[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 1, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1115-S1132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMPREHENSIVE ADDICTION AND RECOVERY ACT OF 2015--MOTION TO PROCEED--
Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, you know more than just about anybody else
here
[[Page S1116]]
that across the Nation there has been a dramatic increase in the
incidence of opioid addiction, which is now at the point of being a
full-blown crisis.
In my home State of North Carolina, we have seen this devastation
firsthand, with 1,358 overdose deaths in 2014 alone fueled by the
combination of abuse of opioid-based prescription painkillers and
heroin. To put that figure into context, that is more than the number
of North Carolinians who lost their lives in automobile accidents in
2014.
For far too long the conventional thinking was that drug addiction
deserved the stigma it receives: a choice made by criminals who were
intent on destroying the lives of themselves and others. It was a dark
and painful embarrassment for their families. It is long overdue for us
to come to grips with reality because we know the truth: Drug addiction
doesn't discriminate based on one's gender, race, or socioeconomic
status. Successful CEOs of major companies have succumbed to addiction.
Straight-A students and valedictorians with once bright futures ahead
of them have succumbed to addiction. PTA moms and dads, who were
pillars of their communities, have succumbed to addiction. We know it
because we have seen it in our inner cities, our suburbs, and our
tight-knit rural areas.
Two weeks ago I picked up my hometown newspaper, the Charlotte
Observer. On the front page was a report that highlighted the rising
prescription overdose epidemic. It started off with a terrifying story
of a North Carolina mother that encapsulates the kind of crisis we are
dealing with.
The story began:
The Charlotte woman didn't know her daughter was a drug
addict until she heard a thud upstairs.
Her daughter, a bright Myers Park High graduate, had
returned from college for the weekend with a sack of dirty
laundry. Her mother was folding clothes in the den when she
heard the fall of her daughter's unconscious body.
She sprinted upstairs. ``She's unconscious on the floor,
blue, not breathing. No heartbeat,'' said the mother.
That is what the mother saw on the floor of her daughter's bedroom.
Fortunately, in this case, the young woman survived the painkiller
overdose. With the support of a loving family, she has an opportunity
to get her life back on track and seize the chance to reach her full
potential. But let's not kid ourselves. This near tragedy could have
happened anywhere in America, and any parent could have experienced it.
It is important to reflect on how it got to this point, though. In
2012 the CDC completed a report that said that in North Carolina, there
were 97 painkiller prescriptions written per 100 people. So what does
that mean? It doesn't mean 97 percent of the people in North Carolina
are getting painkillers; it means there is a group of people who are
getting dozens and dozens, sometimes hundreds of prescriptions for
opioids. In part, this is a result of a greater awareness of the
importance of pain management. And many people do need pain medication,
but the wider availability of these life-improving and lifesaving
surgeries and treatments has actually contributed to the epidemic.
The medical community rightly recognized that managing patient pain
was the compassionate thing to do and started holding providers
accountable for doing so. However, the risk of the wider availability
of these powerful medicines must be urgently and rigorously addressed.
That is because for Americans from all walks of life, the nightmare of
addiction begins with something as unassuming as a routine prescription
for a painkiller such as OxyContin or Percocet. Due to the highly
addictive nature of these drugs, a patient's body can become dependent
and they experience debilitating withdrawal. Once the prescription runs
out, the physical addiction unfortunately influences people to make
really bad decisions that can be life-changing--seeking more pills on
the black market when their doctor says ``no more'' or turning to
cheaper or even more deadly opioid drugs, such as heroin.
Opioid addiction is a slippery slope, and it is a deadly slope. The
CDC has concluded that people are 40 times more likely to be addicted
to heroin if they are addicted to prescription painkillers.
Our country desperately needs coordination from Federal, State, and
local law enforcement officials to develop comprehensive strategies to
combat heroin trafficking and to prevent prescription drug diversion.
Federal dollars and resources come with so much redtape and so many
mandates that State and local experts cannot use funding for different
initiatives, and that is what the CARA bill seeks to address. For
example, there simply are not enough treatment slots for mothers with
children, and there isn't enough assistance provided to pharmacists and
doctors to teach them how to best manage their prescriptions and help
the people with the highest risk of addiction.
It has been heartening to see Members of Congress set aside their
partisan differences in order to take immediate action to address the
current shortcomings. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Comprehensive
Addiction and Recovery Act, which is the bipartisan legislation that
brings together the experiences and recommendations of drug addiction
experts, law enforcement, health care providers, first responders, and
the patient community most affected by the opioid epidemic.
The legislation expands abuse prevention and education initiatives.
It provides grants to substance abuse agencies, local governments, and
nonprofit organizations in North Carolina and the rest of the Nation
that are being hit hardest by the heroin and painkiller epidemic.
Local first responders will receive help through expanded
availability of naloxone, a powerful antidote that is used to prevent
overdose deaths. It has had amazing impacts on saving the lives of
people, such as the young lady I talked about earlier.
The legislation also addresses the strain the addiction crisis places
on our criminal justice system by providing more resources to identify
and treat incarcerated Americans, helping put them on the path to
recovery, which in turn could lower the Nation's recidivism and crime
rates.
We can never forget that the solution to so many of America's
problems can be found in our local communities--our schools, our
churches, townhalls, and VFW halls. The Federal Government can help
support these efforts through smart, commonsense approaches, such as
the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA. However, we must
be honest in recognizing that success will be neither quick nor easy.
We are confronted with the reality that addiction is a vicious and
devastating cycle of abuse and despair, with consequences that can
result in the destruction of loving families and the end to once-
promising lives. It affects us all, Mr. President. The fight against
addiction is one we must wage together, and we cannot afford to lose.
Mr. President, I want to thank the Presiding Officer personally for
his leadership on this issue.
I look forward to seeing the CARA bill come to the Senate and then on
to the President's desk.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I also want to take a few moments today to
discuss the devastation drugs are bringing to too many families and
communities across our Nation and also to congratulate the Presiding
Officer for his great work on this issue. The bill before us today is a
collaborative effort of his and Senators Ayotte, Toomey, and others who
have worked very hard to address what has become an epidemic across our
country. It is particularly hitting States hard, it is hitting
communities hard and families hard, and it needs to be dealt with. The
destructive effects of illegal drug use have been well documented, and
anything we say about the problem is likely to have been said many
times before, but it is still worth saying because we cannot afford to
forget what is at stake in this effort.
In my home State of South Dakota, methamphetamine use has hit our
Indian reservations very hard over the past few years. Numerous
individuals have become trapped in a cycle of meth abuse, their plans
and dreams for their futures erased as their world shrinks to nothing
more than their next dose. Of course, drug abuse doesn't just affect
the individual using drugs; it ripples out into families and
communities. Since meth abuse spiked on our reservations, there has
been a significant
[[Page S1117]]
increase in the number of babies born addicted to meth, and that is
about as heartbreaking as it gets, Mr. President--a newborn baby
screaming in agony as her body suffers withdrawal.
The meth epidemic on our reservations has also caused a significant
increase in the number of meth-related crimes, including sexual
assaults, domestic violence, child neglect, car accidents, and gang
violence.
The meth epidemic has worsened the housing shortage facing South
Dakota tribes because meth has contaminated a number of homes across
our reservations. Cleaning up a house that has tested positive for meth
costs thousands of dollars.
Several South Dakota tribes have seen so much devastation from meth
abuse that they have declared a State of public emergency to gain
access to additional government resources to fight the problem.
Today we are considering legislation to address another drug epidemic
that has caused similar devastation--the abuse of prescription
painkillers and heroin.
Since 1999, drug overdose deaths from prescription opioids, such as
oxycodone and hydrocodone, have quadrupled. Forty-four Americans die
every single day after overdosing on prescription opioid painkillers,
and the numbers on heroin abuse are similarly disturbing. Heroin abuse
in the United States nearly doubled between 2002 and 2013, while
overdose deaths related to heroin nearly quadrupled. Between 2013 and
2014 alone, heroin use in the United States increased nearly 35
percent. Behind those numbers are thousands of broken families,
suffering children, and devastated communities.
Any response to a problem as deep and complex as drug abuse has to
approach the problem from a number of different angles. It has to
address education and prevention. It has to target the drug supply by
going after those who trade in and produce drugs. And it has to ensure
that individuals trying to escape the cycle of addiction have access to
the resources they need to overcome their dependence. The bill before
the Senate today, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, targets
all these priorities. A substantial part of the bill is focused on
funding programs that provide treatment and support for individuals
trying to escape painkiller or heroin dependence. The bill also
provides grants for education and prevention and for local communities'
anti-drug efforts.
An important section of the bill focuses on developing best practices
for prescribing pain medication. Right now, prescription painkillers
are heavily prescribed in the United States. In fact, the United States
consumes more opioids than any other country in the world. Our country
accounts for almost 100 percent of hydrocodone used globally and 81
percent of oxycodone use. In 2012 doctors prescribed enough
prescription opioids to give every adult in the United States a month's
supply. Let me repeat that. In 2012 doctors prescribed enough
prescription opioids to give every adult in the United States a month's
supply.
It goes without saying that prescription painkillers can be a key
part of medical treatment, but it is essential that we make sure these
potentially addictive drugs are being carefully prescribed and that
they are only being prescribed when they are really needed. Reviewing
and updating prescribing practices will help us prevent attempts to use
these drugs inappropriately.
One of the most important parts of preventing drug abuse is going
after the people who prey upon the vulnerabilities of their fellow man
by engaging in the drug trade. One significant reason for the recent
spike in heroin abuse is the sharp increase in supply of affordable
heroin here in the United States over the past several years. This
increase has been driven by a major surge in heroin production in
Mexico. Between 2013 and 2014 heroin production in Mexico increased a
staggering 62 percent--62 percent, in 1 year. A large part of that
production increase has ended up here in the United States. Any
successful strategy to combat the heroin epidemic in the United States
has to include efforts to check the flow of heroin coming across our
borders. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act addresses this
priority by authorizing grants to State law enforcement agencies to
investigate the illegal trafficking and distribution of heroin and
prescription painkillers, and Republicans will continue to look for
ways to support Federal, State, and local law enforcement as they seek
to stem the flow of drugs into our communities.
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act is an important bill. It
is supported by Senators of both parties and by a number of law
enforcement and drug treatment associations. It takes the kind of
comprehensive approach we need to address the abuse of heroin and
prescription painkillers, but our efforts are not limited to this bill.
Last year we passed the Protecting Our Infants Act to help prevent
and treat prescription painkiller abuse in pregnant women and provide
care for newborns who suffer as a result of their mothers' abuse of
opioids. We also increased funding for efforts to combat painkiller
abuse and provided grants to States to help them prevent and treat drug
abuse. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, I worked with my
colleagues last year to provide new resources to the Coast Guard, the
leading Federal agency for combating the drug trade on the high seas.
The Senate Finance Committee recently held a hearing on the Stopping
Medication Abuse and Protecting Seniors Act, which establishes a
Medicare Program to prevent painkiller abuse.
Too many lives across our country have been wrecked by drug abuse,
too many children have lost a mother or a father to addiction, and too
many communities are bleeding from the violence and brokenness that
accompany the drug epidemic in this country.
Republicans remain committed to doing everything we can to support
those fighting drug abuse, whether they serve in law enforcement
agencies, emergency rooms or classrooms. We are committed to reaching a
day when fewer lives are destroyed by the scourge of drugs.
The legislation before us today--which Senators Portman, Ayotte,
Toomey, and others have been involved with--is an important step
forward in helping to address something that has become a crisis in
this country and which is impacting, in a harmful and negative way, way
too many families and way too many individuals and ruining the hopes
and aspirations of too many young people and children across the
country.
Let's pass this legislation, let's get the House to pass a similar
piece of legislation, and let's get something on the President's desk
that can be signed into law that will bring the relief that is needed.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, no one appears to be seeking the floor
right now, so I will take the opportunity to speak about our CARA
legislation. Since the Senator from Ohio, who has been my partner in
this, is now presiding, this is an opportune time to give some remarks.
I think like many States, just from the remarks we heard on the floor
already, it is not unusual to have a terrible toll at home from opioid
abuse and from overdoses. In 2014, 239 Rhode Islanders lost their lives
to overdoses. That is more than were killed in automobile accidents,
more than were killed in homicides, more than were killed by suicide.
Indeed, that is more than all of those categories--automobile
accidents, homicides, and suicides--combined.
In one small community, Burrillville, RI, the beginning of last year
was marked by six opioid overdose deaths. Burrillville is a very small
town in northern Rhode Island. There are probably 5,000 people who live
there. In one quarter, the opening quarter of last year, to lose six
people, to have six police calls to the scene, to have six wakes, six
funerals in a community that small--that is sadly emblematic of what is
going on all around the country.
Rhode Island is not alone. The addiction overdoses are claiming
lives, creating tragedy, and destroying families
[[Page S1118]]
across the United States. Our emergency rooms in America treat almost
7,000 people every single day for the misuse or abuse of drugs. There
are 7,000 people who come through the ER doors needing treatment,
which, by the way, runs up costs to our health care system. More than
120 people die every day as a result of an overdose. The latest year
for which we have figures is the year that Senator Thune just
mentioned, 2014--47,000 dead in 1 year.
