mrs. burwell. she's a delightful person. many of my colleagues think highly of her, and some, like our west virginia senators and others, really think she will do a good job. but this is not the right position for her. this government is drifting into disarray in a whole host of ways. we need the strongest possible, capable leader with proven health care managerial experience for the good of america and for the good of president obama. this is not the right nominee, and i thank the chair and would yield the floor. mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president, first, let me comment on vile i- comment on sylvia burwell, the nomination that is before us. she has done an excellent job as the director of o.m.b. her credentials are incredible. she is acknowledged by both democrats and republicans as being an outstanding manager, a person who is fully capable to manage h.h.s., an extremely important agency that has over 70,000 work thaers -- workers that work for health and

mrs. burwell. she's a delightful person. many of my colleagues think highly of her, and some, like our west virginia senators and others, really think she will do a good job. but this is not the right position for her. this government is drifting into disarray in a whole host of ways. we need the strongest possible, capable leader with proven health care managerial experience for the good of america and for the good of president obama. this is not the right nominee, this is not the right nominee, saturday morning at 1030 east and. >> as the u.s. presence in afghanistan is winding down some intelligence assessments of one al qaeda and other terrorist groups are beginning to resurface. next, the american enterprise institute hosted discussion on the current capabilities and threats of al qaeda. this is 90 minutes. >> thank you, everyone for joining us here today. thank you. thank you for joining is here today. we are going to start. i would like to welcome you on this beautiful afternoon. co-sponsored with the foreign policy r

mrs. burwell as his office of management and budget director. it says within two weeks of a budget submission, legislation must be sent to congress to comply with this medicare trigger. it requires a plan to fix the program. so during her confirmation as o.m.b. director, she was asked about this duty she was going to have, and she made a commitment to respond and produce a medicare trigger. specifically, she said she would -- quote -- "do everything in her power to comply with the federal law, bringing an end, in effect, to the president's -- to the administration's several-year-long defiance of plain law." as the president's budget director under 31 u.s.c. 1105, sylvia burwell was the person responsible for complying with the federal law. having willfully violated this requirement, it is ironic now that if confirmed as health and human services secretary, she will serve on the board of trustees of medicare and the medicare trust funds. she will be responsible for overseeing their finances, and she will be issuing to her former office, o.m.b., t

mrs. burwell's husband holding the bible. she replaces kathleen sebelius who resigned earlier this year. >> now you can keep in touch with current events from the nation's capital using any phone any time with c-span radio on audio now. call 202-686-8888, congressional coverage, today's coverage, washington journal, a recap at 5:00 p.m. eastern on washington today. you can hear audio of five sunday public affairs programs at noon eastern. c-span radio on audio now 202-686-8888. long distance or phone charges may apply. >>> a house natural resources subcommittee assessed recent advancements and new technologies for studying earthquakes earlier this year in marks, his agency developing an early warning system and the risk in the united states is very real. this is an hour and ten minutes. >> the committee will come to order. the chairman notice the presence under committee 3e is two members. subcommittee on energy and natural resources is hearing today to hear testimony on an oversight entitled advances in earthquake science 50

mrs. burwell as, just 13 months, i think, she served in the tremendously important position of director of office of management and budget. i do not believe that she is the, has the background, the qualities and experience proven managerial leadership required at that huge department of health and human services. she has 500 people working in the budget office, and that's an important office. over 70,000. she once served on a board of a local hospital. she just simply is not the person that we need today to bring order out of a disarray that we have in the health care system of this country and the total collapse of integrity and consistency in the implementation of obamacare. and there are a couple of things that i care about, but i really think that it's time for this administration to stop moving around insiders, political allies and put some people in

mr. president, i want to speak on behalf of sylvia mathews burwell. we've had a lot of commentary out here that she has really shown her capability in her time as the head of the office of management and budget, o.m.b., and she's going to have a similar success now in the department of health and human services. and we're going to be voting on her just before 2:00 this afternoon. and i'm certainly looking forward. it's going to be a resounding vote. and i think it's because most people feel like that she has really done an excellent job at o.m.b. in this senator's experience with her over one of the small

mr. president, i want to speak on behalf of sylvia mathews burwell. we've had a lot of commentary out here that she has really shown her capability in her time as the head of the office of management and budget, o.m.b., and she's going to have a similar success now in the department of health and human services. and we're going to be voting on her just before 2:00 this afternoon. and i'm certainly looking forward. it's going to be a resounding vote. and i think it's because most people feel like that she has really done an excellent job at o.m.b. in this senator's experience with her over one of the small agencies of government, in discussing it with her, where this senator felt like that o.m.b. had targeted that little agency instead of allowing the experts, they were driving that agency -- and specifically i'm talking about nasa -- purely from a finance and budgetary standpoint instead of what we want to accomplish in the nation's space program. and ms. burwell understood that. and she tried to help out from an agency that is more concerned just wit

mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that not withstanding rule 22 following the cloture vote on burwell, the senate proceed to consideration of calendar number 796, se liu g, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no further action or debate, any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. reid: we expect, madam president, this nomination to be confirmed by voice so we expect four roll call votes at 11:00 a.m. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will proceed to -- morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations which the clerk will report. the clerk: nominations, the judiciary. mark g. mastroianni of massachusetts to be united states district judge for the district of massachusetts. bruce howell hendrix to be united states district judge for the district of health care. tonya s. chutkan of the district

