mr. hoeven: i will. mrs. boxer: through the chair, i just want to thank you so much because you were one of those people that really helped us. and i also particularly, in addition to every member of the environment and public works committee on both sides of the aisle, they were terrific on this. i also want to single out, in addition to my chairman, which i did, senator inhofe, senators durbin and mcconnell, because they stepped up from both sides of the leadership when it really looked like we'd never -- it would never happen. and we proved that we could do it. and i'm so grateful to my friend for showing his support because we have so many contentious issues. this is not one of them. and i wanted to thank him very much for his comments. mr. hoeven: madam president? again, i thank the gentlewoman from california. this is important bipartisan legislation and we need to continue to work and get it done. i rise today to discuss the ndaa, the national defense authorization act. likewise, incredibly important l

mr. hoeven: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are in a quoirk. mr. hoeven: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hoeven: i ask to speesh on the issue of the 2016 energy and water development appropriations bill, the bill that now in fact is before the senate. we just voted at 2:00 this afternoon on the ndaa, national defense authorization act. and that's very important because we need to pass that legislation for our military, and in fact we did. and we passed it with 70 votes. that's incredibly important because the president has threatened to veto on the national defense authorization act. and this is legislation that's passed the house. now it's passed the senate. it's going to the president. and if he vetoes it, we need to have the votes to override, because we've got to get that legislation done for our men and women in uniform. not only, as i spoke earlier on the floor, is it about making sure that we're doing our job on behalf of our military, but also on behalf of our nation's defense. the other thing

mr. murphy: thank you, madam president. i'm here on the floor this afternoon to talk about a young man named bill smolinsky, and a law that senator hoeven and i are introducing on behalf of him, his family, and the, quite literally, millions of other families throughout the united states who have had to deal with the trauma, the angst, the grief of a loved one missing. let me tell you a little bit about billy. bill liszt parents don't think that he's alive any longer, but they aren't sure because on august 24, 2004, at the age of 31, billy went missing. billy was a vibrant young man who lived in waterbury, connecticut, along with his treasured dog, and he didn't respond to calls and communications from his family over the course of a number of days, and his parents -- and i'll speak about his mother in particular, jan smolinsky, who has been the driving force behind billy's law, his parents went to law enforcement at the waterbury police department. it is a great police department. i have a lot of friends there. even they will admit that they really screwed this case up from the beginning. they told his parents that he probably didn't g