shaheen proposes amendment number 1227 to amendment number 1221. at the end of section 109 add the following -- mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: i would ask that further reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: on behalf of senator warren, i would call up amendment 1327. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator oregon, mr. wyden, for ms. warren, proposes amendment numbered 1327. mr. wyden: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with there as well. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to 20 minutes each. ten minutes each, excuse me. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: i suggest the absence of a

ranking member shaheen, senator carden. thank you for inviting me to testify about the guest worker program. the program is a vital part of the survival, is -- this program is a vital -- is vital. this program is vital for the survival of seafood processing, especially in louisiana and maryland. the program, this program -- excuse me, just let me go. >> sure. >> it's vital. i will submit my statements for the record. in addition to a number of exhibits that will provide a use of reference for the committee. i'll now provide oral comments. i'm here to express my concerns for the future of my business and other small businesses that struggle daily. to succeed. i started at randalls in 1971, very small, one man, one truck. after four decades they're grown in size and scope, transitioning to the next generation. the future is in my sons that work my business allowing me to pull back. hurdles over the last four years were detailed by the commissioner. floods, hurricanes, oil spills, lack of product, imports from china. but the s

ranking member shaheen, senator carden. thank you for inviting me to testify about the guest worker program. the program is a vital part of the survival, is -- this program is a vital -- is vital. this program is vital for the survival of seafood processing, especially in louisiana and maryland. the program, this program -- excuse me, just let me go. >> sure. >> it's vital. i will submit my statements for the record. provide a use of reference for the committee. i'll now provide oral comments. i'm here to express my concerns for the future of my business and other small businesses that struggle daily. starting small. after four decades the -- work my business allowing me to pull back. hurdles over the last four years were detailed by the commissioner. floods, hurricanes oil spills, lack of product imports from china. but the single most pressing issue has been the lack of labor. i was lucky enough to have the refugees from vietnam come in. brought in roughly 40 to help us get through that time. we came to the 1990s when tha

senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you to all of our panelists this afternoon for being here. as the chairman said, seafood is a big issue in my home state of new hampshire. just as it is in louisiana. even though we only have 18 miles of coastline, it is an industry that is important to the state, both because of our tourism industry and the fishing -- the pleasure boat fishing that goes on off the coast of new hampshire, but also because we have not only a small fishing industry, but we also have a fish processing industry in new hampshire. and mr. chairman, in the interest of brevity and because i have to leave early, i'm going to submit my full statement for the record but i just wanted to raise a couple of concerns. one is not directly related to this hearing, but since we're talking about seafood, i feel compelled to talk about the concerns that we have in new hampshire and the northeast relative to the fishing quotas that have been set by the department of commerce, and specifically by noaa.

shaheen: so, mr.hairman, i would suggest that we try to work with reverend warren as we're thinking about how we make sure we continue to fund the pepfar program. sen. graham: absolutely. what you're trying to do is how do you brand this program in a positive way with the american taxpayers so they'll understand the return on investment. i've been thinking about that a lot and this panel helps. senator langford? sen. langford: thank all of you for being here and for the wores. pastor warren, let me finish up that conversation. have you seen effective outreach from government reaching out to the faith sector in any particular country that you've been around, that your church members worked and with that you've seen the connection with, with the united states government or other governments? dr. warren: i found it easy to work with other governments. they're not nearly as afraid of the church as the american government is. i mean, we work with governments literally all around the world and they're very,

senator shaheen? sen. shaheen: thank you all very much for being here this morning and for the wonderful work you are doing around the world. i want to start with you well -- you all. i find the statistic of over 80% of new hiv infections in young people are in young women.i wonder if you can talk to why that is. i think the dreams partnership is very exciting with nike and the gates foundation, about can you speak to what the solutions are as we think about how to prevent young women from being effective -- infected? ambassador birx? dr. deborah birx: i think this level of statistics, which nih really helped out with -- it was there studies that pointed out the highest rate of new infections that we have seen just about anywhere on the planet, 4% a year, 10% a year, and all of us started looking at this in a detailed way. mark will talk about how we've been working collectively. it will take a community, and it will take a village. what puts young women at risk is a whole series of factors. if there was a

