mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask unanimous consent that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 5:00 p.m.nate. had he been here he would have voted aye on the cloture motion. i want to say to our colleagues this this is a very important day for our country. we've demonstrated we can work together on a bipartisan basis to achieve something that is extremely important for america. not only when we confirm this trade promotion authority will we have the mechanism in place for the president to finalize an extraordinarily important deal with a number of different asian countries, it will indicate that america is back in the trade business, it will also send a message to our allies that we understand there's somewhat wary about chinese commercial and potentially military domination and that we intend to still be deeply involved in the pacific. so i want to congratulate senator hatch, s

mr. grassley we did take a look at the early program and at that time there were limitations that we believe were implemented and a subsequent version we have not taken of a cat. but the irs failed to notify specific but when it initially began? >> the last filing season their 238 million downloads with the application so it is a huge volume now reno to go back through the logs we have locked every transaction and there were shrouded under the issues volume of request going out. in the filing season ended i think what happened is the volume dropped but at that time the legitimate request had gone up and the activity became physical to a us sprint are not people expected that but that is from midday when we noticed. but in fact, those unauthorized attempts to access the data as soon as they found that out we notified the hill and i am delighted we could identify 104,000 taxpayers. >> my time is up but i will submit to questions with answers in writing. thank you spirit thank you. it is great to see you both. we appreciate your service to our country per car want to start off with commissioner

mr. grassley: mr. president, i have serious concerns with the language that was tacked onto the house fisa reform bill that passed the senate, and at the end of my remarks i'm going to ask unanimous consent request and i say that because maybe other members of the senate would like to be heard or would like to maybe reject my unanimous consent. i want to give them the privilege of knowing i am doing this. this language in the fisa bill made changes to the federal criminal code to implement four important multilateral treaties related to nuclear terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. it's good that these treaties are finally being implemented. the senate gave its advice and consent to these treaties back in 2008. in the years since then, however, the senate leadership repeatedly failed to bring bills to the floor that would implement them, but the language which is now law omits a number of key provisions that were requested by both the obama administration and the bush administ

mr. grassley: 800 years ago on this very day at the field of runnymeade along the river thames in england king john granted the document that came to be known as the magna charta. in our language, great charter. this was the result of negotiations between king john and rebellious barons who objected to what they saw as violations of their customary marry privileges. by affixing his great seal to the document 800 years ago today, the king accepted limits on his power to impose his will on his subjects. it was a momentous occasion, as evidenced by the fact that four original copies of the magna charta remain carefully preserved. but its significance has grown over time. it's true that the original magna charta was only in effect for a couple months before king john then at that time got the pope to annul it. but subsequent kings voluntarily reissued the charter as a way of gaining the support of the barons and portions still retain legal force in england today. while many of the specific provisions in the magna charta dealt with very medieval concerns like how heirs and wills of deceased ba

mr. grassley: i want to discuss a bill that i'm introducing today. the title of the bill is transitions to independence act. i'll explain how this leads to more independence for special needs people. the bill is a medicaid demonstration program that will give incentives to states to achieve for integrated employment for people with disabilities. the federal government funds a hodgepodge of programs. these programs provide support for people with disabilities. however, the largest of all programs providing support for people with disabilities, the medicaid program could do much more to drive better outcomes. we're talking about not just spending money but what do we get for the money we spend. the medicaid program provides critical supports for people with disabilities, including primary health care and home and community-based care. this bill i'm introducing is unique in that it uses the resources of the medicaid program to drive better outcomes for people with disabilities. our public policy encourages people with disabilities to participate in soci

senator grassley: i think i heard you respond by june 4 by next week. mr. george ig's are their important offices as far as i am concerned. did your office evaluate the security majors -- measures put in place by the get transcript service before after when online, and if so, what were your office's findings? did the i.r.s. fully comply with any recommendation you hated made ? mr. george: we did take a look at an earlier iteration of the get transcript program. at that time made recommendations that we believe are implemented. and a subsequent version of it we have not taken a look at u ntil now. obviously, we will be looking at that. senator grassley: reportedly the attacks began in february, but the i.r.s. failed to notice suspicious aivity until mid-may. why wasn't the i.r.s. able to detect the activity when it initially began? commissioner koskinen: last fili ng season there were 23 million successful downloads on the get transcript application. it is a huge volume. we now know when it started by going back through our logs. we log every transaction. th

mr. president, we have senator stabenow and senator durbin coming, and i believe we've heard that senator grassley i think that will fill up the time until the vote at 3:00. mr. mccain: we have senator sessions as well. well, let me suggest the absence of a quorum first and then we'll work it out. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: ms. stabenow: mr. president, i would ask us suspension of the quorum call. the presiding officer: is there objection? ms. stabenow: thank you very much. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from michigan is recognized. ms. stabenow: thank you very much. i'm here on the floor to speak to the amendment we will be voting on, as it relates to senator reed's amendment. i first want to thank both the leaders of this committee for the important work that is being done but the amendment in front of us is absolutely critical for the safety and security of the american people and certainly for our troops. we all agree, we need to agree that our troops deserve more than budget gimmicks. what we have in here are too many budget gimmic

mr. gardner: today i rise to discuss the reach act which i've introduced with my colleague, the senator from iowa senator grassley, to establish a new category for critical access hospitals in financial distress. rural hospitals are an essential yet vulnerable part of our health care system. rural residents face a unique set of challenges in relation to their urban counterparts. according to the american hospital association, rural residents are typically older poorer and more likely to have chronic diseases than those in cities. the unique challenges of caring for patients in underserved areas are not the only hurdles that face rural hospitals today but they have a hard time simply keeping their doors open. since january of 2010, approximately 55 rural hospitals nationwide have closed because they could not generate the kind of support or the volume necessary to continue operation. in colorado nearly 60% of care for patients in underserved areas is provided by hospitals dependent on rural payment systems, mechanisms and many of these hospitals are in danger of closing their doors. i'd like to share a story about