If you leave this building and walk down to the Mall, you will find
the Vietnam war memorial. The Vietnam war memorial has about 58,000
names on it. From the entire Vietnam conflict, there are 58,000 names
on the Vietnam war memorial. From 1 year of opioid overdose, there are
47,000 deaths. I am afraid it probably went up in 2015. We don't have
the figures in yet.
Behind this tragedy of death and sorrow lies a terrible failing,
which is that, according to the most recent estimates, nearly 9 out of
10 people who need drug treatment don't get it. They just don't get it.
When you think of that death toll, you think of the cost and you think
of the sorrow. The idea that we are still letting 9 out of 10 people
who need treatment not even get it, not have access to it, is a
terrible failing.
The economic cost of all of this is something we always think about
here in Congress. Whether it is from health care costs or criminal
justice-related costs or loss of productivity at work, that has been
estimated at as much as $70 billion per year.
One thing we have seen is that the ongoing substance abuse epidemic
does not discriminate by race, by ethnicity, by gender, or by age.
Overdose rates are up in both men and women, in non-Hispanic Whites and
Blacks, and in adults of almost all ages. The dynamic nature of this
epidemic demands that we respond in a comprehensive way--a way that
brings together the public health, the public safety, the behavioral
health care, the addiction recovery, and other communities.
It was out of this recognition, this realization that this pandemic,
as some have aptly called it, requires an all-hands-on-deck approach
that the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act was born. Starting in
the spring of 2014, Senator Portman of Ohio, Senator Klobuchar of
Minnesota, Senator Ayotte of New Hampshire, and I hosted a series of
bipartisan, bicameral congressional forums addressing various aspects
of addiction--from the role of addiction in our criminal justice
system, to the special challenges faced by women, by veterans, by young
addicts, and the collateral consequences that we impose on people when
they are in recovery. We hosted five forums, as the Presiding Officer
will well recall, that brought together experts from these various
fields to come here from all around the country. This was a national
pilgrimage to Washington to highlight best practices and to share
success stories from their States.
I have more remarks that I will be pleased to make as the day goes
on, but I am here managing the floor, and so I will yield the floor to
my colleague and fill in again when there is a gap in the proceedings.
I yield the floor, and I will pursue this later.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Guantanamo Detainees
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, yesterday I joined Senators Gardner and
Moran on a factfinding mission to Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay was a
humble reminder of the services our military provides overseas to get
these terrorists off the battlefield and ensure they don't end up in
Americans' backyards.
President Obama has signed multiple pieces of legislation into law
that explicitly prohibit the transfer of enemy combatants from
Guantanamo Bay to our shores. Most recently, the 2016 National Defense
Authorization Act signed by the President specifically prohibited funds
to be utilized to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United
States.
Among those being held are detainees such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
who is the principal architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks in
New York City, according to the ``9/11 Commission Report.'' Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed is just part of the 9/11 five who are currently
detained in Guantanamo Bay who allegedly masterminded and facilitated
the 9/11 terror attacks on our country. In fact, other prisoners
include Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard, who fought U.S. forces in
Afghanistan.
We need to do the right thing for our country and keep them locked up
in Guantanamo and not help President Obama fulfill a campaign promise
and bring these terrorists to our communities.
I am exceedingly proud of our men and our women serving at Guantanamo
Bay. They are impressive, they are professional, and I am honored to
represent their interests in the U.S. Senate. I will continue working
tirelessly to prohibit the transfer of these detainees to America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I will continue my remarks.
We were discussing the forums that the Presiding Officer, Senator
Ayotte, Senator Klobuchar, and I organized. Out of that developed a
national working group of stakeholders from the public health
community, from behavioral health folks, prevention, treatment,
recovery, and law enforcement. The forums informed us and the working
groups supported us as we worked to draft legislation that would
promote effective, evidence-based policies and increase collaboration
among what are too often siloed areas of activity and expertise.
The bill we developed would do a great number of things. They fall
into four major categories:
First, it would expand prevention and educational efforts--
particularly aimed at teens, parents, and other caretakers, and elderly
folks, aging populations--to prevent the abuse of opioids and heroin
and to promote treatment and recovery.
Second, it would expand the availability of naloxone to law
enforcement agencies and other first responders to help in the reversal
of overdoses and save lives.
Third, it would expand the resources to identify and treat
incarcerated individuals suffering from addiction disorders promptly by
collaborating with criminal justice stakeholders and by providing
evidence-based treatment.
Fourth, it would strengthen prescription drug monitoring programs to
help States monitor and track the diversion of prescribed drugs out of
the proper and legitimate market and to help at-risk individuals get
access to the services they need.
It does a number of other things, but I will not summarize them all
now.
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act recognizes what we have
learned from science and from experience, and it promotes those
practices that we know work best to confront the multiple facets of
this new epidemic. It sends the message that we in Congress understand
that addiction is a disease, a public health crisis that requires more
than the enactment of stiffer criminal penalties. We tried that road.
We know it was not a success.
The bill we worked on and prepared has been endorsed by over 130
community and national organizations on the frontlines of this
epidemic, including the National Council on Behavioral Health,
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, the Hazelden Betty Ford
Foundation, the National District Attorneys Association, the National
Association of Attorneys General, major county sheriffs, the American
Correctional Association, and many others.
Here in the Senate, at the last count, we had 38 cosponsors and
myself. I am sure that number is climbing.
As committed as I am to the principles in this legislation and to the
need to encourage and support these policies, I recognize that this
bill alone is not enough. Without adequate resources to fund the
programs in the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, CARA, they
will remain out of reach to too many of the individuals, communities,
and first responders who most need them. Without adequate resources for
prevention, treatment, and recovery, we will continue to spend billions
of dollars elsewhere in economic and societal costs that would be
avoidable if we got this right. Without adequate resources, too many
people who desperately want to turn their lives around will be told to
wait another day. Anybody who knows about addiction recovery knows what
the consequences can be of being told to wait another day.
[[Page S1119]]
Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire has proposed an amendment which
provides emergency appropriations to address this crisis. I am a
cosponsor of that amendment because I agree with her that the opioid
epidemic is an emergency, a public health emergency, and should be
treated as one. Building on the strong commitment Congress made to
funding addiction and recovery programs in the fiscal year 2016
omnibus, Senator Shaheen's bill would appropriate an additional $600
million to the Department of Justice, to SAMHSA, and the CDC, much of
it going to programs authorized in CARA, the Comprehensive Reduction
Recovery Act, or complementary to CARA's goals.
This would not be the first time the Congress has authorized
emergency spending in response to a public health emergency. When the
swine flu epidemic hit, and I believe took 11,000 lives, Congress
appropriated $2 billion on an emergency basis with broad support on
both sides of the aisle. Here, in the latest year for which we have the
data, the body count is 47,000 deaths. We lost 11,000 lives to swine
flu and 47,000 lives in 1 year to the opioid epidemic.
I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me and
Senator Shaheen and vote, not only to support the Comprehensive
Addiction and Recovery Act but to also provide added resources to make
those principles a reality in the lives of the people who are counting
on us to come to their aid. Addiction is a tough illness and recovery
from it is a hard but noble path. Men and women who walk that path
deserve our support, encouragement, and admiration.
I thank my fellow sponsors, Senator Portman, Senator Klobuchar, and
Senator Ayotte, for their partnership over the past 2 years as we
prepared this legislation. I thank Chairman Grassley and my ranking
member Senator Leahy for their commitment to tackling this epidemic and
for bringing this bill out of the Judiciary Committee without
opposition and now to the floor where we hope we can bring it across
the finish line.
Let me say that I anticipate we are going to have a disagreement
about the funding of this bill. I will fight as hard as I can to make
sure this bill is adequately funded, but I do not intend, nor do I know
anyone who intends, to block the passage of CARA or to interfere with
it going into law over the question of funding.
People will have to check in with their own consciences, check in
with the desires of the addiction and recovery communities in their
home States, and check in with their constituents as to the right way
to vote on giving this adequate funding.
Finally, let me close by thanking the advocates, providers, police
officers, rescue personnel, and of course the families who support and
help the people in recovery through the tough nights and days. They do
the hard work of saving lives every single day, and we would do well to
honor them by passing this bill and seeing to it that it has adequate
funding support.
I yield the floor to the Senator from Virginia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have an inquiry. I believe there will be
a series of speakers coming to the floor to address the issue of
digital security. I don't know if my colleague, the Senator from Ohio,
has a long statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask if my colleague would defer to me
for just 2 minutes so I may address the CARA bill that Senator
Whitehouse has been talking about, and then I will yield to the Senator
from Virginia.
First, I wish to thank Senator Whitehouse for his partnership. As he
said, we have been working on this issue for the last few years to
ensure that we have a comprehensive approach to this horrible issue of
drug addiction and specifically the increasing threat of addiction to
prescription drugs and heroin which we see in all of our communities.
It is the No. 1 cause of death in my home State of Ohio, and we have
been told it is the No. 1 cause of accidental death in the country. It
is far worse than that. It is tearing apart families and communities,
and we need to address it.
I will say two things. One, this is not just a bill about principles,
this is a bill about policy, and Senator Whitehouse and I are
supporting new policies to approach this issue more effectively, as to
prevention and education, as to treatment and recovery, as to dealing
with the unfortunate situation of too many overdoses of naloxone, as to
training, as to getting prescription drug monitoring programs in place,
as to helping these addicted babies and mothers who are pregnant and
have an addiction. There are very specific policy changes here that
direct the increase in appropriations which is provided for in the
current fiscal year, for the next 7, 8 months. That funding will be
there for this legislation.
If we were to pass this bill tomorrow and get it enacted into law,
that funding would be there not just in principle but in specific ways
to spend that money more effectively. I wanted to make that point
clear.
Second, I do support additional resources, as does Senator
Whitehouse. I believe this is such a crisis that it requires resources
over and above what we even provided in CARA. We have to get CARA done,
and I agree with Senator Whitehouse on that. This is priority No. 1 not
just for us but for the 130 groups around the country that are the
experts in prevention, education, treatment, and recovery. They have
come together and given us their best counsel; that is, that this
legislation will actually help to begin to reverse this terrible trend
of addiction.
I am hopeful we can have a full debate on this legislation. I
understand Senator Shaheen is going to offer an amendment. I have seen
the revised version of her amendment, and I believe I will be able to
support her amendment. I have just started to look it over, but I like
it because it does provide additional funding. The funding is in
addition to the funding we know will already be in there for CARA. It
would be emergency funding. It is not usual for me to support funding
that is not paid for through other offsets, but I believe we are in
such a crisis in this country, including my State, that I will be able
to support that. However, as Senator Whitehouse said, we have to pass
the underlying bill. I appreciate my colleague's commitment on that,
and I appreciate the commitment of so many other great groups around
the country that have supported us and said: Let's not get off track
here. Let's get this legislation passed.
We have companion legislation in the House. It is bipartisan and
identical to the legislation Senator Whitehouse and I introduced. We
worked together with the House on this legislation. This is bipartisan.
They have over 88 cosponsors, Republicans and Democrats. We have very
good signals from the White House that shows they are interested in
working with us. Therefore, this can actually get done.
It is not just about funding for this year. Obviously, this would be
a change in the way we spend money. It is an authorization to change it
next year and the year after that and the year after that. In my
experience that is what needs to be done.
I was the author of the Drug-Free Communities Act in the House for
almost the past two decades. There has now been $1.3 billion under the
auspices of the Drug-Free Communities Act that directs and targets that
funding to what we know is effective prevention. Our legislation takes
that to the next step with regard to heroin and prescription drugs and
will help those communities that are particularly impacted.
I thank my colleague from Rhode Island. I also thank my colleague
from Virginia for his indulgence. I am sorry to interrupt his colloquy
with our colleagues.
I yield my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first of all, I thank both of my
colleagues for their very important work on the issue before the Senate
today. I, like them, have a State where both opioid and heroin abuse is
taking too many lives and destroying too many families. I look forward
to successfully moving forward on this legislation.
Digital Security
Mr. President, I rise to join several of my colleagues in a
conversation on digital security. Since last year, I have been working
with the chairman of the
[[Page S1120]]
House Homeland Security Committee, Texas Republican Michael McCaul, to
set up a Commission of experts to study digital security and issues
around encryption. These issues have been somewhat in the news, and we
have seen court cases in both California and New York.
I say to my colleagues that this is one component the Commission is
trying to address. We are at the beginning of a debate that is even
broader than the current cases being litigated in California and New
York, which will encompass the whole world with digital security. If
you think the issues we face now are challenging, as our country and
the world move more toward the Internet, such as having your
refrigerator respond to your voice, this issue around digital security
is only going to grow.
I have a background with the technology community and Chairman McCaul
has a background with the law enforcement community. Unfortunately,
over the last few months, we have seen folks from the tech community,
the law enforcement community, and the privacy community talk past each
other too often. We have seen this issue addressed without a common set
of facts. We have now seen situations arise that have basically pitted
law enforcement against technology. We think the approach we are
taking--bipartisan legislation that was introduced on Monday--is the
appropriate way to go.