shaheen: mr. president i come to the floor today to discuss two amendments that are pending to the trade bill. i want to begin by thanking chairman hatch and ranking member wyden as well as senator mcconnell and senator reid for working with me to make these amendments pending. i believe it's important we have an amendment process as we consider granting trade promotion authority to the president. enact the bill before us will have major impacts on our nation's economy for years to come and senators should have an opportunity to improve the product reported by the finance committee. the trade promotion authority bill by its very nature demands that senators be able to debate and vote on key trade issues. that's because the trade promotion authority bill creates a process by which trade agreements are submitted to congress for approval without the opportunity to change them on the house or senate floor. so it's critical that we utilize the opportunity we have now to set the rules of the road for fu

senator shaheen? >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. solomon, as i said in my opening statement, i'm very concerned that we are in the process of setting up a new program under the department of agriculture to separate cat fish out from all other seafood and inspect them separately. i think it's duplicative, and i wondered if you could talk about the program that has been operating under fda, which up until now had the responsibility for inspecting cat fish. can you tell us how it's functioned? and whether or not cat fish consumption has posed a risk to public health? is there a reason to set up a separate program? >> so the last part of the question, cat fish is not one of the species that we particularly target. controls in place that have been adequately controlling issues associated with cat fish. >> so, and just to be clear, it's not the fda or the department of labor or -- usda that has set up this program separately. it was congress that did this. and the farm bill. but there wasn't a safety risk to human health from catfish that

[traditional arabic music played on an oud] (shaheen) the oud is actually the most prominent instrumentic music. it has basically five double strings and one single low string, and it has a fingerboard here that is fretless-- open fingerboard and this is how the quartertone quality is being produced, because you can slide and produce all the sounds. [plays example] usually the oud is being played in the context of the small ensemble or a larger one as accompaniment to a vocalist or as a solo instrument. it's a very old instrument. it comes from the guitar family in persia. it's the ancestor of the lute and the guitar family. the oud is actually the most prominent instrument in arabic music, and it's as valuable as the piano for the western composer or performer. as far as i'm concerned, this is one of the greatest instruments in the world. it's very dear to me. ♪ her cheeks were like the lily white ♪ ♪ that bloom in yonder valley oh. ♪ (narrator) the human voice is perhaps the most flexible of all instruments. [singing traditional japanese music] [choir singing] the great variety of voc

the campaign got a boost when senator jeanne shaheen introduced the amply titled women on the 20 actual pay day. let's hope it happens. that does it for me on this wednesday edition of "way too early." let's go to mika for a preview of "morning joe." horrific scene in philadelphia. >> it's really bad. we're live in philadelphia, luke where at least five people are dead more than 100 injured after an amtrak train derailed on the way to new york. we're going to have the latest on the investigation as survivors begin to tell their stories, and there are still some unaccounted for. >>> and new york city mayor bill de blasio joins the table again. he's been traveling the country, hoping to spark a progressive movement, but is all that work hurting his standing here at home? >>> plus senate democrats on one side president obama and the gop on the other, at least on the issue of trade. joining us this morning, one of the democrats who helped block the president's trade agreement, missouri senator claire mccaskill. plus reaction from white house press secretary josh earnest. that and much mo

shaheen. she and i have worked together on this important bill that has just passed the senate and had previously passed the house of representatives. this week is national police week and we were honored to receive this week so many officers from new hampshire, law enforcement officers representing more than 20 agencies in new hampshire including the brentwood police chief and many members of his department. they are here joining thousands of officers and their families of law enforcement to remember and honor those law enforcement officers who have given the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty to keep the rest of us safe. last night during a candlelight vigil, there was honored 273 fallen officers from across the nation whose names have been added this week to the national memorial including an officer from new hampshire officer steven arkel from new hampshire who served in the brentwood police department, who lost his life in the line of duty a year ago yesterday. our thoughts and prayer

