mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be suspended and i be allowed to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm honored to represent the state of illinois. it's a big state. from chicago to cairo at the southern tip of our state is 40e is more state north of chicago. i have traveled the state over the last several months and last week went to the southern tip of the state, worked my way through it, came back through central illinois and was in the city of chicago. there is one recurring challenge i find all across the state. no matter what community i visit, i've learned that there is no town too small, no suburb too wealthy, no city that has caped the opioid heroin epidemic which we are now facing. america is losing more people to heroin overdose than we are losing to traffic accidents. it has become that common. i tried to have roundtables around the state. rural areas, suburban towns and really try

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the assistant minority leader. mr. durbin: mr. president, if there is one specialty that every member of congress has, it's air travel. we spend more time in airplanes, more time in airports, more time waiting for flights -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be u.s.s. -- suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. drowrn: we are veterans of air travel in congress. we have all seen the footage of people waiting in line to go through security screening at major airports, particularly in the city of chicago, both o'hare and midway. the lines are so long people have had to wait two or three hours to go through a security check point. mr. durbin: people are angry. i don't blame them. some are stuck sleeping in airports overnight. the commissioner of aviation ginger evans told me we pulled out the cots we save for snow emergencies so that people now in the heat of early summer are facing the same kinds of delays. our highest priority, our highest prior

mr. durbin: thank you. mr. president, three months ago the president asked congress for funding to help prepare for and combat the zika virus. that very week i set the appropriations hearing with representatives from the senator from disease control and the national institutes for health who talked about how time sensitive that request was. in the 13 weeks since that hearing, republicans have put up roadblocks, set preconditions, and really mocked the administration for arguing that there was urgency to fight the zika virus arks virus which is dangerous for pregnant women, children and many others. what's happened in the 13 weeks while the president's request for $1.9 billion has languished before the republican-controlled congress? over 1,100 americans in 43 states, washington, d.c. and three u.s. territories including over a hundred pregnant women have contracted the zika virus. six more have contracted gill indiansyndrome. recently the first zika caused death was reported in puerto rico. in illinois 13 peopl

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic whip. mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i rise to highlight a number of important provisions in the fiscal year 2017 national defense authorization act. this is the measure in its entirety and it comes with this report. it's about 1,664 pages for the actual bill, another 642 pages for the report. it's no wonder, it deals with the national security issues as well as the department of defense and many other agencies. it's clearly the product of many hours and months of work by the members of the committee as well as the staff. and now we consider it on the floor of the senate and have a special responsibility to look at it very carefully. this bill, of course, will take some time to be digested and analyzed and we've been in that process this week. many of us count on our staff, professional staff that i have who work for the defense appropriations committee. they also look at this measure to see how it squares up with the

mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the assistant democratic. mr. durbin: madam president, three months ago president obama asked this congress for funding to address a public health emergency, combating the zika virus. three months ago. i'm pleased that this week, 14 weeks after his request, we're going to respond. we're not responding in full. the president asked for $1.9 billion to address this serious public health challenge. and we're not responding without some theatrics in posturing first. but we are going to vote on some amendments this week, and it is about time. it's about 14 weeks since representatives from the center for disease control and prevention and the national institutes of health testified at senate appropriations committee on the dire need for immediate action to combat the zika virus. i visited the center for disease control about 14 weeks ago, and by then they had been able to verify that the tissue samples coming in from brazil of miscarriages and other serious health problems were linked to the zika virus, so there was no qu

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: mr. president, before my friend and colleague leaves, we have worked together for years. i respect very much your legislative capability and you and i were working on some pretty important legislation together. i am not a member of the veterans committee. i don't know if the senator from iowa is a member. he's not. this is a subject matter jurisdiction of that committee. let me just concede at the outset, reporting 174,000 names to the f.b.i. goes too far, but eliminating 174,000 names goes too far. we need to find a reasonable way to identify those suffering from serious mental illness who would be a danger to themselves, their families or others, and to sort out those that don't fit in that category. we can do that and we should do that in a reasonable way. so we're respectful of veterans and also respectful of the general public's right to be safe from the misuse of firearms. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i would just say a sim

mr. president. i want to revisit my discussion with senator durbin yesterday regarding my amendment number 3925 to the department of veterans affairs funding bill. as i made clear yesterday, this amendment is a commonsense amendment that is protecting constitutional rights. it is designed to make every effort to ensure that the second amendment rights of veterans are protected under the law. yet the democrats have objected. because of that, our veterans will continue to not be protected to the second amendment constitutional rights. so let me make myself very clear. senator durbin said my amendment doesn't solve the problems, doesn't solve the problems are his words. well, the department of veterans affairs is reporting names to the department of justice that are then placed on the national gun ban list. and the v.a. is doing so merely when a veteran is appointed a fiduciary, which does not mean that that veteran, he or she, is dangerous. that is a problem. as i explained yesterday, my amendment requires the v.a. to first determine that a veteran is a danger to self or others before reporting names. t

mr. durbin: thank you very much, mr. president. mr. president, executive calendar is sitting here on the tables for each of the members of the senate to take a look at it. i've renamed it. it's no longer the executive calendar. it's the political obituaries because these are men and women who have been nominated for positions to serve in our government excited about the opportunity to be public servants. many of them have gone through extensive background checks, f.b.i. checks, staff have taken a look at their resumes, asked hard questions, demanded their answers, put these nominees through hearings, and many of them went through extensive periods of investigation and hearings, and then they were reported, 20 of them, 20 individuals reported by the senate judiciary committee to the floor of the united states were they controversial? no. all 20 came to the floor by unanimous vote. think about it. here is a senate divided 54 republicans and 46 democrats, 20 judicial nominees made it through what i just described to the executive calendar