mr. isakson: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: i ask unanimous consent to address the senate for up to five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. isakson: i want to commend chairman sanders for his leadership. last night at 9:30, i came back to the capitol and executed a conference agreement. and ranking member richard burr worked very hard, pulled together desperate factions to address the needs of our veterans in a bill that will be a tool kit for robert mcdonald who i hope will be unanimously approved as the next secretary of the v.a. under the president's cabinet. i rise to talk about mr. mcdonald. before i do, i want to talk about that conference report. our veterans have been abused in the last 10-12 years because of veterans' medical services that have not performed the services they need to perform for our veterans in america. one of the reasons they did is general shinseki, admiral shinseki who was the former secretary was actually insulate interested a lot of the information going on in his own d

mr. isakson: i tries talk about the issue of the day that's before you the bring jobs home bill. i appreciate any effort to bring jobs home and to create new jobs at home, but i want to talk about how we're really making a false promise about bringing jobs back because we're not doing the things we really should be dock. if you asked me to make my choirks what should we do in the united states senate on the fluor of the senate to create as many jobs as we can as fast as we can in america, a tax credit for bringing jobs home won't do it, a and tax penalty won't do it. but approving the keystone pipeline will do it and giving the president trade promotion authority will do it. both are pending on the floor of the senate. we could take them up tomorrow and if we did, we could make massive impact on job creation in america. i happen to be the ranking republican on the finance committee subcommittee on trade. we have two major trade agreements pending in the united states of america that we're a part of current negotiations. one of them is the trans-pacific partnership. one is the tra

mr. isakson: mr. president, if a few moments, the united states senate will be called upon to confirm the nirmings of the honorable -- nomination of the honorable julie carnes to the court of appeals in georgia. i stand along with my colleague, senator saxby chambliss, the senior senator from georgia to commend miss carnes to the entire body as an outstanding appointment. and i want to thank the president. senator chambliss and i recommended miss carnes to the president when the openings took place on the 11th circuit court. he and with the advice of kathy rumler, his able assistant on the advisory board, brought it forward to the judiciary committee of the united states senate. i want to thank pat leahy, the senator from vermont, the chairman of that committee, and chuck grassley from iowa, the ranking member of that committee, for doing a judicious hearing, for giving all sides a chance to be heard and commending unanimously on a voice vote julie carnes to the united states senate. i'm not going to

mr. chairman. >> senator isakson. >> mr. mcdonald, in your 90 day plan, you going to travel the va system, meet with providers within the day, any with veterans and with stakeholders but when that's over what you report back to us what you find that what you're going to do to correct what you find a gc is going wrong? >> i would love to do that, because my ideas as laid out in my opening statement are based on publicly available information but as i learned more that will obviously be modified. and i would love to report back to you as to what i saw and how i would modify the indicated actions going forward. >> your answer is really perfect because we, all the discoveries we've made beginning with phoenix but going to other facilities in the country have been information that was not publicly available and we had to dig it out and it took whistleblowers to actually bring it forward to us which reflects the culture within the va system right now which is an insular, protected culture, which you've got to open up. there's only

mr. chairman and i yield to senator isakson. >> thank you senator murray. secretary gibson thank you very much for accepting this interim responsibility. you are brave and courageous manner while i'm encouraged by some of the serious steps you have taken i'm still not satisfied. we have tremendous problems. as indicated by a letter from special counsel to the present president of united states from which i want to quote. i remain concerned about the department's willingness to knowledge and address the impact of these problems getting the whistleblower's problems. the health and safety of veterans in the va office of medical inspector has consistently is the term and i quote harmless error as a defense where the department acknowledges problems patients have been affected. this approach has proven a day from acknowledging the severity of systematic problems and taking necessary steps to provide quality care to veterans. the letter goes on to delineate specific cases where veterans health suffered because of agency looking the other way. i have become person

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator murray. senator isakson. >> following up on the question about referrals into the private sector. i wrote down from your statement, you made 543,000 referrals for private veterans for private care? what percentage of those would you guess were mental health referrals? >> i'm sorry. i could hasten a guess, but i would take that one for the record. >> reason i asked that question is i got into the atlanta v.a. starting in august of last year when we had two suicides and a drug overdose. when we dug down, they were using a community-based provider for mental health. v.a. would see the patient, refer them to the community-based provider with no follow-up between the referral and the appointment, and during that period of time, when the perm was determined to be a risk for themselves and their own life, in two cases they took their own life because they didn't get timely services on the referral. i think -- mr. matkovsky made an interesting observation about coordinated care. as we expand options in veterans heal

