mrs. fischer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators to be able to speak therein up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: tunes shall you i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to immediate consideration of s. 3419. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 349, a bill to entitled the social security act and so forth. the presiding officer: is is there objection? without objection, sentence will proceed to the measure. mrs. fischer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered and made upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed t

mrs. fischer: i would ask that the quorum call be vitiated, please. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: i rise today to express my support for the pain-capable unborn child protection act, a bill that protects children from late-term abortions. as a cosponsor of this commonsense proposal, i'm grateful that the senate will be taking a vote on this very important piece of legislation. our constituents should know where we stand on this issue. the american people support reasonable limits on dangerous late-term abortions. a november, 2013, quinnipiac poll shows that 60% of americans support legislation limiting abortions after 20 weeks. in line with this prevailing view, several states have already passed laws limiting late-term abortions. i'd like to note, mr. president, that nebraska was actually the first state to pass language like the federal pain-capable unborn child protection act. i was a member of our legislature at the time, and i was proud to be a cosponsor of that piece of legislation that was offered by my good friend, th

so senator fischer is up next. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to follow up on the fines that you were talking about and the penalties. you mentioned that they're going to be significant and before that you said that the railroads are making progress every day. but we all know that they're not going to get there. i mean, they have been very open about that. they have given us quite a bit of information on the problems that we're going to be seeing all across this country and as senator mccaskill said, the tremendous negative impact we're going to see on our country's economy and the safety of our sit senls by a shut down basically from our railroads. when we're looking at the significant fines, what system have you established that will determine what the fines are? does that offer any clarity to the railroads or to us on this committee? do you have a system in place? >> we do have a system in place. we have a long standing system for enforcement against railroads which is in place for many years but then more specifically following the

mrs. fischer: i rise to talk about the miami.it is time at the end of our fiscal year and many things that rewait action. and many of us are on our to-do issue that should taken, the national security. that's why i'm very disappointed that once again efforts to move the homeland security deficit deputy -- deputy. and it is, i should, the national security. we should not worry about things that we have. it is not safer. we cannot afford to be complacent about this. our nation faces challenges from nations ahead. these problems face our country. in asia, the south korea and the chinese and our operate in the seas. and the chinese antagonism, our admiral was told the south china sea belongs to china. and they are bullying their neighbors and their rejection of our norms threatens to the stability in that region. simply put, china has dramatic problems for tunes and the world. the pacific region will continue to grow in importance to the stability. the stability throughout it will be important to our nation defense strategy and our e

senator fischer: thank you, mr. chairman. when secretary carter was here n july he testified there were only about 60 syrian fighters that had been trained in our train and equip program and easserted. we heard reports about attacks on those individuals when they ere reasserted back in syria. can you tell us how many rained fighters remains? general austin: it's a small number. the ones that are in the fight is -- we're talking four or five. senator fischer: a "new york times" report on september 6 indicated that among the lessons learned from that experience was that these fighters should be returned to syria in larger numbers than the 60. obviously larger than the four or five that are there. do you agree with that? general austin: i agree with that, senator. whenever that's possible, it is in our best interest to make sure that we have an element that can protect itself and also can go in and combine efforts with other elements that are on the ground. senator fischer: how do you plan to achieve that? how are you going to i

fischer. maria: she also asked mr. buzz said, is the u.s. economy brio or inflated economy fed fuel.s pretty adamant. the economy do see the opening. >> the businesses reflect -- it's not great, but it's okay. maria: at the top of the show you said you would by fox. is that which you would want to do in an an environment where the senator raising rates? >> i own apple. dagen: financials -- >> all of the above, yes. maria: thank you. oil prices stabilizing after a strong performance in asia overnight. we will have the latest on news in energy. stay with us, we will be right back. technology empowers us to achieve more. it pushes us to go further. special olympics has almost five million athletes in 170 countries. the microsoft cloud allows us to immediately be able to access information, wherever we are. information for an athlete's medical care, or information to track their personal best. with microsoft cloud, we save millions of man hours, and that's time that we can invest in our athletes and changing the world. maria: welcome back to oil prices holding steady. just about $45 a ba