burwell. there will be a senators-only briefing at 5:00 p.m. today. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i'd indicated to the majority leader i was going to have a unanimous consent request, and i'm going to propound that now. i ask unanimous consent that the environment and public works committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 2414, the coal country protection act, and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. i further ask consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. mr. reid: mr. president, reserving the righ right to obj. mr. president, the rule will not become effective for a long time. the normal period of time to make comments when a rule is being promulgated is 60 days. this one is 120 days. the reason for that is members of my caucus want to weigh in on this to try to improve the suggested rule that has come from the e.p.a. so i am waiting to read this -- the proposed regulation myself, which i have not done. i have been briefed on it by

mr. president, last week the senate confirmed sylvia burwell as our new secretary of health and human services. she is now the administration's main interpreter of obamacare. she is a new face and will be its primary sales person to the american people. i think the president made a competent choice and i supported her confirmation, but i think i would be remiss if i did not mention or bring to light the difficult job she has ahead of her. from its botched web site to ever increasing premiums to canceled health insurance plans, obamacare has been and remains a complicated mess of broken promises and confusing implementation. i was back home in indiana last weekend and the week before that obamacare remains, along with complaints about overregulation, the top two things on people's minds. just friday i was in dekalb county and noble county in northeast indiana, meeting with representatives in those two counties and communities, across the spectrum of people engaged in various business enterprises -- housewives, small business, big business, elected officials, et cetera -- and each of those discu

mr. secretary. how often have you had a discussion with secretary kerry or burwell on this situation? what i'm looking for is, right now the microscope's on you. but there are some other players in this effort also. are you having discussions with -- with other officials of the cabinet? >> yeah. oh, yes, definitely. on june 1st, as i noted, the president established a -- a government-wide effort pursuant to the homeland security act to deal with this and set up a unified coordination group, which i oversee. administrator fugate is in charge of it, which brings to bear the resources and assets of not only dhs, but hhs, doj, department of defense. and so we have an effort which fema, day-to-day, craig and his staff day to day coordinate and support. in addition to that, we're in routine -- i'm in routine conversation with my cabinet counterparts about this issue. i'm having a meeting with my cabinet counterparts right after this testimony, as a matter of fact. last friday i brought a group of interagency colleagues down to mcgowan and langley myself. not langley. lackland myself to see

mr. secretary. how often have you had a discussion with secretary kerry or burwell on this situation? what i'm looking for is, right now the microscope's on you. but there are some other players in this effort also. are you having discussions with -- with other officials of the cabinet? >> yeah. oh, yes, definitely. on june 1st, as i noted, the president established a -- a government-wide effort pursuant to the homeland security act to deal with this and set up a unified coordination group, which i oversee. administrator fugate is in charge of it, which brings to bear the resources and assets of not only dhs, but hhs, doj, department of defense. and so we have an effort which fema, day-to-day, craig and his staff day to day coordinate and support. in addition to that, we're in routine -- i'm in routine conversation with my cabinet counterparts about this issue. i'm having a meeting with my cabinet counterparts right after this testimony, as a matter of fact. last friday i brought a group of interagency colleagues down to mcgowan and langley myself. not langley. lackland myself to see

mr. secretary. how often have you had a discussion with secretary kerry or burwell on this situation? what i'm looking for is, right now the microscope's on you. but there are some other players in this effort also. are you having discussions with -- with other officials of the cabinet? >> yeah. oh, yes, definitely. on june 1st, as i noted, the president established a -- a government-wide effort pursuant to the homeland security act to deal with this and set up a unified coordination group, which i oversee. administrator fugate is in charge of it, which brings to bear the resources and assets of not only dhs, but hhs, doj, department of defense. and so we have an effort which fema, day-to-day, craig and his staff day to day coordinate and support. in addition to that, we're in routine -- i'm in routine conversation with my cabinet counterparts about this issue. i'm having a meeting with my cabinet counterparts right after this testimony, as a matter of fact. last friday i brought a group of interagency colleagues down to mcgowan and langley myself. not langley. lackland myself to see

mr. wyden: madam president, sylvia matthews burwell was introduced at the finance committee by the senator from oklahoma, tom coburn, and the senior senator from west virginia, jay rockefeller, and the reason she has this extraordinary bipartisan support is after years of divisive and polarizing discussion about the affordable care act, sylvia matthews burwell is somebody who can bring people together. she will bring democrats and republicans together to improve the quality of our health care, the affordability of our health care, and i strongly urge all senators to vote for sylvia matthews burwell, and i yield back. the presiding officer: without objection. all time is yielded back. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close the debate sylvia burwell to be -- signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of sylvia mathews burwell of

mr. portman: thank you. i appreciate allowing my friend -- my friend allowing me to speak. i'm told on thursday we're going to be asked to confirm the president's nomination of sylvia burwell to be the next secretary of health and human services. this is an important job for a number of reasons. one is it is in charge of i am implementing thing affordable care act. i think it is time to address this, talk about the continued problems we've had with implementation. this whole subject of obamacare has divided this chamber sharply over the past couple of years, part of the reason is it was passed through the congress without a single bipartisan vote. in other words, all democrat votes; not a single republican vote. also it was kind of pushed through quickly. it resulted in a lot of problems. we've seen that with the implementation, is of the computer problems, some of the concerns people have about having their health care canceled and soen. what i want -- and so on. i want to talk today about a specific issue with regard to implementation where i hope we would be together, that this issue would unite us as republicans and democrats and we would take forceful action to deal w