mr. chairman, thank you for having this hearing. >> senator isakson. much for beingry willing to accept this challenge. i think you will do a great job. your primary job as head ceo of procter & gamble was accountability and bringing a return to your shareholders. your shareholders bought their stock with their own money. at the v.a., you also have shareholders, the veterans who bought their stock by risking their life for the safety of this country. there is no greater calling for us but to bring that value back to those veterans. the v.a. has many great people in it but unfortunately we have uncovered a culture not conducive to the best interest of our veterans. in some cases this has caused many veterans to have problems they should not have had because of people who are more motivated to make numbers look good on paper than the results of the veterans in their lives. i appreciate that you are willing to accept this challenge. i have questions that we have discussed before that i want to ask. thank you for being willing to accept this responsibility

mr. chairman, thank you for having this hearing. >> senator isakson. >> thank you very much for being willing to accept this challenge. i think you will do a great job. your primary job as head ceo of procter & gamble was accountability and bringing a return to your shareholders. your shareholders bought their stock with their own money. at the v.a., you also have shareholders, the veterans who bought their stock by risking their life for the safety of this country. there is no greater calling for us but to bring that value back to those veterans. the v.a. has many great people in it but unfortunately we have uncovered a culture not conducive to the best interest of our veterans. in some cases this has caused many veterans to have problems they should not have had because of people who are more motivated to make numbers look good on paper than the results of the veterans in their lives. i appreciate that you are willing to accept this challenge. i have questions that we have discussed before that i want to ask. thank you for being willing to accept this responsibility. i hope you will bring t

isakson for their leadership. and thank the chairman of the committee, mr. kline, from minnesota, and the subcommittee chair, virginia foxx, for their leadership and cooperation on this legislation. of course the professional staff on both sides of the aisle in the house and in the senate. this is a critical moment. with almost 20 million americans still out of work, workers need help learning skills and finding good jobs. each year w.i.a., vocational rehabilitation program, serves millions of americans in need of job training and employment services. without the change -- with a rapidly changing work force and competitive global economy, we need to update and improve the work force training programs. for 40 years these vital programs have been authorized and re-authorized through bipartisan collaboration. i'm happy to see that that tradition continues today. i'm especially pleased the bill maintains strong protections and funding for populations in need, while streamlining programs to create new accountability measures. this bill would improve job training

work done by senator isakson and senator nelson on pensions at a time when we're very concerned about their future. we are shouldn't do that today -- we shouldn't do that today, mr. president. i'm going to yield to my colleagues who have been doing very good work on this issue. i think our plan is now senator hatch will make remarks on behalf of the bipartisan efforts in the finance committee. senator boxer, the chair of the environment and public works committee will speak after senator hatch. it's my intention to stay here throughout the afternoon. i think both sides would like to get this done expeditiously and i hope we can. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: i'd be happy to allow senator boxer to go first if she'd like. mrs. boxer: no, go ahead, please. mr. hatch: all right. mr. president, i appreciate the comments of my distinguished colleague, who's the chairman of the senate finance committee. today the senate will vote on a short-term extension of funding for the highway trust fund. while it remains to be seen what shape that extension will take, congress appears to be poised to pass legislation that will

mr. isakson: thank you, madam president. madam president, i want to share an experience i had a couple of weeks ago riding in the mountains of north georgia to my home. i was in the car -- actually, i was in the pickup truck, driving my red silverado pickup truck from a place in the mountains. i spent a lot of time thinking which i try and do when i get a few moments to myself. and i started thinking about all the difficult positions that we're in as a country right now. i thought about our border with mexico and all the central american kids who are coming through and huddled on the border and the crisis that we have there. i thought about syria and the tragedy of that civil war. i thought about the fact that the israelis and hamas are firing rockets back and forth from gaza and the mainland of israel. i thought about the fact that we're now negotiating with iran, our arch enemy. i thought about the fact that vladimir putin decided to take advantage of a vacuum that's been created in world leadership and moved into the crim

mr. alexander: while the senator from washington is on the floor i think it's appropriate to note and congratulate her for her work on the work force investment act. she and senator isakson, the senator from georgia, led the effort that senator harkin, and i and others, senator scott of south carolina was the principal sponsor, senator enzi worked for a long time but as the republican leader said that bill is being signed today i believe by the president of the united states and it goes directly to the issue that most americans care about, it's too hard to find a job. what this showed republicans and democrats were able to take the nearly $10 billion that we spend to give governors the tools to help people match job skills with their need for a job, and simplify, simplify it. i remember our former democratic governor from tennessee told me when he came into office he just threw up his hands when he found out about the $147 million that came to tennessee through the work force investment act because it was too complicated. senator murray, senator isakson and others some worked -- have worked together with chairman klein in the house and produced a law that will be signed.