I am joined by my partner in the Senate, Senator Gardner. We have
Senator Collins, Senator Bennet, and my good friend Senator King.
Mr. President, regardless of where people fall in this debate,
digital security tools are terribly important. Encryption is essential
to protecting our personal information, our financial information, our
intellectual capital, and our national security, and this is one issue
in which the heads of law enforcement and the heads of the intelligence
community as recently as 2 weeks ago--Senator King and Senator Collins,
who are on the Intelligence Committee--have said that encryption is
here to stay and is extraordinarily important.
We have seen challenges around this technological innovation come
very quickly. Think about this: Nearly 2,000 new applications are
submitted to the App Store every day. That is how quickly this world is
changing. The majority of these new applications that are added to that
App Store are actually produced overseas. Two-thirds of these new apps
use some level of encryption.
I follow this from a policy standpoint but also my personal
background in the telecommunication industry for over 20 years. I can
say that the networks we deal with today in terms of the Internet, the
cloud, are infinitely more complicated than the distributed top-down
network that existed in the 1990s when the Congress most recently
addressed some of these issues. The Internet today is no longer top
down. The fundamental architecture of the Internet is decentralized and
resilient. We have seen on countless occasions in the past that telecom
traffic shifts quickly from one area to another, and attempts by any
government to channel that traffic in a certain way in fact often
results in shifts that make it harder for government, law enforcement,
and intelligence to stay abreast of the activity.
Obviously, Mr. President, many of these issues have been public since
Edward Snowden's disclosure 3 years ago. I think that disclosure did
great harm to our country. We have seen more recently, in the press,
this debate crystallize after terrorist events and court activities in
both California and New York.
What we are doing--these Members in the Senate and Members in the
House--in a bipartisan way is saying: Let's sit down together and work
through a common set of facts, a common collaborative approach, so that
before more time elapses and positions harden any further, we bring
something together now to sort through these complicated issues.
We all need to be working, as I said before, from the same set of
facts. We need a framework for collaborative conversation. Too often I
have heard from law enforcement and tech in recent months that we need
to get into a room and try to sort these things through. Unfortunately,
a static, American-only solution won't get us solving the problem. I
believe it will simply drive the bad guys, the criminals and
terrorists--at least the smart ones, anyway--off of American
technology, away from American platforms, and move more and more
criminals and terrorists to foreign-based hardware and software and at
the end of the day actually make the safety and security of the United
States far more out of reach.
I know at the outset some of my colleagues here questioned whether a
commission is the right way, done too often. Congress has used
commissions in the past to punt the solution. The model we have taken,
working with great assistance from Senator Collins, is the 9/11
Commission.
In the event of a national tragedy, a congressionally mandated
Commission came together on a series of policy recommendations, the
overwhelming majority of which were implemented by the Congress. That
is why the 16-member Commission, modelled after the 9/11 Commission,
has been endorsed by a wide range of stakeholders, from the tech
sector, to respected academic and legal experts and distinguished
national security figures. As a matter of fact--and this doesn't happen
that often--our Commission proposal has even been endorsed by the
editorial boards of both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington
Post. These validators agree with us: A bipartisan, bicameral Digital
Security Commission is a productive path forward.
All these issues are not easy. What is great about America is that we
are a country of innovators and of problem-solvers. I know that if we
stop talking past each other and put the right people in a room, we can
find the right solutions that protect us all, and then Congress can
act.
Mr. President, I know we are going to hear from a number of my
colleagues. I would like to now yield the floor to my friend and
colleague on this issue, the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Gardner.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. GARDNER. Thank you, Mr. President.
I thank my colleague from Virginia for his work on this and his
history in the telecom business and his understanding of the
complicated issues set before us. There are no simple answers. There is
no black-and-white way to proceed here. There is no yes or no that we
can reach because of the complicated set of factors before us when it
comes to balancing our security needs and balancing our privacy needs
at the same time.
In fact, I am reminded of when I was in the State legislature and
legislation we worked on several years ago. We were trying to figure
out what to do when it came to criminal acts over the Internet. At the
time this bill passed, most people were using BlackBerrys. I don't know
if the iPhone had been invented yet. They described in the statute that
the legislature was working on--it was dealing with the issue of
Internet luring of a child, and when they wrote the language, they used
technical language. And when presented with a case under the statute
trying to charge somebody with Internet luring of a child, a judge
actually said: Well, since the defendant, the perpetrator, was using a
BlackBerry--we don't define the BlackBerry as a computer; therefore,
this offense of Internet luring of a child won't apply in this
particular case. That was because at the time, the legislature tried to
describe in very definite terms a black-and-white answer to technology
that had evolved or that everybody thought would be understood that
this is a computer or this is the Internet. A judge said: No, that is
not the case. So we had to address that issue in later years to try to
overcome and understand the technology in ways that allow technology to
evolve, that allow new technologies to emerge, but also make sure we
are passing laws to provide protection to victims of crimes--in this
case, an innocent child.
So when we are dealing with this issue of privacy and security and
encryption, Congress ought to be the first body to admit there is no
single person in here who can say: I have every answer. I have every
solution. Choose me. Choose my bill. This is the way forward.
I applaud my colleague, Senator Warner from Virginia, for the work he
[[Page S1121]]
is doing, along with Senator Collins, myself, and Chairman McCaul in
the House of Representatives, to try to find that solution to a very
nuanced issue. This challenge with encryption that we face today is
significant.
Encryption, as we know, is a technology designed to prevent
unauthorized access to data and information. It is a code or series of
codes put in place to put a lock on valuable things and trivial things
alike, as the case may be when it comes to encryption. No matter how
you describe what it is or what it is protecting, there is no doubt
that it has been an enabler of global commerce in an increasingly
interconnected age. It is that blanket that keeps our credit card
numbers safe and our bank account numbers safe. It is the underpinning
of financial success for businesses such as eBay, Amazon, iTunes, and
more. But it can also be used, as we have seen, perhaps to cover bad
actors, to cover their actions, creating a safe harbor sometimes for
people who don't deserve to have a safe harbor. It can be an
impenetrable cage around crimes, a powerful tool that is used to thwart
law enforcement and lawful investigations, a blockade that is too
difficult to penetrate for law enforcement.
So this bill that you have put forward, this Digital Commission that
will be comprised of experts around the country on issues of privacy,
on security, on encryption, to try to find the right balance between
what is it that we need in this country to protect our national
security, to find bad actors who are trying to hide bad things with
innocent technologies--this is to craft policies in an open manner that
we can then turn to and look at to make sure we are protecting privacy,
protecting encryption, that we are not offshoring the problem, allowing
others to hide by technology made offshore, but that we have a solution
here in Congress that takes into account evolving encryption techniques
and technologies, respecting people's privacy rights as well. While
there is a darker side to some users of innovations we have unleashed,
we have great benefits from the innovations we have created that have
enhanced our way of life and our quality of life.
So to Senator Warner, my colleagues in the Senate, and the Chair, I
would congratulate the Senator on his good work and the work so many of
us have done to try to find this balance of security, privacy, and to
make sure we are giving no quarter to people who wish to do this Nation
harm.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, he stated that correctly. This is not an
either/or circumstance. We have to protect Americans' privacy. We have
to make sure we protect Americans' lives and liberty from criminals and
terrorists. We also need to ensure that we continue to promote American
innovation. And I believe there is a way through this, and I appreciate
his good work as we move forward on this important piece of
legislation.
Let me ask someone who has seen this process work before, a longtime
member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security
Committee who helped shape this legislation, my friend and colleague
from Maine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor of the Digital Security
Commission Act, a bill that will establish a national bipartisan
commission to examine digital security and privacy and the ``going
dark'' problem that poses a real challenge for those responsible for
our national security and for protecting the American public.
Let me commend the primary author of this bill, the Senator from
Virginia, Mr. Warner, for his expertise in putting together not only a
well-balanced commission but also a broad array of cosponsors in
support of this important legislation.
Senior administration officials--the FBI Director first among them--
have been vocal in articulating the problem of terrorists and criminals
going dark, with the result that our intelligence agencies and our law
enforcement are going blind. Director Comey has testified repeatedly to
the fact that there are terrorists who are using encrypted
communications to plot attacks against our people, and we know that
international criminal cartels are doing so as well.
There are many competing and difficult concerns that need to be
worked out as we address this complex issue. Under our bill, a national
and diverse commission will perform its review and then make
recommendations that will protect the privacy rights of law-abiding
individuals in an era in which terrorists and criminals increasingly
use encrypted devices. The Digital Security Commission will have the
opportunity to make a valuable contribution to this debate, and that is
the opportunity our legislation creates.
The laws of the United States, unfortunately, have not kept pace with
technology, which has obviously rapidly evolved during the past three
decades. As a result, the issues of going dark and preserving personal
privacy are ones that we simply must grapple with today and for the
future. To resolve what often are competing concerns will undoubtedly
require a new law.
Let me be clear that I personally don't believe that the absence of a
new law in any way exempts a company or an individual from complying
with a court order issued by a Federal judge. In the San Bernardino
terrorism case, Apple has been ordered by a Federal judge to provide
technical assistance to help the FBI access data on a cell phone that
was used by one of the terrorists involved in killing 14 people and
injuring 22 others.
Here is an important fact that has been overlooked in many of the
reports on this crime. Given that this phone was owned by the county,
which has given its permission for the data to be retrieved--and I bet
that is a critical point here--and that the court order is narrowly
tailored, I believe Apple should reconsider its position as it relates
to this particular case.
In the long run, however, it is clear that we need a new law and a
dialogue among the administration, Congress, Federal and State law
enforcement, and the tech community in order to deal with this issue.
It is appalling to me that there have been no legislative proposals
submitted by the White House or any other Federal agency to guide us on
this issue. At a time when the administration has been notably absent
in the offering of a legislative proposal to address these important
and complex issues, the practical solutions that I believe would come
from the Digital Security Commission would be most welcome by the
Congress and would help us and guide us as we draft a new law.
To be sure, these are difficult issues to resolve. And I believe that
if you surveyed the cosponsors of this bill, you would find all sorts
of different views on the cases that are before us. Indeed, the courts
have reached different opinions. While I do not expect that the
Commissioners will see eye to eye on every recommendation, we can have
confidence that the final report will reflect the consensus judgment of
a supermajority of the Commissioners who are selected in equal numbers
by Republicans and Democrats. The final report must be supported by at
least three-quarters of the Commission to ensure that no recommendation
represents the view of just a few stakeholders. When we had the 9/11
Commission's recommendations, one reason they were so powerful in
enabling us to revamp the intelligence community was their unanimity.
Again, let me thank Senator Warner for his leadership. I look forward
to working with him and with my other colleagues, including the Senator
from Maine, Angus King, to make sure that we get this issue right for
the challenges we face now and in the decades to come.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Collins from Maine for her
comments today and for her good work on the Intelligence Committee and
for her good work on the Homeland Security Committee and the fact that
she has thought through these issues in a different framework--when our
country was attacked--after 9/11. I would simply add that if some in
Congress or elsewhere had come through with this kind of collaboration
a few years back, we might not now be having two cases--one in New York
and one in California--where, at least it appears
[[Page S1122]]
at first blush, the courts are coming at it from very different
directions.
Let me reemphasize that in America the only solution here could
simply drive criminals and terrorists to foreign-based technology,
hardware, and software. In many ways, to get this right, if we are
going to prevent a balkanization of the Internet, which is not in
America's interests and not in most countries' interests, we need to at
least think through this from an international perspective.
Let us hear now from a former Governor, like myself, and a great
member of the Intelligence Committee. I thank him for joining in this
effort. As Senator Collins said, we have a broad breadth of ideological
viewpoints from these eight bipartisan original sponsors here in the
Senate, and I think more will be joining us.
I would simply add that on a day where a lot of the Nation's focus is
on Super Tuesday and on some of the activities that are taking place in
the Presidential debates, it is great to see such responsible Members
from both parties step forward in a bipartisan way to address a very
serious issue, both today and in the future, for our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, when I first entered this body in the winter
of 2013, I was appointed to the Intelligence Committee. Every Tuesday
and Thursday, we would meet for several hours talking about very
difficult, very complex, and sometimes very scary issues.
After sitting through those meetings for several months, it suddenly
came to me what our mission in that committee is. It really comes down
to balancing two provisions of the Constitution. The Preamble to the
Constitution, which establishes the basic premise for why we have a
government and why the Constitution was established, uses two important
phrases in conjunction with each other. The first is ``to ensure
domestic Tranquility'' and the second is ``to provide for the common
defence.'' There are other elements listed, but that is part of the
essence of any government: to ensure domestic tranquility and provide
for the common defense; in other words, to keep us safe. That is what
government is all about.
But on the other hand, the Bill of Rights, and particularly the
Fourth Amendment, makes it clear that there are limitations on
government's power in whatever area. The Fourth Amendment says that
``the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects shall not be violated'' and also: no unreasonable
searches and seizures. Those two provisions are intentional, and they
have been since the founding of the Republic. The role of the
Intelligence Committee and this body, it seems to me, is to constantly
recalibrate the balance between those two provisions based upon the
threats our country faces and the developments of technology. That is
really what this discussion is about. It has been brought into sharp
focus in the last two weeks by the case involving Apple and San
Bernardino, as well as other cases around the country.