1227 as modified; warren 1327 mccain-shaheen 1226, brown 1251, hatch-wyden 1385, portman-stabenow 1299, brown-portman 1252, and cantwell 1248. further, as my unanimous consent request, i ask that no second-degree amendments be in order to these amendments prior to the vote and the following amendments be subject to a 60-vote threshold for adoption: iring's inhofe-coons, brown-port man 1252, mccain-shaheen and cantwell 124. finally, mr. president as my unanimous consent request that it not be in order for cloture to be filed on the hatch substitute or the underlying bill during today's session. the presiding officer: does the senator from utah so modify his request? mr. hatch: mr. president, of course i hadn't seen all that, so i'm going to have to enter an objection. the presiding officer: objection to the modification is heard. is there objection to the original request? ms. cantwell: objection. the presiding officer: october is heard. -- objection is heard. mr. hatch: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. mr. brown: mr. president? the presiding officer: the clerk will cal

i thank senator mccain and senator shaheen for bringing this important amendment forward, and i hope we will have a vote to eliminate the wasteful money going into the usda inspection regime of catfish. how many times do we need our catfish inspected? it's absurd and time to end this waste and quit wasting taxpayer dollars. thank you mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: first a bit of housekeeping. mr. president, i have nine unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. wicker: thank you mr. president. and now with regard to the issue at hand, i understand senator wyden has priority recognition at this time and i've been informed that he does not object to me entering into the debate at this moment. may i proceed on this amendment? the presiding

shaheen: i understand it's not germane so we're not going to vote on it. but i think it's important as we're thinking about trade to keep in mind that 40% of large corporations are able to trade internationally, but among small and medium sized businesses it only 1% yet 95% of markets are outside of the united states. what this amendment would do -- it would allow small businesses to be able to get access to those international markets because it will provide help for them in exporting. this is a program that we passed with the small business jobs act, it worked very well. we need to do this, there is no score to this amendment c.b.o. says there is no cost and this is something we can do, we can help our small businesses where two-thirds of jobs are being created. i hope my colleagues will consider this in the future and we can get this passed. thank you mr. president. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: mr. president i thank the distinguished senator. we intend to work with her and see what we can do. i just

we have senator warner, senator caine, senator carper, senator alexander, senator shaheen, and we bring a common sense approach to government, and while we do not meet as a group as much as we'd like, we naturally gravitate to make deals and work on common sense legislation. when we ran our states basically, most of us had 46 states, i believe had a budget balance amounts, balance budget amendments. first thing you want to know as governor, you're elected, sworn in that day, they take you immediately and show you and what you have to work with. you have cowork with on the budget, and you work on the coming yeerks and you basically i said what's the revenue? every tuesday afternoon, i would have the budget analysis and they meet with me and tell me what our forecasts were and how collections were going and how much we had to work with or areas we had to change and make adjustments. that was cognizant on our mind. can we pay for what we promised or would like to do. you pick priorities based on values. what's the value of the people, my constituents in west virginia? i knew where we were.

senator shaheen. >> thank you for being here this morning and for the wonderful work that you're doing around the world. ambassador birx and and dr. dybul, i want to start with you all. i find the statistic that over 80% of new hiv infections amongst adolescents in the hardest hit countries by aids is by young women. i wonder if you can talk to why that is and i think the dreams partnership is very exciting with nike and with the gates foundation. but can you speak to what the solutions are as we think about how we prevent young women from being effective? >> infected, i guess i should say. ambassador birx? you want to go first? >> thank you. i think this level of statistics, which nih has really helped with because it was clinical trials that pointed out the unrelenting incidents, the highest rate of new infects we have seen anywhere on the planet, 4% a year, 10% a year. i think al of us together started looking at this in a very detailed way. mark will also talk about how we've been work collectively because it will take a community and it will take a village. what puts young women a

on the democrat side, patty murray of washington marie cantwell also of washington state, and gene shaheen of new hampshire, were among the final democratic yes votes. the very final vote was cast by senator rob portman former u.s. tradenive for the bush administration, who is in a tough re-election cycle. he voted yes. 12 democrats voted to end debate to remove president obama from the party. harry reid and elizabeth warren were among his opponents. the senate trying to wrap up work on surveillance and highway bills before departing for a week-long memorial day break. you can see live coverage of the senate on our companion network c-span2. this weekend, c-span presents commencement speeches from around the country. you'll hear from veterans affairs secretary, robert mcdonald, catherine sullivan head of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration and from south carolina state university, republican senator tim scott. here's a preview. >> back in 1983, when i was graduating from high school, the song that's stuck with me for the last 32 years is called "hold on to your dreams" by a

