mr. bennet: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: i first want to say to my colleague while we disagree on this issue, i agree wholeheartedly with his observations about training people for this 21st century economy. i have enjoyed working with him so much on the help committee. madam president, i have nine unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of both the majority and minority leaders of the senate. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, madam president. i am on the floor today to talk about the minimum wage bill that is before us this week, and once again, i have the opportunity to come here and say that washington, d.c., is absolutely decoupled with the conversations that people are having in colorado, whether they are republicans, democrats or independents, and we have another example of that here today during this debat

mr. bennet.ave happened a long time ago. >>> the administration approved a plan that will allow more vets to seek private health care when the va facilities are not available. this is after the controversy over the allegations of the long wait time and the secret face list that they say held back logs that could have caused death to 40 veterans but is private care the way to go? dr. debby is here and she worked at the va for five years and serves on the board. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> i think it is fair to say a lot of veterans are okay with the coverage but we see the scandals now. how bad is it? >> it is a mixed bag. there is red tape at the va and that is making it difficulty to get care and for the employees to react to what is happening with the back logs. but there is no excuse. >> do you think the back logs would have happened? what was it like when you worked there? was it overwhelming? >> in terms of backlogs there were, yes. we tried to accommodate for the it, though. one

bennet. this provision would, mr. president, for the first time facilitate the accounting of energy efficiency in residential mortgages. a report by the american council for an energy-efficient economy and the institute for market transformation estimates that this proposal alone would create 83,000 new jobs in home construction, renovation, and manufacturing by 2020. and, mr. president, these are jobs, jobs that are for american workers that cannot be outsourced. also the agreement on federal building efficiency would extend the 3%-per-year federal building efficiency target through 2017 and expand the coverage of this efficiency target from new buildings to include major renovations as well. so what you have, mr. president, is you had a good bill that got out of committee. you had a good bill last september that i would have liked to see pass this body at that time, and then after it was not possible to move forward, you had the senators, the chief sponsors, senator shaheen and senator portman, work continually to t

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator bennet. senator enzi. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, ms.urwell, for meeting with me yesterday. i always enjoy the visits with you. i have a few questions. i think i mentioned this topic yesterday. during your tenure at omb, we saw a massive failure of a website which was healthcare.gov. and that's a website the administration had three years and $600 billion to build. i know from personal experience, first users couldn't logon. then we couldn't see plans available. then we got kicked off. and then user names weren't recognized. and from folks i've talked to, even users who made it to tend of the process often didn't get confirmation they'd enrolled in a plan as obamacare mandates. as director of omb, you were responsible for the oversight of agency performance and information technology. what role did you play in the development, testing and approval of the website? >> senator, first, i think it's important to recognize what the president and the secretary and the administration have said, which was the rollout was unacceptable. with regard

on the democrat side, shaheen, bennet, franken, manchin, warner. mr. president, it will be hard to find a more partisan consensus piece of legislation, but always, mr. president, always this is a bipartisan piece of legislation. but always it's the shell game. okay, we have got it here. try to figure out where i put that shell. is it here, is it here? where is that dollar? is it here, is it here? i will yield in just a second. mr. president, this is what i talked about earlier. we have been going five years with this. five years, trying to stop anything that obama wants to do. obama would like to see this passed. so would a bipartisan group of senators. but for five years, we have put up with this. it doesn't matter what it is. if obama wants it, they're against it. so, mr. president, we can have all this sweet talk about how the senate should operate. the senate should operate by allowing legislation to go forward. here is a perfect example. but no, no. i have told them they want to vote on keystone, they can have a vote on keystone. that's not good e

bennet. the four republicans -- rubio, flake, and graham. they did good work. couldn't have been done without them. our nation's travel industry, though, needs us to do more. it's so important, mr. president, recognizing the importance of tourism, how important it is that we proceed and help the tourism industry by passing the immigration reform bill. now, i mentioned the good work done by these eight senators. the current president of the las vegas convention and visitors authority and former chairman of the united states travel association, his name is ross rollencutter, stressed the need for investment in our nation's infrastructure. as we invest in the airports, rail and roads, we certainly don't do enough, and when we do, we're effectively opening this nation's doors to our visitors. by providing safe, efficient travel for tourists, we can also ensure that the american travel industry has a reliable, full business. our commitment to bolstering tourism must amount to more than just concrete and metal. we must ensure that not only do we invite people here and they come from across the world, but that we are also facilitating the arrival and their departure. the senate immigr