The Apple case points out the complexity and the difficulty of these
issues. It is not simple. It is easy to say it was a terrorist's phone;
open it up and get the information. But then we learn that, No. 1,
Apple is not being asked to simply throw a switch or plug in a wire. It
is being asked to write new software that would compromise its own
software protections built into its iPhones all over the world. So it
is being asked to create something, not simply open the doors. No. 2,
although there has been some discussion about it as ``just this
phone,'' it is not just this phone. Apple is being asked to create a
new piece of software that compromises its operating system in such a
way that the phone can be hacked. Once that piece of software is
created, there is no telling where it will go. It is referred to in the
tech literature as the ``golden key'' or the ``God key.'' Sure, Apple
could keep it, but it might--who knows, a disgruntled employee could
let it out. Apple itself could be hacked. It could fall into the hands
of our intelligence community. It could then be made public. Once it is
out there, we can't undo it.
What I mean by raising these issues is not that I know what the
answers are, but that it is very complicated. And what if Apple creates
the key for the San Bernardino phone but it ends up in the hands of
China or Russia or Iran or a criminal enterprise, then we have
compromised the security of millions of our citizens, and perhaps of
our country itself.
The real point here is this is an issue of immense significance and
public policy importance that should not be decided by a single court
in California or Iowa or New Jersey or anywhere else based upon a 220-
year-old law. This is an issue of policy that should be decided here.
Indeed, in the district court opinion that was written yesterday in New
York, that was released yesterday--I stayed up late last night reading
it--the heart of that opinion was: This is a job for Congress. This is
a policy question. The judge said the people who wrote the All Writs
Act in 1789, the Judiciary Act of 1789, many of them were the same
people who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He said he
could not believe they meant to import to the judiciary the power to
make this kind of policy. That was the fundamental promise of the
opinion. I commend that opinion to my colleagues. I have been reading
judicial opinions for about 50 years. It is one of the best I have ever
read in terms of the research and the footnoting. It is a very, very
strong argument, and it makes the case I think very straightforwardly
that this decision should not stay in the hands of the court. The real
issue here is who shall decide this complex and portentous issue.
Now, generally, I don't like commission bills. Typically, they are
often the politicians' way of putting the problem off to someone else
in the future and we will deal with it later and we will appoint a
blue-ribbon commission. But I have seen them work. The Senator from
Maine mentioned the September 11 Commission that I think did excellent
work and provided the basis for a great deal of good policy. In Maine
we had a commission years ago on workers' comp, which was a very
difficult issue in our State, but the commission helped us to get a
political solution that ultimately helped to solve that problem. I have
seen commissions work, and I think this is exactly the right answer in
this particular situation, because the issue is so complicated and
because it involves technology, it involves law, it involves the First
Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and it involves
national security. These are important considerations, and we have to
understand the ramifications of these issues before taking action.
Now, we may want to and need to address the specific issues raised in
the current Apple case on an interim basis. We may decide not to do
that, but that is an option whereby we don't necessarily have to wait
until the commission acts because the commission is talking about
larger issues. Yes, it is talking about the encryption issue, or would
talk about the encryption issue, but it is also dealing with broader
issues of digital security. So we may want to make an interim decision
while we wait for the work of the commission.
I think the important point is that the question before the Senate
is, Where should this decision be made? I would join my colleague from
Maine by saying that this problem--this so-called going dark--the
encryption problem and its constraints upon law enforcement are not new
this week. We have been hearing about it in the Intelligence Committee
and in the Armed Services Committee and generally in the press for 1
year or 2 years, and I believe the law enforcement community or the
administration should have come forward with a legislative proposal for
us to act upon. Of course, I am not absolving myself. We could have
brought forth our own proposal. But it was their continuing to raise
this issue, and I think it was incumbent upon them to say: Here is how
I think it should be solved.
Now, I know if Mr. Comey were here he would say: Well, we hoped we
wouldn't have to bother you about this because we were trying to work
this out with the technology companies. I understand that. But I wish,
frankly, that we had put forth this bill 1 year ago or 2 years ago, and
then we would be in the position of answering this question today
instead of starting
[[Page S1123]]
down the path of handing this question to a commission that we hope
will provide some answers and guidance to us that will help us to make
policy.
I am delighted to be a cosponsor of this bill. I commend the Senator
from Virginia for spearheading this effort. I think it is one that
deserves quick attention here, and it is something that we can move so
we can get to work on trying to understand all the ramifications of
this decision. We don't want to compromise national security, but we
also don't want to compromise personal security. And we don't want to
create something that could redound against national security if it
fell into the hands of some of our adversaries.
So I am delighted to be able to help with this effort. I look forward
to working with the sponsor and the other cosponsors. Hopefully, this
is something we can move on with alacrity so that we can bring this
issue back to this Congress sooner rather than later. We will never
answer the questions finally because by the time we get some answers,
there will be new developments in technology and new questions. But we
at least need to bring this debate into the 21st century and try to
find a solution that will make sense, both in terms of national
security and personal security for the citizens of this country.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I thank the Senator from Virginia as well.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Filling the Supreme Court Vacancy
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, this is a great country. Regardless of
what some people say, this is a great country, and the reason it is
great is that people work. They get up and they produce for this
country. They give their talents. They get paid. They help their
families. Their kids get educated. We have that ethic of doing our job.
That is why it is so shocking to me that the Republicans who are in
charge of this Senate refuse to do their job. They said that no matter
who the President nominates, they are not even going to hold a hearing
on that person. They say they want a Presidential election. Well, they
had two, and their guys lost. I know it is not a happy experience.
Believe me, I have lived through it. I have served with Republican
Presidents and Democratic Presidents. But the world doesn't stop
because you are not happy with who is President. The Constitution tells
us what we have to do. Here is what article II, section 2, clause 2
says. And I know everyone here swears to uphold this Constitution. I
would argue that when my Republican friends state that they are not
going to do their job, they are not going to hold even a hearing on
whomever the President nominates for the Supreme Court, which is now
short one member, they are defying the Constitution. Maybe they will be
sued by someone--an aggrieved party. The people of this country are
aggrieved by this attitude.
Let's read article II, section 2, clause 2, for anyone who cares
about the Constitution, and everybody says they do. It says the
President ``shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of
the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and
Consuls, [and] Judges of the supreme Court.''
It doesn't say the President does it alone; it doesn't say the Senate
does it alone; it says they do it together. That is article II, section
2, clause 2. This Senator advises her colleagues to read it, and if you
don't follow it, you are not doing your job. We want them to do their
job.
Now, who else says that it is important? I will tell you--some very
incredibly respected people. This quote is from Ronald Reagan, one of
the heroes of the Republican Party. I served when he was President, and
he said: ``Every day that passes with a Supreme Court below full
strength impairs the people's business in that crucially important
body.''
That is Ronald Reagan.
Let's look at Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the
Supreme Court, a Republican who is very beloved. What a wonderful
woman. She made history because Ronald Reagan appointed her and we
confirmed her. She said, ``I think we need somebody there''--meaning in
the Court--``to do the job now, and let's get on with it.'' This is
Sandra Day O'Connor.
So, my Republican friends, you have two extraordinary Republicans
whom you love telling you to do your job.
It doesn't say in article II, section 2, clause 2: But you don't have
to do your job if you don't like the President. It doesn't say that. It
just lays it out pretty straightforwardly. This is article II, section
2, clause 2. It doesn't say: Don't do this if you don't like the
President. It doesn't say: Don't do this in an election year.
As a matter of fact, we voted in an election year. Anthony Kennedy
was nominated by Ronald Reagan with a Democratic Congress. And we voted
in an election year. Do you think we wouldn't have been happier to wait
and see if we were able to get that Presidency back as Democrats? No,
we did what Ronald Reagan asked us to do. We acted responsibly, and we
found Anthony Kennedy to be very qualified. He sits on the Court to
this day, having been voted on in an election year.
It has happened 14 times in our history. The only time we had a
problem was back in the Civil War, when our country was obviously under
tremendous stress. Today, we are one Nation under God, and we should
pull together on this.
There are some other things I wanted to read to you. This is what
Michael Gerhardt, professor of law at the University of North Carolina,
said about the Republican plan not to move on this vacancy:
Refusing to hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nomination or
refusing to take any action on a nomination before it has
been made is simply unprecedented in our history. The refusal
is not grounded in the Constitution. It is a willful
abdication of authority. The Constitution does not seek to
have effect at certain times of the year or the session.
One never knows when something horrible is going to happen. When this
happened to Justice Scalia, this was a shock to his family, to the
country. Regardless of whether you agreed with him or not, it was a
shock. Nothing in the Constitution says if you are shocked about
something that happens, you don't have to work with the President. It
doesn't say that. Don't make it up, especially because this is the
party that keeps saying they want a strict construction of it. If you
want to construe the Constitution in a strict way, you need to act.
There is Jamal Greene, professor of law at Columbia. He says: ``The
Senate has a constitutional duty to give due consideration to anyone
nominated by the President to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.''
He goes on: ``In the modern history of the Nation, there is no
precedent for the Senate deliberately refusing to vote on a nominee to
a vacant Supreme Court seat, whether during an election year or at any
other time.''
We have our differences here; we really do. People say: Senator, is
that why you are not running again, because it is so hard to do things?
No. I love it here. This is just my time to move on and do other things
and have somebody else come in. I love it here. I love my colleagues. I
have friends on both sides of the aisle and I get things done and so do
they. You would think that we would agree on the meaning of the
Constitution--it is simple--and that we wouldn't be arguing about it.
I am a little stunned at this failure to step up and do their job. I
will tell you this. If you are an average American and you have a job
and you call your boss and say: ``Hi, Boss. It is Monday morning, and I
just don't feel like coming to work.''
"Are you sick?''
"No.''
"Do you have a problem with your family?''
"No.''
"Well, what should we do?''
"Well, I am not in the mood. I want to wait.''
You would be fired. You would be fired.
I am going to be here for the remainder of this year. I want to do my
job. I want to do my due diligence. I want to have a chance to work
with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle here on this issue.
Today at the White House, Senator McConnell and Senator Grassley
reportedly told President Obama that they don't want to do their job.
They don't want to do it. They don't care who he sends up. It is
unreal. It is unbelievable. They want an election.
We had an election. President Obama didn't get elected for 3 years;
he got
[[Page S1124]]
elected for 4 years. The next President, whatever party, is going to be
there for 4 years until the next election. This person has to do their
job for 4 years, and we have to do our job. They don't want to hold a
vote, they don't want to hold a hearing, and many of them say they will
not even meet with the nominee.
It is our job to be involved in this election. This election of the
next Justice is such an important job. The Supreme Court has a job to
do. This incredible attitude by my Republican colleagues means that the
Supreme Court cannot really function the way it is meant to function.
It is going to be divided 4 to 4. That is unfair to the people of this
country. Whatever side they are on, this decision needs to be made. As
Ronald Reagan said: ``Every day that passes with the Supreme Court
below full strength impairs the people's business in that crucially
important body.''
Here is one of the heroes of the Republicans saying that every day
that passes with the Supreme Court below full strength, the people's
business is, in fact, impaired.
Here is what that states. This isn't an argument that is happening in
a vacuum in some fancy boardroom of some law firm, conservative or
liberal. It is a serious argument that impacts the people. Every year
the Court considers cases with profound consequences for our
constituents. Again, it doesn't matter what your position is. We need a
fully functioning Court.
I want to give an example, and I see my friend from the State of
Washington. The Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments in Whole
Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the most important women's health case
in a generation. The case is about the unprecedented attacks we are
seeing on women's health in Texas--which is what this case is about--
but also across the Nation. This case is about extreme politicians and
extreme groups trying to overturn 43 years of settled law.
The settled law is very simple. Women have a right to have
reproductive health care. It is as simple as that. When a series of
clinics throughout the State are shut down and women have to travel
hours and hours and hours and maybe even days to get health care, they
effectively don't have it. That is what has been happening in Texas.
That is why this case is so important. There is a Texas law, HB2, that
was designed to close health clinics that provide a full range of
reproductive health care services, including annual exams, pap smears,
STD tests, birth control, and, yes, safe and legal abortions--the full
panoply of services for a woman. This law in Texas singles out women's
health providers with burdensome requirements that have already forced
more than half of the clinics in Texas to close.
I don't know who gets happy about that, but I don't get happy about
that, and nobody who cares about a woman should get happy about that.
It is a total outrage. Women are taking matters into their own hands
because they have no access to doctors. The goal of this law--and it is
working--is to shut down these clinics and deny to women these rights
that they have earned. It would reduce the number of providers in
practice from 40 to 10. If you are just unfortunate enough to live in
an area where your clinic is shut down, Lord knows what you do. You may
be a single mother, you may be part of a couple where you both work,
you may have children, and you may not be able to take days to find
health care.
The law is forcing women to travel for hours and some even to other
States. Women who live in remote or rural areas may have to stay
overnight or for multiple days to avoid making more than one trip.
