mr. barrasso of wyoming. mr. brown of ohio. ms. cantwell of washington. the vice president: please raise your right hands. do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter, so help you god? the group: i do. the vice president: congratulations. [applause] the vice president: the clerk will call the names of the next group. the clerk: mr. cardin of maryland. mr. carper of delaware. mr. casey of pennsylvania. mr. corker of tennessee. the vice president: please raise your right hands. do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freel

mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i also ask unanimous consent that the period of morning business be extended until 3:30 p.m. today and that all provisions of the previous order remain in effect. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president madam president, i rise today to, one, welcome you and welcome all of the other new senators who have just joined this body. along with the rest of us, you have all watched the difficult negotiations over the fiscal cliff that dominated the last few weeks of the 112th congress. that debate was an important opportunity to talk to the american people about washington's addiction to spending. we made clear in that debate that no amount of tax increases, no amount, would come close to wiping out washington's debt. so as we begin the 113th congress, we are faced with fresh opportunities to continue that conversation with the american people. this time the debate is over whether to raise the nation's debt limit. last week the president opened negoti

mr. barrasso of wyoming. mr. brown of ohio. ms. cantwell of washington. the vice president: please raise your right hands. do you solemnly swear that you will suppo and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you bear true faith and allegiance to the sa; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter, so help you god? the group: i do. the vice president: congratulations. [applause] the vice president: the clerk will call the names of the next group. the clerk: mr. cardin of maryland. mr. carper ofelaware. mr. casey of pennsylvania. mr. corker of tennessee. the vice president: please raise your right hands. do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you bear true faith and allegiance to the same that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservati

mr. barrasso: thank you. this past weekend i had the opportunity to ad tend a conference of the wyoming american legion. many of the veterans that i spoke with remain concerned about their health care and specifically about the impacts of the obama health care law on their lives and on their health. the men and women that i met with are very worried that they may lose their health coverage. why? because of the law. they wonder wha what happened te insurance premium cuts that they were supposed to have gotten now. not in the future but supposed to have -- were promised to have gotten by now. these men and women haven't gotten many of the benefits that they were told to expect. but what they are getting are all the costs. that'that's why the people i tak about every weekend in wyoming understand what the democrats in washington still won't admit: that the president's health care law remains unworkable, unpopular, and absolutely unaffordable. remember when the president promised that if you like your health care

mr. barrasso: i agree with my colleague. he's been a governor for two terms.nows about appointments, knows about advise and consent. and what we have seen from this president of the united states just last january, a flagrant disregard for the constitution and the laws of this land by bypassing the senate and appointing three members to the national labor relations board claiming -- claiming -- the senate was in recess even though the senate was meeting regularly in pro forma session. so last week the u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia ruled unanimously -- unanimously, madam president -- that those unilateral appointments were unconstitutional. and it's interesting because i saw the whip of the democrat party on one of the television shows this weekend and said we need to make sure that people have plenty of time for hearings. they didn't have hearings. madam president, the democrats are in control of the united states senate. they could have called hearings but chose not to. the president let these vacancies sit for long periods of time, and o

barrasso. >> thank you, mr. chairman, madam secretary. i want to thank you for your incredible commitment to the country, as first lady and member of this body as and secretary of state. as a doctor i have seen you work yourself to exhaustion, not for your own benefit but for the benefit of the people in this country and the country is grateful for that. i like you agree that we need to make sure this, something like this never happens again. and i have kind of looked at it the challenger explosion where we lost those seven astronauts because of an o-ring and problems there. we didn't see it coming and could have seen it coming and should have seen it coming. as you said, you never saw the security requests. vice president biden and the presidential debate said no one tolls us. i mean, the concern is we should have been seeing these sorts of things. there were the attacks on the british ambassador. there were the attacks on the red cross they pulled out of benghazi. there were attacks on the consulate itself. yet we had no evacuation plan

mr. chairman. to my good friend, senator barrasso, wyoming is a producer state and new mexico is also a producer state. and i found the same experience that the senator kerry talked about in terms of massachusetts, in new mexico, the fastest growing sector in the renewable jobs. and so i think it's a big opportunity for us, we should be pursuing it. i grew with what he -- i agree with what he just said. hypo with can work with each other. we should try to pull together and discuss the facts and really pursue this sector that is going to be so vital to the future, and vital actually to job growth. but john, great to have you here. you earned this. there's no doubt about it. it's great to see tear reisha and -- theresa and van necessary is a. i was walking over here and saw the cutest grandchild. i asked if he was coming in but he was going wait outside. >> he's pretty shy. [laughter] >> i -- in my observation here, my short period on the foreign relations committee, i think a great deal of what good foreign policy about is building person relationship, and building personal relationships with leaders a

and senator schumer, with senator barrasso, senator alexander and our former colleague, senator kyl, and we sat for hours debating. it was very educational for me, mr. president, because i would listen to the concerns of my republican colleagues, and it was a lot different than what i heard in the democratic caucus, and i think we both learned a lot from each other but there was general agreement that there was a real problem in the operations of the united states senate, and that we owed an obligation to take a look at our rules and see whether we couldn't modify the rules so that we can do the type of deliberation, debate and voting that's expected of the united states senate. one of the problems that became very apparent to all of us is that individual senators are able to block the consideration of amendments and bills on the floor of the senate indefinitely, and that's wrong. my colleague from arizona pointed out that you could be in your home state and offer an objection, a bill could be brought to a standstill. that's not how the senate should operate. we should be able to consider legislation and individual senators shouldn't be able to blo