free hostages, and let go of the buildings. those that are not involved in serious crimes will be subject to amnesty, but those perpetrators accused of murder and torture will be punished. to build peace and is -- and stability despite all efforts and attempts to organize collocations and armrests to destabilize the situation in the country, particularly in certain areas. i would like to appeal to the leadership of the russian federation about the events taking place in ukraine as well as the threats and intimidation. you are concerned about the violations of the rights of citizens, then protect them in your own country. the violation of human rights is systematic. call on russia to stop provocations against our country and not to use terrorism, sabotage, and threats on our country. despite all the problems and we will ensure peace and stability in our country and stop the terrorist threat in t

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator alexander. in orderer, senator warren, senator isaac san, mccull ski, robert, enzi, murphy, baldwin, casey and sanders. i'll recognize senator warren. >> thank you, chairman harkin. thank you, ms. burwell, for being here today. ms. burwell, there seems to be broad bipartisan agreement that we need to reduce federal health care spending. and republicans argue that to accomplish this, we need entitlement reform. but they shouldn't forget that we passed major entitlement reform just four years ago as part of the affordable care act. and that it's already working to reduce medicare spending. so i just had a couple of numbers to look at. in 2009, before obamacare, the medicare trust fund was projected to go bankrupt in 2017. today, the medicare trust fund is solvent at least until 2026. moreover, every congressional budget office estimate of medicare spending since the aca was passed has continued to show bigger savings, that's bigger, not smaller savings, than the report before. in fact, last month

mr. alexander, and shepherding this bill this morning. i also appreciate ranking member wasserman schultz whose institutional knowledge of the agencies in this measure is really unmatched. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for an additional two minutes. mr. bishop: both chairman cole and ranking member wasserman schultz were greatly aided by the excellent staff. liz, chuck, jennifer, and solanda. i look forward to supporting the bill and doing all that i can to ensure swift passage by the full house of representatives. thank you. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the gentlelady reserves the balance of her time. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: thank you, madam chairman. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: without objection. mr. cole: i was tempted to actually yield my friend, mr. bishop, additional time he was being so kind to all of us on both sides of the aisle. i genuinely want to thank my friend who is a very valuable member of our committee. again, someone who's always thou

. >> peter alexander. >> mr.odesta is it possible for the president's aides have suggested to climate change be one of the key components of his legacy and also to support the keystone pipeline? are those two things and conflict? >> i think you know when i came here i said i'm not going to work on the keystone pipeline so i'll just defer that to a later question. >> bill. >> given the fact that most of the extraction stuff is regulated by state governments what can the federal government do to ensure that water quality is unharmed and geologic disturbances, all of this reported very much by people, local people whether fracking is taking place? >> well i think we have resources or the pa that certainly can support this and that the department of energy which has a major research program going on to provide state regulators up-to-date scientific knowledge about the best practices that can be utilized. but at this point i think we are trying to work with the states to ensure that people can be reassured. obviously

alexander turchof called the are referendum an insult. mr. shevchenko, thank you for being with us. is ukraine closer to open civil war? since we've seen sunday's vote? >> i think we have here sorrow for people who die every day in the east. some of them die with terrible deaths, being tortured or being cut by knives or being shut in front of the eyes of their relatives and sometimes, this happen only because people speak ukrainian or they show loyalty to kyiv. that is my feeling. it has nothing to do with peace, nothing to do with the situation improving. and i think russia is to be responsible for all what we see. there in the east of ukraine. >> as far as russia's responsibilities so far, so far russia has not said it will recognize the results of the vote in are donetske and luhansk, and should be resolved between dialogue with kyiv and the separatists, is that better than what they did in crimea? >> i think it's too difficult to talk about anything about referendum in the east. think about the eastern region of ukraine. it is a territory with the size of hungary or any other ce

i will turn to senator alexander for his opening statement. >> thanks, mr. chairman. welcome to the witnesses. congress passed the law to which senator harkin referred, the family smoking control and prevention act, almost 20 years ago, and it clearly attempts to discourage the use of tobacco products. what has happened since then -- around 80% of adults still smoke cigarettes, but that is down from 20% in 2010. smoking among youth continues to decline. electronic cigarettes has grown rapidly. the number of adult smokers who tried e-cigarettes doubled between 2010 and 2011. thell hope this mostly on regulation proposed by fda two weeks ago, but i want to first read some statistics about the center for tobacco products. fda spend nearly 80% of the one $.8 billion in user fees collected, more than half of the spending occurred during fiscal year 2013 -- fda spent nearly 80% of the $1.8 billion in user fees collected. there are over 4000 substantial equivalence applications pending for tobacco products. fda has decided on 34 of the the agency has received. i believe thes

mr. smith, we think, is a terrorist, i'm just not fine with looking at all american's data. >> alexandernsa isn't doing anything illegal, they can't listen to everyone's phone calls and read everyone's e-mails since they don't even have the capacity to do that. do you believe him? >> maybe. the hard part is we now have the head of intelligence and clapper lie about the program. >> it seems alexander's credibility was being questioned everywhere he went, including a public appearance at the black hat cyber security conference in july 2013. >> how do we do that? because we stand for freedom. [ bleep ] [ inaudible ] >> why would we believe you're not lying to us? >> you were heckled there by the audience. how do you win over people like that? >> well, i think we just got to give them the facts. i didn't lie to congress. one of the guys said you need to read the constitution. i have. i told him he should. our mission is foreign intelligence and information assuran assurance. we know who the bad guys are overseas. our job is to idea that in that data base. it's not to look at our people's e-m