Think about the cost to families who may not be able to do it, who are
just getting by. Many women simply can't afford to take off work, drive
for hundreds of miles, or get on a plane every time they need health
care.
They want to do their jobs. They want to be responsible. They step up
to the plate every single day, but we can't do it here because politics
is playing a part. People have decided they didn't like the fact that
Barack Obama got elected twice. Well, too bad--he did, and it is your
job to act.
I am sorry you don't like the President. Maybe you don't like the
fact that he got us out of the worst recession since the Great
Depression. Maybe you don't like the fact that he cut the deficit by
two-thirds. Maybe you don't like the fact that he got us out of two
wars. That is your choice, fine, but he has a right to nominate, and we
have a responsibility to meet that nominee and to vote up or down on
him or her.
These cases that are pending before the Court--and I am just
highlighting this one, and I know Senator Murray will go into depth on
it--these cases are critical. We need the full bench. I don't care how
you feel about the issue. Maybe you support closing down clinics and
going from 40 to 10, letting women suffer, taking matters into their
own hands. If that is your position, I am sorry, it is not fair, but
you have a right to your position--but the Court has a right to be at
full strength.
I close with just a quote from a woman who has been hurt already by
this Texas law which is going to be heard tomorrow in the Court.
Marni. Marni had to fly from Austin, TX, to Seattle when her
appointment was cancelled the night before it was scheduled because the
clinic was forced to immediately discontinue providing these services
after the Texas law took effect. Marni said her first reaction was ``to
feel like my rights were being taken away from me, to feel very
disappointed that elected officials had the ability to make decisions
about my and my fiance's life.''
That is Marni. The stakes could not be higher. This is just one of
the cases.
Finally, the highest Court in our land should be fully functioning.
The American people deserve nothing less. I am going to put up the
Sandra Day O'Connor quote for the last time in this talk. She is a
Republican woman, first woman to serve, and appointed by Ronald Reagan.
She is looking at this Court. She knows what it is like to serve on the
Court. She knows how hard the issues are. She understands how important
it is. She is more important to this debate than anyone in the Senate,
including yours truly. She knows. She didn't say: Wait until the next
election to see if my party wins, no. She didn't say that. She said:
``I think we need somebody there now to do the job, and let's get on
with it.''
I thank the Senator from Washington for her leadership on this issue.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, thank you to the Senator from California
for her long advocacy on behalf of women across this country to be able
to access the health care they choose.
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of
Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. At its core, this is a case about
whether extreme rightwing politicians will be allowed to block women
from exercising their constitutionally protected health care rights,
rights that have been affirmed by the Supreme Court for more than four
decades.
For women across the country, for our daughters, and for our
granddaughters, there is truly a lot at stake. I have been so inspired
to see women of all ages from across the country standing up now to
share their stories and to make sure the Supreme Court knows why
politicians should not be able to make women's health care decisions.
In fact, 113 lawyers submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court
explaining the difference that constitutionally protected reproductive
rights have made in their own lives. The stories they tell are
incredibly powerful. One partner at a major law firm wrote that after
three miscarriages, ``my husband and I were delighted when I again
became pregnant in December 1999 and safely made it past the `danger
zone' of the first trimester, passing an amnio with flying colors.
[But] five weeks later, when I was heading into the sixth month of my
pregnancy, I returned to the doctor for a routine ultrasound and the
doctor immediately detected a problem.''
Her baby had a rare heart defect, so severe that he was already in
congestive heart failure and would be born only to suffer if he
survived at all.
After talking with her doctors and her husband, they made the
decision to terminate her pregnancy. She wrote:
As a woman, a mother and a lawyer, I know I did the right
thing. I have shared my story with my children, and hope that
should my daughter ever find herself in a position similar to
mine, she will enjoy the same rights that were available to
me.
[[Page S1125]]
It should go without saying, but politicians have absolutely no place
in such a deeply personal, extraordinarily difficult decision.
Unfortunately, the Texas clinic shutdown law being challenged in Whole
Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt--a law that has been driven by extreme
rightwing politicians who want to undermine women's access to health
care--would mean the exact opposite. This law and laws like the one
that was allowed to stand in Louisiana just last week places burdens
that health experts, such as the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, say are medically unnecessary on clinics in order to
shut them down and make it harder for women to exercise their
constitutionally protected reproductive rights.
If the Supreme Court fails to block this law, three-quarters of the
clinics that provide abortion services, as well as other health care in
Texas, would be forced to close, leaving 5.4 million women in Texas
with just 10 clinics statewide. Hundreds of thousands of Texas women
would have to drive 300 miles round trip just to get care they need.
If that is not an undue burden, I don't know what is. A ruling
upholding the Texas shutdown law wouldn't just impact women in Texas,
it would make it easier nationwide for politicians to interfere with
women's health care and block them from exercising their constitutional
right. That would be the wrong direction for women. It would be the
wrong direction for families and for our country as a whole.
That is why tomorrow women and men from all over the country will be
outside the Supreme Court standing up for women's health, rights, and
opportunity. I will be very proud to be right there with them because
we are going to be sending a very clear message. A right means nothing
without the ability to exercise that right.
I hope the Justices listen, realizing how much this ruling means to
women's lives. Ultimately, I hope they will rule in favor of ensuring
women's health and rights continue to progress, rather than going
backward. I know our country will be stronger for it.
Mr. President, I express my appreciation to Senator Whitehouse and
all of our colleagues who have worked very hard to bring this bill
before us on the floor, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act.
It lays out key steps toward addressing the crisis of prescription drug
abuse and heroin addiction, which is ruining and costing lives
nationwide, including in my home State of Washington.
I hear about this epidemic from Washington State families and
communities far too often. Parents ask me what we are doing in Congress
to help families like theirs who are trying desperately to help their
children who are struggling to escape addiction. I am told about
mothers and fathers who developed opioid addictions after being
prescribed pain medication, with devastating consequences for their
families.
When I go to speak with local sheriffs and police chiefs, they say
they are most often the ones responding to these crises and that our
country needs to do better than allowing those struggling with
addiction to cycle in and out of the criminal justice system. They tell
me that heroin use is only becoming more widespread in our communities,
especially amongst our young people.
Penny LeGate is a former news anchor from Seattle and she knows this
all too well. Her daughter, Marah Williams, had a happy childhood,
ballet lessons, softball, a close-knit family, but in middle school, as
she began to struggle with ADHD, depression, and anxiety, she also
started experimenting with drinking and drugs. For years her parents
tried everything they could do. As Penny will tell you, Marah did too.
She fought hard to break her addiction and to keep her life moving
forward, but tragically, when Marah began using OxyContin and then
heroin, the grip of addiction was just too much. Marah died of a heroin
overdose in the basement of her family home when she was just 19 years
old. This is a parent's worst nightmare. It is happening to parents
across my State, across the country, and it has to stop.
I am pleased there is bipartisan momentum toward giving our
communities the tools and resources they need to tackle this disease.
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, CARA, includes efforts to
strengthening education, prevention, and treatment efforts around
prescription drug abuse and heroin use. It will cut down on
inappropriate use of pain medication that gets so many people addicted
to opioids in the first place and would make it easier for people to
safely dispose of pain medication so it doesn't get in the wrong hands.
This legislation will also help police departments get access to
naloxone, a drug that counteracts the effect of an overdose, which is
something police chiefs I have spoken to make clear they need--and
more.
The bill we are debating right now would be a good step in the right
direction, but it can be even better. As many of my Democratic
colleagues have made clear, a problem as serious and urgent as this
epidemic deserves a serious, urgent response. So we should enact the
policies in this bill and at the same time we should also make sure
families and communities will see additional tools and resources as
quickly as possible. That is why I strongly support the emergency
investments proposed by the senior Senators from New Hampshire, West
Virginia, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, and others. Their
proposal will actually help our States and local governments, as well
as families who are on the frontlines of this battle, by providing the
resources to prevent opioid abuse and expand access to the treatment
that so many families are seeking.
I am hopeful Republicans will work with us to move this alongside
this important bill so families don't have to wait for Federal
resources that this crisis desperately needs.
As I have laid out, the legislation we are debating today would go a
long way toward tackling the epidemic of prescription drug abuse and
heroin addiction, especially if it includes an emergency funding that
can offer relief and support quickly, but given the strong belief on
both sides of the aisle that far too many people are falling through
the cracks in our mental health and substance abuse systems, I believe
we can and should do more to build on this CARA legislation in the
coming months.
We should pass this bill, but then I hope all of our colleagues will
not just get up and walk away. We should build on this rare moment of
bipartisan agreement, stay at the table, and keep working beyond this
bill to strengthen mental health care and substance abuse treatment in
our country.
So even while we are debating this very first step, I wish to lay out
just a few of the goals that should guide us as we look past this,
goals I believe that can be met if we work together and take this
crisis seriously.
First, mental health is every bit as important as physical health,
and we should make sure we work together to make sure they are both
treated equally in our health care system; secondly, we should do more
to break down the barriers that make it difficult to address patients'
mental and physical health care needs at the same time; third, at a
time when half of all U.S. counties lack access to a social worker, a
psychologist or a psychiatrist, we need to strengthen our mental health
care workforce so patients and families can get care when and where
they need it, whether that is at a hospital or in their own community;
fourth, we need to recognize that mental health care is important at
every stage of life and ensure our system can address every patient's
needs, whether that patient is a child or an adult; and, finally,
continue taking steps to address the opioid abuse epidemic, I believe
we can do more to expand access to medication-assisted treatment and
offer our States more resources to respond to crisis situations,
including by strengthening prescription drug monitoring programs.
My colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have worked very hard to
improve prevention and treatment of opioid addiction, especially among
individuals who pass through the criminal justice system. I believe we
need to ensure these tools and resources are available to all Americans
struggling with addiction and ensure that our health care system is
equipped to address addiction as a disease.
I have been proud to work with the junior Senator from Connecticut
and other members of the HELP Committee on both sides of the aisle, led
by
[[Page S1126]]
Chairman Alexander, the senior Senator from Tennessee, on a path toward
meeting those goals. I am very hopeful we will be able to reach
agreement on some additional steps that would make a difference for the
many families and communities who are struggling to support loved ones
in need.
Mr. President, it goes without saying that in this divided government
we don't agree on much, but there is some important bipartisan
agreement on the need to close the gaps in our mental health care
system and tackle the crisis of opioid addiction. So I hope we can pass
the legislation we are debating today, along with improvements that
ensure it helps patients and families as quickly as possible, but we
shouldn't stop there. We should seize this opportunity, work together,
and continue making progress for the families and communities we serve.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in favor
of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. Senator Whitehouse and
I have been working on this together for years, along with Senator
Portman and Senator Ayotte, so this bill has been bipartisan from the
beginning. I thank my colleagues, and I also thank Senator Grassley and
Senator Leahy for their leadership in bringing this to the floor and
all members of our committee, including the Presiding Officer, who have
contributed to this bill.
Our Nation is facing a serious problem with drug addiction, and I am
glad to join my colleagues today to talk about how we can tackle this
problem and work toward a solution by passing this bipartisan bill.
Just last week I was out in Montevideo, MN, and we gathered together
some people from the town. It is a town of a couple thousand people.
Our goal was to just talk about this problem. I was shocked that early
in the morning on a Saturday we had 50 people there. We had every
doctor in the town there, to my knowledge. We had the sheriff there,
the police chief there.
At one point a regular citizen who was there, who had suffered from
some diseases and had been in the hospital, actually emptied out her
purse and tons of medications and opioids came rolling out onto the
table that she hadn't used. It was an image I will not forget and an
image I bring to the Senate floor to remind us there are too many of
these drugs out in our communities.
I heard stories of young children who had dealers--people who were
trying to get the opioids--actually saying to them: Hey, I will give
you a beer if you will go to your parents' medical cabinets and look
for these drugs, and they would write them down for them. The kids
would then go, get the drugs, and bring them back.
There was a story of one doctor who was treating someone, thought he
was pretty normal. He had back pain, and the doctor had given him some
painkillers for years. Then, all of a sudden, one day the Secret
Service shows up because this man had actually made a threat on the
life of the President. He had an entire nightlife that was different
than his day life, and it was completely dictated by the fact he was
addicted to prescription drugs.
Four out of five heroin users get their start these days from
prescription drugs. I don't think anyone would have ever imagined that.
When I was growing up, when we saw heroin addicts on the corner or when
I was a prosecutor for years, we never had those kinds of statistics.
People got hooked on heroin because they got hooked on heroin. They
started with heroin and they, sadly, would end with heroin. In this
case, we have 80 percent of people becoming addicted because they have
a surgery because they have back pain. They then get too much of the
drug or no one figures out that getting hooked on the drug is worse
than the pain they had in the first place, and they get hooked on the
drug.
We also have stories of overdoses of people who are not even taking
the drugs for periods of time. So we have a crisis in this country, and
when I met with those people in Montevideo, it hit home to me that it
can happen at any time.
We didn't pick this town because they were having a big crisis or
because they had a number of deaths. We just happened to be in that
area of the State and decided we wanted to focus on the issue.
