with the united states congress ago an passing 15 months act which gave the u.s. government the state department and treasury department the ability to do that. what ill intentioned self-respecting russian after 15 months would still have significant assets in the united states? earlier this week, the administration announced they would extend the authority to this issue. they said we have created this authority, but we are not naming any specific ibo at this point. there have already been three anybody who did not take their assets out in the to work onths to get that. i imagine a number of them called the bankers fairly quickly. i don't consider that to be a credible policy. at extenduld look some of the things that cliff was saying, let's talk about europe. partnersean allies and are trying to develop their own energy resources. i certainly think the united states should get behind that. there are some american companies exploring for shale gas in western ukraine. that could make a huge difference in terms of ukraine's energy dependence on russia. i think that

we are dealing with an issue that several years ago the united states congress passed passed a very, very important -- how do islation we address that? going back to the issue of mental health. we are all distressed and sadened by the number of suicides that we face. inside the military, inside the v.a., inside the united states of america, our general population. how do we deal with that? we are dealing with an issue that the v.a. in the last several years has transformed their claims system going from paper to digital. we think we are making some progress. how do we make sure we continue that process so that every veteran in this country gets their claim adjudicated in a timely manner. we need to ensure that the proper number of -- continue to be built and maintained. so we have a whole whole lot of issues facing us. these are tough times for the veterans community, coming out of two wars dealing with all the veterans from world war ii, korea, vietnam. we are not going to turn our banks on those veterans. i want to thank the v. a. it is very easy to beat up on the v.a. because they

we are dealing with an issue that several years ago we, the united states congress, passed a very, very important piece of legislation making sure that people who served in iraq and afghanistan have the ability to go to college. that's worked, by and large, very, very well. problems remain. how do we address that? going back to the issues of mental health, we are all disstressed and saddened by the number of suicides that we face, very difficult issue inside the military, inside the va, inside the united states of america, our general population, how do we deal with that? dealing with an issue that the va in the last several years transformed their claims from going from paper to digital, and we think we're making some progress, and we want to continue the progress, and how do we continue that progress so every veteran in the country gets adjudicated in a timely manner. the va has, in my view, over the years, done a good job in terms of reaching out in primary health care through cbox, how do we make sure that the proper number of cbox continue to be built and maintained. so we have a l

solve solve ago grater problem for those in flood amplest it will be doing the right thing at the right time to correct an unintended consequence of an action of the united states congress. i commend senator menendez and senator landrieu, thank them for their effort and yield back my time. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: first, i thank my colleague for letting me butt in here. i want to praise the three people on the floor here. you could say, without who eachf whom is wouldn't have happened. senator men nen derks menendez,r sponsor of the bill. johnny isakson, in his friendly and gentle way brought many people on board and prevented many people from blocking it. the and probably the dynamo -- we would all agree, the dynamo of this operation, mary landrieu. i would say mary landrieu and i have had probably 200 phone calls in the last month about flood insurance, three or four a day. whenever there was a blockage, she was like a jackhammer getting through it. so thank you. i'm going to be very brief as well, not quite as brief as my colleague from georgia but brief for me and brief for the senate. this is a very