mr. snowden arranged to be caring a rubik's cube and the other question being last week keith alexander the longtime nsa chief said your journalism will result in the death of innocent people. do you stay up at night and worry about the blood on your hands? therefore all be better than any television interview i do. so i wanted to begin by talking about what i did in the first part of the book the first two chapters which is tell the story of how i came to meet and then work with edward snowden along with my longtime friend and journalist collaborator in hong kong. the reason that i really wanted to write the book to tell that story is because so much has been said about all of those events in so much of what has been said has been wildly false. one of the really interesting things is if you are somebody really likes to bash the american media and i'm i am definitely somebody who likes to do that, it's one of my most favorite pastimes it doesn't really come as a surprise to learn that much of what the media turns out is misleading in all sorts of ways. but when you are actually at the cente

alexander williams jr. i might just say, judge williams had a very distinguished record on district court. mr. hazel's legal career and private practice from 1999 to 2004. he then became a government prosecutor as an assistant united states attorney in the district of columbia in 2005 to 2008. he then grands the greenbelt, maryland, office district attorney. he now serves at chief depend states attorney general. mr. president, i can attest that being the chief deputy states attorney in baltimore city is a demanding position. mr. hazel helps to oversee 200 prosecutors and 200 support staffers and he has fought tirelessly to keep our communities safe and make them safer, and in fact has played a key role in achieving those objectives. he has demonstrated in his entire career as a lawyer a commitment to public service. in each of the positions that he has held, he wants to serve the public. that's the type of people that i would hope we'd like to see on our district court. mr. hazel has extensive litigation experience including criminal and civil matters, as well as jury trials. he as served as m

alexander mckim. the founder and ceo of clean harbors. hear more about the quarter and where the company's headed. mr., welcome back to "mad money." >> hey, jim-g talking to you. >> i saw this quarter was a recovery quarter from the previous quarter, but the previous quarter we all know including you. you were unhappy with it all. is this one of those situations where now the business has come back and you can scrap the idea that some major overhaul has to occur? >> no, not at all. when you've grown as quickly as we have and added a lot of business, some of thaun related, as you know, to our environmental business. you know, we've been integrating these acquisitions and selling off some smaller pieces of the businesses that we've acquired, but you know, we still have a lot of work to do to integrate, particularly safety clean but also some of the other deals that we've made. and so we're continuing to look at our lines of business and looking at ways to continue to improve our return on capital. >> you founded the company and you're a huge shareholder. i have to believe that if you feel that, say, saf

mr. smith we think is a terrorist. i am fine with that. i am just not fine with looking at all american data without a warrant for each individual we are looking at. >> alexanderin,sa isn't doing anything illegal, they can't listen to phone call ns and read everyone's e-mails since they don't have the capability. the hard part is we now have had the head of intelligence and alexander live on the program. their credibility is seriously in doubt. it seems between raleal -- general alexander's credibility was being questioned every where he went including the cyber security conference in july 2013. >> we stand for freedom. >> (bleep) >> you were heckleed by the audience. who you do you woifrn people like that? >> i think we have to give them the facts. i didn't lie to congress. one of the guys said you need to read the conts tugs. i have. our mission was born in intelligence. we know who the bad guys are overseas. our job is to identify them in the data base it is not to look at our people's e-mail or listen to their phone calls. >> while alexander found himself being taunted edward snowden became a headliner on the speaking circuit. >> (indiscernible) >> how doe

alexander and then current legal expert on blogger mr mccurry is thank you very much indeed for your opinion we appreciate it thank you. just a reminder the peoples councils in the cities of donetsk and lugansk have voted not to delay a referendum on autonomy probably regions which have been shadowed for sunday there's despite russia's president putin urging the arcs of its and ukraine's rest of southeast to postpone a possible split from a key of to push for a nationwide dialogue and right now we're bringing you live pictures of from the area from donetsk in particular and people across the region have been refusing to recognize that interim authorities for months now ever since the february takeover in the capital they've also been calling for the riots a russian speaking ukrainians to be respected they fear near knowledge of his influence is growing across the country's wealth and of course we'll bring you more updates on the story as we get them on the shrooms. the ongoing standoff in ukraine and how stake in it stalled on the traditional victory day celebrations most of the faci

alexander and the entire university of pittsburgh team in offering my congratulations on receiving this important distinction. mr. speaker, we thank chancellor nortonberg for his commitment to education excellence. for his drive and passion to build the university of pittsburgh into a row nouned institution of higher learning. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from michigan, mr. kildee, for five minutes. mr. kildee: thank you, mr. speaker. this week i and many others were in lafayette park joining the family of my constituent, to commemorate a very sad anniversary. a young days amir, man born in the united states, grew up in my hometown of flint, michigan, parents emigrated to the united states long before amir was born, late 1970's, from iran, amir has been sitting in a prison in tehran for 1,000 days. he traveled to iran for the first time in august of 2011 because, like many other young men, young women, wanted to explore his own roots. he had served in the united state