Before I was elected to the Senate, I spent 8 years serving as chief
prosecutor in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis. Drug cases
made up about one-third of our caseload, which meant we handled
everything from trafficking and selling to production and
manufacturing. From this position, I had an opportunity to see
firsthand the devastating impact of drug addiction.
Mr. President, I see my colleague from Indiana has arrived. I am
managing the bill for this hour, and if he wants to speak, I can go
back and finish my remarks later. I will just finish up while he is
getting back to his desk.
I was talking about my time as county attorney. Many of those people
who were affected by addiction that we saw were hooked on opioids,
including both heroin and we saw the start of this prescription
painkiller epidemic.
We would be sadly mistaken if we think drug abuse only happens in our
cities or the metropolitan areas of our States. As I saw this weekend--
when I met with some of our people--Beltrami County, MN, received three
emergency calls for heroin overdoses in 1 day. One of those individuals
passed away. So this is happening every day.
Mr. President, I am going to turn it over now to Senator Coats of
Indiana. I see he is here to support this bipartisan bill, but I thank
the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from
Minnesota. I am here to talk about opioid abuse as well, although I am
trying to combine two speeches. Since we are now talking about the
opioids abuse and drug addiction, I am more than happy to listen to the
Senator from Minnesota finish her speech. I thank her for the time, but
I want to make sure I am not also unduly holding my colleague back as I
flip through my weekly ``Waste of the Week'' because I can delay that,
if necessary.
Mr. President, I am joining my colleagues here. I believe all of us
are deeply concerned about the drug addiction epidemic that is sweeping
through our Nation. It is an epidemic for people of all ages, but it is
most tragically an epidemic for our young people who feel a sense of
immortality when they are young and often fall prey to the ``just try
it, it is harmless, don't worry about the addiction.'' Obviously, that
is not the case. We are talking about highly addictive drugs and heroin
that is coming into our country, and we are talking about serious
consequences of this.
In our States, as in every other State, it is a major crisis, and we
are trying to do everything we can to address that. In one county
alone, we have had an unprecedented rural HIV outbreak as a result of
the sharing of needles to inject opioids. These needles that are
providing the kind of drug addiction we read about every day.
It is clear the legislation before us is a comprehensive approach,
and that is needed. As I have said, I think we have to have an all-
hands-on-deck effort here, whether it is prevention, whether it is law
enforcement to keep the drugs from coming in or whether it is
treatment. It is all three, and it requires not only those three
components but communities and community organizations, whether
Federal, State, local, or volunteer organizations, such as the various
charities that are operating and their volunteers who are stepping up.
All of us need to get involved in all aspects of dealing with this.
I am pleased to cosponsor the bill Senators Portman and Whitehouse
have worked on, CARA, which has been talked about on the Senate floor.
I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bipartisan legislation. The
legislation includes a provision Senator Blumenthal and I, on a
bipartisan basis, have offered, which authorizes individuals who are
authorized by the State to write prescriptions for controlled
substances, such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners, to
access State prescription drug monitoring programs--so-called PDMPs--to
reduce drug abuse. I will not go into the details of that program, but
it has been very successful in terms of providing the transparency and
the information necessary so we can control prescriptions and the
output of drugs
[[Page S1127]]
that are perhaps prescribed for legitimate purposes but are used for
illegitimate reasons.
For all of that, I look forward to our being able to work through
this legislation and to successfully pass this legislation and move it
on through the Congress and to the President.
Wasteful Spending
Mr. President, if I could also, ask for the indulgence of my
colleague from Minnesota, to talk briefly about my waste of the week. I
think this is the 35th or 36th week. I have almost lost track of the
number of weeks I have been down here. Every week the Senate has been
in session I have been down, with maybe one or two exceptions, talking
about the waste of the week.
Waste of the weeks are simply issues documented, through a
nonpartisan process, of waste, fraud, and abuse that occur through the
irresponsible spending and oversight of our bureaucracies here in
Washington. Today I am highlighting two policies that have occurred
within the State Department and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Frankly, I could be talking about every agency in the Federal
Government that has fallen prey to a lack of oversight. We have come to
the point where we have identified over these ``Waste of the Week''
speeches well over $150 billion of documented waste, fraud, and abuse.
These are issues that have been raised through inspections and
analysis by the Government Accountability Office by the inspectors
general of various agencies whose job it is to delve in and find out
how the taxpayer money is being spent--is it being spent for the
legitimate purpose of providing the service that is needed or is there
a problem either in mismanagement or through waste or are criminals and
others taking advantage of the program? I have now documented, as I
said, 35 of those cases totaling well over $150 billion.
Today we want to look at two agencies as examples of this. I can go
through every agency, but we will take two today. One is the State
Department. Let me note it is estimated that changing the policies here
could save the taxpayers an estimated $295.6 million. That is not small
change. Just addressing these two agencies $295-plus million it will
save.
Let me go into a little bit of detail. State Department employees
located overseas--those serving in embassies or consulates--have access
to what is called a purchase card. The concept is OK. The idea is that
rather than go through all the paperwork and processing and sending
back to the United States, employees can say: Look, we need some office
supplies. We didn't order enough initially. We need to pick up 100
Scotch tape containers or pens or who knows what. A purchase card is
given to those employees who are responsible for providing those
supplies to make what is called simple transactions.
To prevent the wasteful use or fraudulent use of these purchase
cards, Federal law and State Department guidelines require all
transactions meet certain eligibility criteria and be continually
monitored. We know from experience that mistakes are made. We know from
experience that fraud is committed. One of those key eligibility
criteria is that all of the purchase receipts have to be retained for a
minimum of 3 years. That is so inspectors general can go back and look
at what the purchase is, look at the receipt, make sure everything is
up to speed and done within the law.
However, a recent report by the State Department inspector general
has revealed that overseas employees have been told they do not have to
send any purchase documentation to their supervisors in Washington for
further review. All they need to do is keep the receipts of the
purchases for a 3-year period of time so that if those assessments are
evaluated, when someone comes back and says ``We heard there is a
problem here,'' they will have the receipts to verify whether the
purchases were legitimate or not. That is the ``trust but verify'' that
I think is important for dealing with these kind of situations.
When the State Department inspector general tried to access the
documentation for purchase card transactions as required by the law and
by State Department regulation, he found that many of the overseas
offices didn't keep their transaction records. As an example, in fiscal
year 2014, the inspector general found that more than half of overseas
offices either didn't perform reviews of purchase card transactions as
they are required to do or didn't even respond to the inspector
general's request to produce the documentation. The report determined
that during 2013 and 2014, there were $53.6 million in unaccounted
purchases. That is unacceptable.
If you take a job, you are told: Here is your card. If you need to
buy something locally and don't want to go through all the rigmarole of
purchasing and sending documentation overseas and so forth, you can use
this purchase card. But you have to keep the documents if you do this
because you are going to be reviewed. Someone is going to come over
here and say: Prove it.
Yet the State Department has basically said: Don't worry about it.
You don't have to keep those--probably thinking that they will never
come over and follow up on this. So that $53.6 million in unaccounted-
for purchases at this rate, over a 10-year period of time, amounts to
about $263 million in unknown and unverified purchases just within the
State Department's overseas offices. Who knows what is going on here?
Secondly, I want to talk about the Federal Aviation Administration
because they have a similar situation that was inspected by their
inspector general. He found that many employees do not comply with the
guidelines, and the employees are not consistently held responsible for
safeguarding their assigned equipment and supplies, such as digital
cameras, laptops, and any other number items. As a result, the Federal
Aviation Administration IG, the Inspector General, found that there are
nearly 15,000 pieces of equipment and material that employees may not
be able to locate. The combined value of that missing property is over
$32.5 million.
To make matters worse, the IG report states that the FAA division
that essentially lost $32.5 million worth of equipment doesn't even
have the authority to hold employees accountable. Not a bad job, right?
It is as if they are saying don't worry: If you mess up, if you do
something illegal, fraudulent, or you are just sloppy you're not
responsible, if you don't know where the equipment is, if you don't
keep track of it, you will not have to be accountable for that lost
equipment.
No American business could function this way and stay solvent. But
walk back an employee there and say: ``What happened to the new laptop
that we gave you 6 months ago?''
They would say: ``I don't know. I don't know where it is. I need
another one.''
``That's fine. Don't worry. This happens all the time. We will give
you a new one.''
On and on it goes. That division of the FAA essentially has lost
$32.5 million worth of equipment, and, again, it doesn't even hold its
employees accountable.
We have racked up nearly $19 trillion of debt in this country. No one
can explain how large an amount of money that is. What we do know is
that we are continuing to plunge into debt, and we are going to keep
doing that. One of the ways we can be more accountable here is what I
have just described.
I know my time is running out. With that, I am going to add this week
to our accumulating waste $295.6 million for these unknown, unverified
purchases, bringing our total now to $157.5 billion. It is time to put
a stop to this. It is time to enforce these rules and regulations. It
is time to be sensitive to the fact that we are wasting hard-earned
taxpayers' dollars.
With that, keeping on schedule, I thank my colleague from Minnesota
for the time which she has yielded, and I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ayotte). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I come to the floor today to speak in
[[Page S1128]]
favor of our bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. I
thank Senator Whitehouse, Senator Portman, and the Presiding Officer
for their leadership. We have worked together on a bipartisanship basis
on this bill from the beginning. Our Nation, as we know, is facing a
serious problem with drug addiction, and I am glad to join my
colleagues to talk about how we can handle this problem and how we can
do something about it.
Earlier in my speech today I referred to a group that I met with in
Montevideo, MN, with only a few days' notice. All the doctors in the
town showed up. The sheriff, the police chief, and regular constituents
poured a bunch of medications on the table to show how much we are
seeing in terms of overprescription and how this can so easily get in
the wrong hands or turn people into addicts.
I came to this issue first as a prosecutor. I spent 8 years serving
as the chief prosecutor in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis.
Drug cases made up about one-third of our caseload, which meant we
handled everything from trafficking and selling to production and
manufacturing. From this position, I had an opportunity to see
firsthand the devastating impacts of drug addiction. Many of those
affected were hooked on opiates, including both heroin and prescription
pain medication. But even when I left that office in 1998, I didn't see
anything near what we are seeing today. We were starting to see the
beginnings of the addiction on prescription drugs, but nothing like we
are seeing today. In fact, four out of five heroin users are getting
their start by misusing prescription drugs.
We would be sadly mistaken if we thought this was only an urban
problem. We know it is a huge problem in our rural areas. In Beltrami
County, MN, just this past weekend there were three emergency calls for
overdoses. One of those people passed away. That is a rural county in
our State on one weekend.
Many of those who have been affected by this epidemic are young
people. Over just 6 months in 2013, three people died of opiate
overdoses and another three were hospitalized for overdosing on heroin
in one 7,000-person town in Minnesota. These statistics and stories are
troubling, and they show why we must focus on both treatment and
prevention.
Minnesota is home to Hazelden Betty Ford Addiction Treatment Center.
We are proud of the work and the leadership our State shows when it
comes to treatment--one of the reasons I got involved in this issue.
Hazelden Betty Ford has had impressive success with its comprehensive
opiate response program. Their program offers the best of both worlds:
lifesaving medicine to help treat the medical causes of addiction, as
well as counseling to help people get on the right path.
However, too many people have been unable to get the treatment they
need. Almost 10 percent of Americans are estimated to need treatment
for issues related to drug and alcohol, but only about 1 percent
receives treatment at a specialty facility. That is why my colleagues
and I have come together to introduce this bill.
Our bill covers strategies for prevention, evidence-based programs
such as strengthening prescription drug monitoring programs--something
I worked on with the Presiding Officer. These types of programs help
States track data on controlled substances like opioids so that when
they are dispensed, they can be a strong, effective tool in making sure
that they are used for the right reasons.
This last week I was near the South Dakota border. There were doctors
who knew patients were also going into South Dakota to get
prescriptions. It was very difficult for them to trace what was going
on--which pharmacy they would go to in rural areas. They could drive an
hour and go to a different pharmacy, drive another hour and go to a
different pharmacy--maybe see a different doctor in South Dakota and
maybe check into an emergency room somewhere else. That is going on
today in our country.
Another important provision in our bill will help make drugs less
accessible by providing consumers with safe and responsible ways to
dispose of unused prescription drugs. According to the DEA, more than
2,700 tons of expired, unwanted prescription medications have been
collected through these programs since the drug take-back law that we
passed in 2010 was put into place. That is a bill I worked on with
Senator Cornyn, who is also on the Judiciary Committee with me. It is
called the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act. It took a long
time for the DEA to get their act together to get the rules up. The
rules came up, and guess what. Literally, a few months later, Walgreens
has now said they will offer kiosks and places for people to return
drugs on a nationwide basis. Right now, we have law enforcement doing
it. Minnesota is at the front of the curve. We have some of our
libraries taking these drugs into secure facilities. But the best would
be that the places where people got the drugs would also be taking back
the drugs. So we are glad that bill has finally helped in that way.
We believe this bill before us today will help even more. We also
have in this bill increasing the availability of naloxone, which is
used to save lives in emergency overdose situations and a number of
things that are going to be helpful going forward. This bill is a
framework, but it is an important step forward that the Federal
Government is finally saying to the Congress and the Senate that we
need to take steps here.