campaign staff, whom we had known previously through their affiliation with other people, senator jeanne shaheenpose when they were looking at locations, potential locations, we were on that list and we were happy to have been asked. >> you know we're showing some file footage of hillary clinton in the past in some different campaign stops having a beer or two. you moved to a new location in 2014. as a small business talk to me about what are your concerns ahead for possible growth and what your big issues are going forward. >> well for us as a small company, as a craft brewer one of the things that we've had to confront is just how rapidly our corner of the beer industry has evolved. when i got in this business 28 years ago, there were 74 small breweries in the country, and now at last count i think there are about 3,500, and as we're speaking, that number is going up. so the landscape has evolved. the market share we enjoy has increased, but the complexities of running a small brewery today are really quite different than they were in the past. we also have some concerns that a lot of small bu

inhofe, mayotte, boozeman, casey, king, kirk, fisher hatch, helder murkowski, rand, roberts, round, shaheen, sullivan, tester, wicker and widen. in summary, ga needs your help. we look forward to working with the pilots bill of rights 2 in the upcoming faa reauthorization, both which stand to put our industry in a much needed climb. thank you. >> thank you, mr. baker. ms. gilligan i wanted to ask you for an update on the progress of the pilots' records database, and where the initiative stands and what we can expect in terms of it moving forward. >> thank you, senator. development of this database has proven to be quite a technical challenge. we have run a proof of concept. so we do know conceptually what it is we need to do in order to meet the requirements of the bill. what we've run into is that the amount of records that the bill would have us incorporate into the single pilot database is really creating the challenge. many records now and going forward will be automated records but the bill calls for the complete history of every pilot who is currently in the commercial system. and man

senator shaheen. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you all very much for being here this morning and for the wonderful work that wonderful work you're doing around the world. ambassador birx, dr. dybul, i want to start with you all. i find statistic over80% of new hiv infections of adolescent in hardest hit countries by a.i.d.s. are young woman. talk about why that is. i think the dreams partnership is very exciting with nike and with the gates foundation. but can you speak to what the solutions are as we think about how we prevent young woman from being affected? infected i guess i should say. ambassador birx, you want to go first. >> thank you. i think this level of statistics which nih really helped with because it was their clinical trials that were done for microbesides pointed out unrelenting incidence highest rate of new infections we've seen just about anywhere on the planet. 4% a year, 10% a year. and i think all of us together then, it started looking at this in a very detailed way. mark will also talk about how we've

why not struggle to find a solution in that's what senator shaheen and portman are saying. that that is an important amendment related to this unbalanced situation that's going to remove jobs from the united states. i'm pointing out another deficiency. that is that there is no minimum wage that we're starting out with a 10-1 differential with mexico, approximately a 10-1 differential with vietnam that there should be a minimum wage so we stop the race to the bottom and it should be gradually raised to decrease the disparity. that is an issue worthy of debate. but i can't get that debate on to this floor because the proants don't want -- proponents don't want to allow these amendments. they just want to choose and pick the subjects they want to be allowed to be debated not the ones that the senators want to be allowed to be debated. that is a robust and open amendment process. now, there is another flaw in this t.p.a. which is it has negotiating objectives. now, an objective is simply a wish a hope. it is a desire. it is an inclination. but an objective is not an actual prov

and we are adding supporters all the time, but senator brown, senator burr, senator casey, senator shaheen, we have other senators that will be joining us as well. so we have growing support in understanding of how critical this is. the inclusion of strong and enforceable currency provisions in our trade agreements makes clear to our trading partners that this is -- that this uncompetitive trade practice will no longer be accepted. we're not going to talk about it. we talk a lot about it, we talk about this issue and the loss of american jobs because of currency manipulation. but by putting it in the core instructions for our negotiators as they walk into a trade negotiation, to have listed alongside critical provisions regarding labor laws and environment and intellectual property rights and human rights and other areas to say currency manipulation, your policies around currency we believe are critically important in a global economy if we're going to compete on a level playing field. and not continue to lose american jobs. someone to call this amendment a poison pill to the t.p.a. that c