[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 137 (Monday, September 12, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5489-S5499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2016
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 2848, which the clerk will
report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2848) to provide for the conservation and
development of water and related resources, to authorize the
Secretary of the Army to construct various projects for
improvements to rivers and harbors of the United States, and
for other purposes.
Pending:
McConnell (for Inhofe) amendment No. 4979, in the nature of
a substitute.
Inhofe amendment No. 4980 (to amendment No. 4979), to make
a technical correction.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.
Continuing Resolution
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, shortly the two leaders of this Chamber
will be headed to the White House to update the President on
discussions over keeping the government funded and up and running past
the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30. I want to briefly
remind our colleagues how we ended up in this situation, why it is we
are talking about a short-term continuing resolution from this point
until December 9 and then revisiting the issue beyond that by December
9.
It is pretty clear everybody understands that a CR, as we call it
around here--a continuing resolution--is really a stop-gap spending
bill to fund the government, and it is the result of our Democratic
colleagues filibustering the regular appropriations process. As the
Presiding Officer knows, there are 12 appropriations bills that need to
be considered by each of the appropriations subcommittees, then they
are voted on by the committee itself, and then they come to the floor
of the U.S. Senate, where we take them up in a transparent and orderly
sort of way--each of those 12 bills--or at least that is the plan. We
brought up bill after bill to do just exactly that this year, and this
is the first time since 2009 that all 12 bills have been voted out of
the committee and are now available for us to act upon.
That is the way the legislative process is supposed to work and that
is the way that is transparent to the American people so they know
exactly what we are doing, and they can call us and say: We don't like
that or they can call us and say: Well, I do like that. The point is,
this is far superior to short-term continuing resolutions or the
dreaded omnibus bill that we had to deal with last year; again, as a
result of our inability to get the appropriations process to work.
This year, our Democratic colleagues stopped the regular orderly
process of passing appropriations bills. One might ask: For what
purpose? Well, it is pretty obvious their purpose was to make sure they
had maximum leverage in order to force the Federal Government to spend
more money--not just on national security matters, which would enjoy a
lot of support on this side of the aisle, but to use any increase in
national security spending to leverage more nondefense discretionary
spending, breaking the caps that have been agreed upon in a bipartisan
way previously.
So this is the reason we find ourselves in this distasteful and
unpleasant position--Democratic obstruction. Now we are forced to deal
with a short-term stopgap bill, which is nobody's first solution. It is
not my second or third, but it is something we must deal with, and we
will.
Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act
Mr. President, separately, yesterday our country observed the 15th
anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and at
the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania, where brave patriots
brought down this plane rather than allow it to come to the Capitol and
create or cause other damage and perhaps loss of life. We know that
about 3,000 Americans died just in the attack on the World Trade
Center.
All of us remember where we were on that day. I certainly do. The
only other time in my life that I can tie back to a historic and sad
event like that was when John F. Kennedy was killed when I was in
junior high school. I remember exactly where I was when President
Kennedy was assassinated. So it is that I remember exactly where I was
and what I was doing when those planes hit the World Trade Center and
those 3,000 Americans lost their lives.
It is important for us to send a message that evil shall not prevail.
Americans from all backgrounds came together in a beautiful display of
patriotism and fraternity following that terrible day of September 11,
2001. Of course, following those attacks, the United States took
military and diplomatic action to bring justice not only to those
families but to demonstrate the consequences of attacking the American
homeland, but the truth is, the victims and their families still don't
have the ability to get justice from the people--including the
governments--who helped fund those terrorist attacks. That is where the
bill, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, comes into play
because if this legislation is signed by the President, it will become
the law of the land. It will amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
in a way that will allow Americans to sue State sponsors of terrorism
when the terrorist attack occurs on American soil. Believe it or not,
under current law, that can't happen. So this law is one that is
designed to make sure these families who are still grieving and still
don't have closure will be able to seek justice in a court of law
against the people who killed their loved ones on September 11.