Our bill has the support of a broad range of stakeholders, including
the National District Attorneys Association, the Fraternal Order of
Police, the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Directors, Faces and Voices of Recovery, and the Major County Sheriffs'
Association.
Finally, we must also recognize that combating this kind of drug
abuse will require a serious investment of resources. It is for that
reason that I have cosponsored Senator Shaheen's amendment to
appropriate emergency funding to address the heroin and opioid drug
abuse epidemic. I am hopeful that the Senate will come together to curb
the problem of prescription drug abuse and save lives across our
Nation. I am hopeful we will pass the amendment as well as our bill. I
think there will be a number of other good amendments that are
considered, including medical education and other things that need to
be done here.
I see this bill as the beginning and not an end. I think more work is
going to have to be done with funding. I think more work is going to
have to be done with the prescription drug monitoring. We have a start
here. But when people and addicts are crossing State lines, when we
have a very difficult situation with trying to regulate where the drugs
are and how many are going out--I figure that if a Target in my State
can find a pair of shoes in Hawaii with a SKU number, we should be able
to figure out if people are getting too many prescription drugs. We
should be able to educate our doctors so they are not giving them out
in quantities that are too big. These are some of the things I am going
to continue working on.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Filling the Supreme Court Vacancy
Mr. HATCH. Madam President, each of us has taken an oath to support
and defend the Constitution of the United States. President George
Washington called the Constitution the guide that he would never
abandon. The Constitution declares itself to be the supreme law of the
land, and more than 90 percent of Americans say it is very important to
them. Unfortunately, basic knowledge about the Constitution is
dangerously inadequate. I say this is dangerous because, as James
Madison put it, only a well-instructed people can be permanently a free
people.
The current debate over when to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left
by Justice Antonin Scalia's death only magnifies my concern. Ignorance
of not only how the Constitution applies to this question but even what
the Constitution says apparently extends far and wide.
Here is the text of the Constitution regarding the appointment of
judges
[[Page S1129]]
and other public officials: The President ``shall have Power . . . [to]
nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall
appoint . . . Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of
the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided
for, and which shall be established by Law.''
I could hardly read that on the chart from this side here. I should
have done it by memory.
The President ``shall have Power . . . [to] nominate, and by and with
the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint . . . Judges of the
supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose
Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be
established by Law.''
This is what the Constitution actually says, right here for everyone
to read. The Constitution gives power to nominate to the President and
gives the power of advice and consent to the Senate. It says nothing
about how the President and the Senate should exercise their separate
powers. In fact, the judicial confirmation process has been conducted
in different ways, at different times, and under different
circumstances.
Our job is to determine how, under current circumstances, best to
exercise our power of advice and consent. Several factors convince me
that the best way to do so is to defer the confirmation process for
filling this vacancy until the next President takes office.
First, this is only the third Supreme Court vacancy in nearly a
century to occur after the American people had already started voting
for the next President. In the previous two instances, 1956 and 1968,
the Senate did not confirm a nominee until the year after the
Presidential election.
Second, the only time the Senate has ever confirmed a nominee to fill
a Supreme Court vacancy created after Presidential election voting had
begun was 1916. That vacancy arose only because Justice Charles Evans
Hughes resigned to run against President Woodrow Wilson, a completely
different situation than we have before us today.
Third, the judicial confirmation process has become increasingly
combative, especially for the Supreme Court. Attempting to conduct this
process in the middle of an already divisive Presidential election
campaign would be especially difficult.
Fourth, President Obama's judicial appointees and Justice Scalia
represent two radically different kinds of judge. This offers the
American people a unique opportunity to express, through the election,
their view of the direction the judiciary should take by electing the
President who will make judicial appointments in the next 4 years.
In June 1992, then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, a
friend of mine, made the very recommendation that we are following
today based on some of the very same factors that I just mentioned. In
particular, he noted that the appointment process would take place in
divided Government during a Presidential election process that was
already under way. He could have been describing 2016 instead of 1992.
The Constitution does not mandate a particular process to address
this Supreme Court vacancy. We have to look all the way back to the
19th century to find a year in which the Senate confirmed a Supreme
Court nominee of the other party in a Presidential election year. That,
of course, was long before the courts became as powerful and the
confirmation process as confrontational as they are today. Democrats
can read the Constitution and understand the historical and political
facts as well as anyone else. Why then are they making such bizarre
claims?
Last week, for example, the minority whip said that the Constitution
requires ``a fair hearing and a timely vote.'' He claimed that this
conclusion comes from the plain text of the Constitution. Well, I have
the plain text up here, and it clearly says nothing whatsoever about
hearings or votes. As I said, the Constitution gives the power to
nominate to the President and the power of advise and consent to the
Senate and leaves to each the judgment about how to exercise their
respective powers.
Last week the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, said that
deferring the confirmation process would be an abomination. She said
that the Constitution's standard for the Senate's advice and consent
role does not change with the party of the President making
nominations. Yet she voted 25 times to filibuster Republican judicial
nominees, including to the Supreme Court. She voted not simply to defer
the confirmation process, as we are doing today, but to prevent a
confirmation vote from ever taking place. If the confirmation process
should not change with the President's party, then she should have no
problem with the decision we have made since it is less drastic than
the blockade she promoted just a few years ago.
Also last week, an email solicitation signed by one of my Democratic
colleagues asking for petition signatures claimed that the Senate has a
``fundamental duty to confirm nominees to the Supreme Court.'' I would
like to think this is simply an egregious typographical error because
it goes beyond even the false claim that the Constitution requires
hearings and a vote. If the Senate has no choice but to confirm a
President's nominees, what is the point of giving the Senate a role in
the process at all?
I will say it again in the hope of clearing up what should not have
been confused in the first place: The Constitution gives to the
President the power to nominate and to the Senate the power of advice
and consent. These are separate and independent powers, and the
Constitution does not mandate any particular way for the President and
the Senate to fulfill their responsibilities.
Because this fact is evident on the face of the Constitution, I
cannot understand my colleagues who say that the President has a 4-year
term. That observation has nothing at all to do with anything before
the Senate. The Senate is not doing a single thing and cannot do a
single thing to interfere with the President's power to nominate. He
can exercise that power in any way he chooses, including sending
nominees to the Senate up to his very last day in office. He can do
that. Nobody that I know of disputes that. My dispute would be as to
whether it is wise to do it right up to the very last day in office,
but nobody really disputes that he can exercise that power in any way
he chooses, including sending nominees to the Senate up to his very
last day in office. What the President cannot do is dictate to the
Senate how we exercise our separate power of advice and consent
regarding those nominees.
Liberal allies of Senate Democrats are similarly confused. I received
a letter signed by liberal groups, for example, claiming that the
Constitution requires ``timely hearings and votes.'' It almost sounds
like Democratic Senators and leftwing groups are sharing talking
points--almost.
Let's look once more at the language of article II. I will refer to
the chart. Tell me, where is the language about hearings and votes? I
understand that Senate Democrats and their leftist allies want a timely
hearing and confirmation vote this year to replace Justice Scalia, but
wanting a particular confirmation process and saying the Constitution
requires that process are two very different things.
Some of the groups signing that letter--in particular, I noticed the
Leadership Conference, the Alliance for Justice, and People for the
American Way--actively urged Senators to filibuster the Supreme Court
nomination of Samuel Alito. In 2006 they opposed the very confirmation
vote that today, just 10 years later, they say the Constitution
requires. Democrats and their liberal allies must be reading the same
made-up, shape-shifting Constitution that their favorite activist
judges use because the real Constitution says no such thing.
Democrats' arguments contradict not only the plain words of the
Constitution but also their own words and actions in considering
nominees of a Republican President.
As to hearings, then-Chairman Pat Leahy denied a hearing to nearly 60
judicial nominees in less than 4 years while George W. Bush was
President.
As to confirmation votes, the minority leader said in May 2005 that
claiming the Constitution requires a confirmation vote would be, in his
words, rewriting the Constitution and reinventing reality. That was by
the current minority leader. Here is what he said then:
[[Page S1130]]
The duties of the United States Senate are set forth in the
Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document
does it say that the Senate has a duty to give Presidential
nominees a vote. It says that appointments shall be made with
the advice and consent of the Senate. That's very different
than saying that every nominee receives a vote.
That was the minority leader, who was then the majority leader. Well,
think about that.
The duties of the United States Senate are set forth in the
Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document
does it say that the Senate has a duty to give Presidential
nominees a vote. It says that appointments shall be made with
the advice and consent of the Senate. That's very different
than saying that every nominee receives a vote. -
I mentioned one Democratic Senator who voted 25 times to prevent
confirmation votes on judicial nominees, as did the minority leader,
minority whip, Senator Leahy, and Senator Schumer as well. In fact,
Vice President Biden himself, when he served in this body, voted 29
times to filibuster Republican judicial nominees. While President Obama
today says that the Constitution requires us to vote on a Supreme Court
nominee, as a Senator, he, too, voted to prevent any confirmation vote
for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. In other words, these Senate
Democrats voted over and over to deny the very confirmation vote that
today they say the Constitution itself requires. They cannot have it
both ways. Do we have multiple Constitutions, one to use for a
President of your own party and another for the President of another
party? Democrats today have no credibility whatsoever to dictate how
the confirmation process should work for filling this Supreme Court
vacancy.
The Constitution leaves to the President how to exercise his power to
nominate and to the Senate how to exercise its power of advice and
consent. Recent claims to the contrary are inconsistent with the plain
text of the Constitution and with past words and actions of the very
Senators and grassroots activists making those claims today.
The question is when, not whether, to fill the vacancy left by the
untimely death of Justice Scalia. The best answer is to defer the
confirmation process until after the next President takes office. Far
from ignoring or shirking our responsibility, that conclusion tackles
our responsibility head-on for the good of the judiciary, the Senate,
and the country.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GARDNER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Honoring Deputy Derek Geer
Mr. GARDNER. Madam President, it is with a heavy heart that I rise
today to honor the life and work of Mesa County Sheriff's Deputy Derek
Geer. On Monday, February 8, Deputy Geer was dispatched to a call about
an armed individual in a local neighborhood. As members of our law
enforcement do every day, Deputy Geer, with courage and care, responded
to that call and through the senseless act of another, this son,
husband, father, and friend, lost his life.
Deputy Geer served with the Mesa County Sheriff's Office for nearly
15 years. As a veteran of the Navy, his service to others began long
before his role as a law enforcement officer. Service and duty to his
country and his community exemplified Deputy Geer's selfless concern
for others.
As a member of the Sheriff's Department, Deputy Geer served as a
victim's advocate, providing support to those enduring some of life's
worst difficulties. In every role he held, he always found ways to give
even more.
This loss has been felt deeply across Colorado's Western Slope, the
communities of the Western Slope, and our State, as we remember a man
who exemplified the best of the western spirit--courage and selfless
leadership.
The Grand Junction community has come together to support the Geer
family and our men and women who nobly protect us each and every day.
Members of law enforcement from around the State and around our Nation
came to honor the life of Deputy Geer, filling the streets to pay their
last respects.
Integrity, service, and community, the values of the Mesa County
Sheriff's Department--values carried out since the inception of the
organization in 1883--were embodied in the work of Deputy Geer.
The thin blue line represents the men and women in law enforcement
protecting the public from those who seek to harm and cause
destruction. Our officers do not waiver at the dangerous calls and
unknown situations. They face them in this line of duty, and they do so
out of a love and loyalty for their neighbors and community.
I am grateful for the work of those at St. Mary's Medical Center who
cared for Deputy Geer, as his last act was perhaps the most selfless of
all--to give his organs to others in need.
As Mesa County deputies shrouded their badges, we too shared in
mourning the loss of Deputy Geer, and we will continue to honor his
life and legacy.
My deepest sympathies and prayers go to Derek Geer's family, his two
children and his wife Kate.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I, too, would like to extend my
condolences to the family in Colorado and to the Senators from Colorado
for their loss.
Return from Space of Commander Scott Kelly
Madam President, I wish to call to the attention of the Senate that
tonight, around midnight, we are expecting the return from space of
Commander Scott Kelly, who has been in space for almost a year. He has
been on the International Space Station for 340 days. It is an
experiment regarding not only all of the things he has done in doing
experiments--all kinds of physical things--but we are specifically
doing a test to compare the effects of zero gravity on the human body
for an extended period of time and, of all things, comparing him to his
twin brother, an astronaut commander who was in command of the next-to-
the-last space shuttle mission in 2011. In that case, it was Commander,
now Navy, Retired, Captain Mark Kelly. So we will have an identical
twin so NASA can then see the effects of the physical, emotional, and
psychological effects, because as we prepare to go all the way to Mars
in the decade of the 2030s, there is going to be a lot we are going to
have to learn in long-duration space flight, and long duration in zero
gravity is going to be one of the things we have to be able to adapt
to.
This Senator was only in space for 6 days. The human body readapts
when you get back to Earth fairly quickly. For the long duration, and
in this case a year, there is going to be a significant readaptation,
as we have seen by some of our Americans who have been up for months
and months but nobody as long as a year.