so senator fischer is up next. >> thank you, mr. chairman.d like to follow up on the fines that you were talking about and the penalties. you mentioned that they're going to be significant and before that you said that the railroads are making progress every day. but we all know that they're not going to get there. i mean, they have been very open about that. they have given us quite a bit of information on the problems that we're going to be seeing all across this country and as senator mccaskill said, the tremendous negative impact we're going to see on our country's economy and the safety of our sit senls by a shut down basically from our railroads. when we're looking at the significant fines, what system have you established that will determine what the fines are? does that offer any clarity to the railroads or to us on this committee? do you have a system in place? >> we do have a system in place. we have a long standing system for enforcement against railroads which is in place for many years but then more specifically following the 200

senator fischer: thank you, mr. chairman. when secretary carter was here in july he testified there were only about 60 syrian fighters that had been trained in our train and equip program and easserted. we heard reports about attacks on those individuals when they were reasserted back in syria. can you tell us how many trained fighters remains? general austin: it's a small number. the ones that are in the fight is -- we're talking four or ive. senator fischer: a "new york times" report on september 6 indicated that among the lessons learned from that experience was hat these fighters should be returned to syria in larger numbers than the 60. obviously larger than the four or five that are there. o you agree with that? general austin: i agree with that, senator. whenever that's possible, it is in our best interest to make sure that we have an element that can protect itself and also can go in and combine efforts with other elements that are on the ground. senator fischer: how do you plan to achieve that? how are you going to i

mr. burgess: the e-warranty act of 2015 modernizes current warrant requirements by allowing -- warranty requirements by allowing them to post warranty information online. i want to thank senator fischer and congressman mullin for crafting bipartisan legislation, opening a path for manufacturers to conduct their business more efficiently in the digital age age. this legs will give them better access -- this legislation will give them better access and reducing costs for manufacturers. the energy and commerce committee anonymously forwarded the companion bill, h.r. 3154, to the house floor in july after consideration by the subcommittee on commerce, manufacturing and trade. the subcommittee has been studying how the use of the internet and other advanced technologies has generated great advances for consumers and creating jobs. simple things like this will create savings across multiple industries. we will continue to look for ways to roll back outdated regulations that slow down our ecommerce economy and hurt jobs. this legislation does just that by bringing warranty regulations into the 21st century. i urge my colleagues to vote for s. 1359, and i'll reserve the balance of my time. t

mr. chairman. when secretary carter was here in july he testified there were only about 60 syrian fighters that had been trained in our train and equip program and reasserted. senator fischer: we heard about those when they were reasserted back in syria. can you tell us how many trained fighters remains? general austin: it's a small number. the ones that are in the fight is -- we're talking four or five. senator fischer: a "new york times" report on september 6 indicated that among the lessons learned from that experience was that these fighters should be returned to syria in larger numbers than the 60. obviously larger than the four or five that are there. do you agree with that? general austin: i agree with that, senator. whenever that's possible, it is in our best interest to make sure that we have an element that can protect itself and also can go in and combine efforts with other elements that are on the ground. senator fischer: how do you plan to achieve that? how are you going to increase the number of fighters when we're looking at the really tough security screening processes that are in place now, how are we going to achieve that? and how long will that take? and

mrs. fischer: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: thank you, madam president. i rise today to discuss our strategy against isil. yesterday at our armed services committee, we held a hearing on this topic, and instead of reassuring me that our mission was on the right path, the testimony provided further evidence that the administration must change their approach. i agree with the president's stated goal of degrading and destroying isil, but the steps we have taken thus far will not achieve isil's defeat. indeed, the root of the problem seems to be that our strategy does not connect with events on the ground. there's no better example of this than our plan to train and equip the so-called moderate syrian troops. at the end of last year, congress approved the president's request of $500 million for the purpose of building a force of moderate syrian fighters. tests find in september of last year. then secretary of defense hagel laid out the administration's plan to build a force of about 5,000 fighters in one year. general demps

fischer? >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, administrator. i would like to kind of drill down a little bit on some items that were brought up about cell phone coverage. there was an early september 12th that stated there was no cell phone coverage at the gold mine the day of the spill. that was confirmed in an august 16th e-mail posted on your agency's website which also said, quote, no satellite phone was at the local." just to clarify, there wasn't a cell phone, there was no satellite phone. there was no way to immediately communicate to those downstream when the toxic water began rushing out. so my question is, was the epa properly prepared to inform local communities if there was a spill that could happen and which did happen? >> senator, i cannot confirm at this point about the cell coverage. i apologize. i will get back to you on that. but clearly better notification would have been beneficial to all of us. and that's one of the reasons why we have actually asked for a review of all of this internally and beefing up of our notification