mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to talk about an issue that affects the health of our children in every single state and i'm going to ask unanimous consent that after i complete remarks, senator blumenthal, senator markey, senator boxer and senator warren be afforded the opportunity to continue to address the same topic. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. merkley: and i'd also invite my colleagues to jump in if they would like at any point to exchange views as well. so this issue is one that we have known about for a very long period of time which is that tobacco addiction destroys liv lives. i grew up in a family where my mother didn't smoke and my father didn't smoke but they both came from large families, many brothers and sisters, and it seemed like every single year when i was young, one of my aunts or my uncles died from smoking. they died from cancer. they died from heart disease. they died from emphysema. and this carnage was just all too apparent. and anyone wh

mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i'm here on the floor of the senate with my colleague from oregon, senator wyden, to share a few thoughts about the tragedy that has occurred in our home state. a week ago today a mad man turned a quiet fall day in roseburg, oregon, into a day of terror. what occurred on the grounds of umpqua community college is unspeakable, senseless tragedy. nine innocent lives cut short. lucera alcaraz was 19 years old. she graduated from roseburg high school this past year. she received scholarships that would cover her entire college costs and she had hopes of becoming a pediatric nurse working with children. quinn cooper, 18 years old, also just out of roseburg high school. quinn loved dancing and voice acting. he was just on the verge of taking his brown belt test in martial arts. lucas eibel, 18 years old, a third graduate from roseburg high school. he was studying chemistry. and when he wasn't in school, he played soccer and he volunteered at the wildlife safari animal park and the local ani

merkley. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, thank you, dr.collins and your team for the vision, the video of the t cells destroying the cancer cells is inspiring. i think we are all thinking that we open that over the years ahead every possible type of receptor on every possible type of cancer cell, the ability to program t cells to attack them will continue to develop and i think that's the vision that we are anticipating. one of the concerns that i've heard often and oregon health sciences university is a major research partner with nih, a lot of grant funding goes there, is the stranding of young researchers and i believe it was dr. rodgers, i believe you mentioned the young investigators. folks who were partway into their career, they have gone through their postgraduate work, they are in a laboratory and then the grants don't come through and then they have this incredible specialty about some form of nerve communication or chemistry deep within the cell that may be the key but who knows, but suddenly they are going, well, what do i do n

mr. freeman thank you, senator. merkley.nator sen. merkley: we have a long series of names branded on our hearts across the nation. places like columbine and sandy hook, and now we have umpqua community college. here in roseburg. it is a list of names that no community ever wants to have be included in. at this moment, this horrific, senseless act has broken hearts, every heart, here. this is a small community. it is a community where everyone knows someone who was hurt or killed yesterday. the community has come together in an extraordinary fashion. the first responders responded quickly and competently. the sheriff, county commissioners, the mayor, the city manager, all jumped in to make decisions in a flash, to respond and address these situations. they did an incredible job, but there is no response that can repair the broken hearts. yesterday when i walked back to the capital to the office building, i was told there had been a tragedy in oregon. there has been a mass shooting in oregon. senator it is , from your home county, douglas coun

merkley: thank you. i will ask you to be very brief. mr. lorsch: sure. we are starting a new pilot program to explore a new grant mechanism that would be a single grant per researcher. i would address some of senator alexander's issues. but it would be more stable for investigators because it would be a single grant. that would, as dr. rodgers alluded to, help carry them through that sort of valley of death after that first grant when it's very hard. that's something we're focusing on. sen. merkley: thank you. i want to go back to where i started in terms of the receptors and the t-cells. early in the dna world that you were centrally positioned in, it took an enormous amount of time to do sequenving. now, that probably, i don't know, 1/10,000 of the time. do you see a similar curve in terms of the time and effort to identify key receptors and be able to read -- to identify t cells? dr. collins: you can now get yours sequenced in a day or less. in terms of looking at proteins, they are encoded by genes, so we have a connection there were we can take full

merkley which is out next year. now we revisit the real life trial, talking to some big >> i would caution the audience to remain calm. >> it crushed me, the jury. they loved o.j. >> mr. simpson, would you please stand and face the jury? >> as o.j. simpson rose, the eyes he of the world were on ago. outside thousands waited along with the huge media crush in the midst was our "e.t." team. also reporting, maria shriver and bryant gumbel, gloria allred attended. we talked with marcia clark whose memories are vivid. >> i knew if there was a verdict it would be notguilty. still there was that little part of me that said, but they can't. they can't do it. >> in the matter of the people of the state of california with -- >> as can you see, there are numerous highway patrol vehicles behind the suspect vehicle which simpson. >> the o.j. obsession started ea the bronco clas. simpson was a suspect in the murder of his wife, nicole brownrlier. simpson, and her friend ron goldman. >> i think hearing the first reports you're going, o.j. simpson did what? >> keep in mind, o.j. was a hollywood superstar. hob-nobing with the likes of bruce jenner and gushing about his new wife nicol

mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my intern, bria justice, who's participating in a shadow day, have the privileges of the floor for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to consideration of calendar number 270, senate bill 2165, a bill to permanently authorize the land, water and conservation fund, that the bill be read a third and i'm passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there an objection? mr. lankford: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: reserving the right to object, i'd like to ask that the consent be modified to pass a short-term extension, s.

mr. merkley: now, this is all about the question of whether when a bill comes due for previous spending, whether we're going to pay the bill on time or not. this is all about whether or not when interest comes due on treasury bills, we are going to pay the interest on time or not. well, great nations don't pay their bills late. they're expected to be organized and competent and have their act together. but there's also a tremendous incentive to pay on time because when you pay late, the interest rate on your debt goes up because you become less creditworthy. now, many folks in this chamber say we should operate like a family and we should think about family values when it comes to finance. well, here's the connection with how families operate. they know that if they don't pay their mortgage on time, if they don't pay their insurance on time, if they don't pay their target bill on time, then their cost of credit is going to go up. their credit score will go down, their cost of credit will go up. now, sometimes families simply don't have any possible way of paying a bill when it comes and