In the old Soviet program, they put up cosmonauts for a year, and
there are changes that occur, but in those intervening years we have
become so much more aggressive in how we keep in a physical exercise
activity on board the space station, which is what it would be on a
Mars mission as well, trying to replicate through stress machines the
fact that we don't have gravity, but replicating that, and trying to
keep up the bone density and the muscle tone. We have to work at it,
and the astronauts on board the space station do that.
Scott Kelly has been up there for a year, and we will compare that
with his identical twin brother Mark Kelly, who has flown several times
in the space shuttle.
I will report to the Senate tomorrow, since he is supposed to return
in early morning to Kazakhstan. That is somewhere just before midnight
here on eastern time, and I wanted to alert the Senate to this because
we are right on the cusp of doing a whole number of things as we
prepare to go to Mars. This is certainly one of the significant events,
and we will see how Scott Kelly is doing.
In the meantime, we say Godspeed on his fiery reentry into the
Earth's atmosphere. Our hopes and our prayers go with him as he and his
crewmates return. I will be able to report to the Senate tomorrow.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Rhode Island.
[[Page S1131]]
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here to deliver my climate
remarks, but I wish to thank the Senator from Florida for his
description of what is happening up in space and what our fellow
Americans have achieved. One of the unforgettable moments of my time in
the Senate has been to hear Senator Nelson's description of the events
that led up to his space flight, the experience of his space flight,
and, frankly, the spiritual nature of the events and the effects on his
life. It has been impressive, and I am honored to serve with Senator
Nelson.
Climate Change
Mr. President, as the Presiding Officer knows, this is my 129th
``Time to Wake Up'' speech to my colleagues about the serious threat of
carbon pollution and our responsibility as Senators to heed that threat
and to take steps to soften the blow of climate change. With each
passing week, the evidence of climate change continues to mount and
public understanding of the stakes of the climate crisis continues to
grow.
Worldwide, 2015 was the hottest year since we began keeping records
back in 1880, according to both NOAA and NASA. The last 5 years have
been the warmest 5-year period on record since the World Meteorological
Association. We know the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere has
risen to its highest level in at least 800,000 years--probably several
millions of years but at least 800,000 years. Global sea levels are
rising along our shores at their fastest rate in nearly 3,000 years.
The current rate of change in ocean acidity is already faster than at
any time in the past 50 million years. Our oceans are acidifying more
rapidly than they have at any time in 50 million years. We measure that
from the geologic record.
The American people get it. They understand that climate change is
real. More than three out of every four Americans believe that climate
change is occurring and that doing nothing to reduce future warming
will cause a very or somewhat serious problem for the United States--
three out of four. Even the majority of Republicans now acknowledge
global warming, with 59 percent saying the climate is changing. When
asked, do you think that the world's climate is undergoing a change
that is causing more extreme weather patterns and the rise of sea
levels, 70 percent said yes.
The American people have an extraordinarily diverse and qualified
array of expertise supporting those convictions: virtually every major
scientific society and agency, our American military and national
security and intelligence officials, leading American companies,
doctors, and faith leaders.
So the truth is winning out, right? The polluters' campaign of
deception and misinformation has been thwarted, right? Well, wrong.
They are still at it.
A network of fossil fuel-backed front organizations with innocent
sounding names still propagates counterfeit science in an attempt to
cast doubt on the actual American scientific consensus. This network of
polluter-paid deceit and denial has been well documented by Dr. Robert
Brulle at Drexel University, Dr. Justin Farrell at Yale University, Dr.
Riley Dunlap at Oklahoma State University, and others. Dr. Brulle's
follow-the-money analysis, for instance, diagrams the complex flow of
cash to these front groups--a flow that the polluters persistently try
to obscure. Dr. Farrell's quantitative analysis of words written by
climate denial organizations revealed a complex climate denial
apparatus that is ``overtly producing and promoting skepticism and
doubt about scientific consensus on climate change.'' ``Doubt is their
product'' is the famous phrase.
Dr. Constantine Boussalis at Trinity College and Dr. Travis Coan at
the University of Exeter released a new study in December examining
more than 16,000 documents from 19 conservative think tanks over the
period 1998 to 2013 and found ``little support for the claim that the
era of science denial is over--instead, discussion of climate science
has generally increased over the sample period.''
Their study demonstrates that in spite of the broken global heat
records over the last decade, rising sea levels, and accelerated
melting of polar ice sheets, these conservative think tanks have, in
recent years, actually increased their polluter-paid attacks on
science.
The study explains these think tanks ``provide a multitude of
services to the cause of climate change skepticism.'' These include:
offering material support and lending credibility to contrarian
scientists sponsoring pseudoscientific climate change conferences,
directly communicating contrarian viewpoints to politicians--which is
how we get infected here--and disseminating skeptic viewpoints out
through the media.
It follows a playbook of fraudulent deception that we have seen
before from industrial powers fighting to obscure the harms their
products cause, tobacco being a fine example.
In 2002, the conservative strategist Frank Luntz summed up the scheme
in a memo to the Republican Party, since leaked, titled ``Straight
Talk.'' Here is what Mr. Luntz said:
Should the public come to believe that the scientific
issues are settled, their views about global warming will
change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make
the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the
debate . . . The scientific debate is closing [against us]--
He said back in 2002--
but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to
challenge the science.
This is the climate science version of the infamous 1969 tobacco
industry memo that declared that ``Doubt is our product.''
In her recent book ``Dark Money,'' Jane Mayer describes in-depth the
means by which fossil fuel interests put their wealth to use exerting
outsized influence on our American political process. First, she
describes, they invest in intellectuals who come up with ideas friendly
to the industry. Then they invest in think tanks to transform these
ideas into ``marketable policies''--stuff they think they can sell. As
one environmental lawyer explains, ``You take corporate money and give
it to a neutral-sounding think tank'' which ``hires people with
pedigrees and academic degrees who put out credible-seeming studies.
But they all coincide perfectly with the economic interests of their
funders.'' Ms. Mayor describes this as the ``think tank as disguised
political weapon.''
Not surprisingly, think tanks in the climate denial scheme tend to be
funded by fossil fuel interests like ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers
or their fronts. The Kochs and their ilk use dark money channels to
funnel money through a labyrinth of nonprofit groups that make the full
extent of their meddling difficult, if not impossible, to fully
determine. The Boussalis and Coan study identifies the Heartland
Institute as a particularly important cog in the polluter-funded
climate denial apparatus. According to their study:
Heartland's shift towards science-related themes . . .
dovetails with Luntz's famous ``Straight Talk'' memo. It is
therefore not a surprise that for a decade it has organized
the annual International Conference on Climate Change (also
known as Denial-a-Palooza), which serves as a forum for
climate science deniers, or that it [Heartland] made
headlines in 2012 after launching a controversial ad campaign
which equated climate scientists with Ted Kaczynski, the
Unabomber.
Climate scientists, such as the ones who work at NASA and NOAA, are
being equated with Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber--very responsible
behavior by Heartland, but Heartland gets big bucks from the fossil
fuel industry and its front groups for this service.
Unfortunately, that is not all. Behind this well-paid conspiracy to
fool the American public, which is failing, is a related political
effort, which is not. The polluters are losing with the American
public, but they still control Congress. Huge sums of dark money are
spent on politics, particularly right here in the U.S. Senate and House
of Representatives.
As NYU law professor Burt Neuborne has written, ``rivers of money
flowing from secret sources have turned our elections into silent
auctions.''
How huge are these rivers of money? Each election sets new records.
In the 2012 Presidential cycle, the nonpartisan Center for Responsible
Politics reported that dark money groups spent over $300 million, with
over 80 percent of it coming from Republican-leaning outfits.
The torrent of dark money flooded the 2014 midterm elections, making
them the most expensive midterm elections in American history.
According to the Washington Post, at least 31 percent of all
independent spending in
[[Page S1132]]
that election came from groups not required to disclose their donors--
dark money. That doesn't even count spending on so-called issue ads,
which is also not reported.
In this 2016 election cycle, dark money spending has broken new
records again. These dark money groups, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics, ``are more integrated into campaigns than we've
seen in the past.'' The Koch brothers' political network alone has
vowed to spend $750 million this election cycle. They are through $400
million already and climbing. And the $750 million they have vowed to
spend is more than the Bush and Kerry campaigns combined spent in 2004.
In our political debate, dark money dollars drown out the voices of
average citizens with what has been aptly called ``a tsunami of
slime.'' All that money is not spent for nothing. As one secret
corporate donor exulted, ``We can fly under the radar screen. . . .
There are no limits, no restrictions, and no disclosure.'' The result
stinks, and it is polluting our public discourse.
The sad part is that it is working. Not one Republican Senator will
stand up and address climate change in a meaningful way. I have a bill
modeled on what conservative economists and the out-of-office
Republican officials who are willing to address climate change all
recommend as their solution. I did it their way--not a single
cosponsor.
In the Presidential primary, it is even worse. One leading candidate
has actually declared that ``the concept of global warming was created
by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing
noncompetitive.'' Tell that to NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Navy, and every
single American National Laboratory. It is a preposterous statement
offered by a person who presents himself as qualified to be President
of the United States.
Another candidate--this one, I am sad to say, a Senate colleague--
simply shrugs and says, ``Climate is always changing.'' No, not like
this. And if you don't believe me, ask NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Navy, and
every single American National Laboratory.
Yet another candidate who is also a Senator dismissed the solid
American scientific consensus on climate change as ``partisan dogma and
ideology.'' Tell that to the scientists at NOAA, NASA, the Navy, and
every single one of our National Laboratories, that what they are doing
is not legitimate science, but it is partisan dogma and ideology.
Again, that is a preposterous remark, but they have to say those things
because the big fossil fuel money is so powerful in that primary race
that they don't dare cross them.
The powerful fossil fuel interests have created a beautiful
situation. They no longer care which candidate wins the primary because
they have schooled them all to climate denial. That is the achievement
of dark money, and it is an achievement that is disgracing our
democracy and will darken our reputation for decades. Its effect is
that we do nothing--exactly what the big polluters want, exactly what
the big polluters paid for. It is just sickening what these secretive
special interests and their dirty dark money are doing to our American
democracy.
It is time to wake up, Mr. President. I thank you.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral
arguments in the case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. The central
issue of this case is an attack by the State of Texas on women's health
and the clinics that provide abortion services.
I wish to begin by stating clearly that in our country women have a
constitutionally protected right to make their own choices about their
bodies. That is the law of the land, as guaranteed to women in Oregon
and nationwide by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.
The 2013 Texas law at the heart of this case, HB2, is a thinly veiled
attempt to block women's choice by setting unjustifiable and burdensome
requirements on the doctors and clinics that offer abortion care.
Despite what HB2 supporters say, it doesn't have anything to do with
protecting women's health. And the reality is, complications from
abortion procedures are exceedingly rare. In fact, the numbers show
that abortion care is far safer than colonoscopies. Yet Texas law
doesn't go out of its way to impose comparable requirements on
facilities providing colonoscopies. HB2 unfairly targets women's health
clinics.
To make this point directly, I wish to briefly quote from an amicus
brief filed by the trusted experts on these matters at the American
Medical Association and the American Congress of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, among others. Their briefs said that the requirements
imposed by the State of Texas ``are contrary to accepted medical
practice and are not based on scientific evidence.'' The brief
continued: ``They fail to enhance the quality or safety of abortion-
related medical care and, in fact, impede women's access to such care
by imposing unjustified and medically unnecessary burdens on abortion
providers.''
HB2 tells clinics, ``comply with these new requirements, or close.''
So in the months since the law passed, the number of clinics that
provides such services has, in fact, plummeted across the State.
According to reports, if HB2 is upheld, the total will drop by more
than three-quarters. Texas, obviously, is a big State, and under HB2
many women are going to have to travel for hours on end to exercise a
right guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution. The fact is, a lot
of working women don't have the luxury of taking a day off or cannot
afford a long and expensive trip to a faraway clinic. In effect, women
are going to be denied care.
You are going to hear people on both sides of the aisle say again and
again how vital it is that Americans have access to medical treatment
and advice from doctors they know and trust. But HB2 flatly denies many
women that protection.
I personally find it very troubling that HB2 has become a blueprint
for similar restrictive laws around the Nation, bills that masquerade
as women's health safety measures. For example, the State of Louisiana
now has a nearly identical law on its books.
In January, 162 of my congressional colleagues and I wrote the
following in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court: ``A woman's
right to decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term or to seek
critical medical services, including abortion, should be insulated from
the shifting political rhetoric and interest groups whose sole purpose
is to erode the right to choose to bring a pregnancy to term afforded
to women under Roe.''
So here is my bottom line: A limit on the exercise of a woman's right
is a limit on the right itself. It is wrong and it is un-American to
restrict a person's right because it conflicts with your own views.
Texas HB2 should be struck down. The rights guaranteed to women
following Roe v. Wade ought to be protected, just as all the others
that are guaranteed by the Constitution. My hope is that this ongoing
crusade against women's health care, which I have spoken about
repeatedly on the floor of this Senate, ought to end here, and it ought
to end now.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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