This is a bipartisan bill. My primary cosponsor in the Senate is
Senator Schumer from New York. As a matter of fact, this is so
bipartisan as to be nonpartisan. It passed the U.S. Senate by unanimous
consent. Any individual Senator who wanted to, could stand up and say:
I object, and it wouldn't have happened, but nobody did. So by
unanimous consent, we passed this legislation in the U.S. Senate. Last
Friday, in the U.S. House of Representatives, it passed without any
objection. It passed unanimously. I know it is pretty hard for people
to actually believe anything gets passed unanimously here in Washington
in this polarized political environment, but this bill was passed
unanimously.
Now, just after the anniversary of these tragic attacks, the Justice
Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act is headed to the President's desk,
perhaps as early as today. This legislation will give victims of terror
attacks and their families the opportunity to seek justice in a court
of law from those who fund and facilitate terrorist attacks.
I want to make clear that contrary to some of the reports, this
legislation
[[Page S5490]]
doesn't mention any foreign government at all. It is agnostic. What it
says is, if you fund and facilitate a terrorist attack on American
soil, you can be hauled into court to answer for your crimes, and the
families can seek compensation as they would in any other personal
injury or wrongful death lawsuit.
This is a straightforward piece of legislation. It simply provides
the mechanism to help victims of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil find
the justice they need. The American people, through their elected
representatives, have been clear in their support for this legislation.
Unfortunately, President Obama has already threatened to veto it, and
for what reason I simply am at a loss to say, but I want to point out
that this veto threat isn't about a President and his soured
relationships with Congress; it is about the victims of 9/11 who have
made clear they deserve to have this avenue of justice made into law.
Again, this legislation doesn't mention any particular country, and
it doesn't decide the merits of any claim these family members may
have. That is left to our justice system, as it should be.
Just yesterday, the families of the
9/11 victims sent a letter imploring President Obama to sign this bill.
This is a powerful letter.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the
letter be printed in the Record following my remarks.
The families speak openly in this letter about the grief they still
feel not just on the anniversary of 9/11 but every single day. They
talk about why justice is so important and how this legislation would
help ensure that ``justice delayed for the 9/11 families will not
become justice denied.'' And they are right. That justice may have been
delayed, but it will not be denied under this bill.
At the end of the letter, they plead with President Obama and ask him
not to ``slam the door shut and abandon us. We need the Executive
Branch to join Congress and protect us and all future victims of
terrorism.''
They say: ``Please sign JASTA.''
These victims have certainly been through a lot and they certainly
have the strength of their conviction. I admire the courage they
display every single day to get up in the morning and go on about their
lives in the aftermath of so much loss and so much tragedy. The least
we can do is to make JASTA law so they and others in the future can
have access to the courts and a path to justice.
Again, this bill doesn't decide the case; that is left to the court
of law. It doesn't target an individual country; it says that any
country who sponsors and facilitates and funds terrorist activities on
American soil can be called to answer for it in court.
Frankly, I find it baffling that President Obama would rather make
life easier for State sponsors of terrorism than he would lend support
to the families of 9/11. He should sign this bill. It has an
overwhelming display of support in Congress on behalf of the American
people. I hope he reconsiders his previously threatened veto, but if
President Obama does veto it, I hope he doesn't leave the American
people and the victims of terrorism in limbo. If he is going to veto
this legislation, he should not delay so Congress can quickly consider
whether to override that veto and make the Justice Against Sponsors of
Terrorism Act the law of the land. There is a way, if the President
decided to play games with the victims of 9/11 and these families who
have suffered so much, that he could make it hard, if not impossible,
for Congress to vote to override the veto, but one thing he can do, out
of respect for them and the memory of their lost loved ones, is to go
ahead and veto it, if that is his determination, and then send it back
here and then let Congress vote to override the veto, which I am
confident we will.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
September 11, 2016.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: We are all mothers, fathers, wives,
husbands or children who lost loved ones in the cruel and
devastating attack on America fifteen years ago today.
We miss them. And we grieve at what they have missed in
lives cut short by terrorists whose immediate targets were
innocents and whose ongoing target is everything America has
stood for, fought for and promised to protect and defend
since our union was formed. And we anguish especially as we
witness the spread of the poisonous ideology that is
determined to ensure that 9/11 was only the beginning.
This is a hard day for all of us. But, as we are sure you
must know, they are all hard, not just the anniversaries. For
some of us, though, this day is harder than any since the
attack and we want you to understand why.
We and so many other families have fought for years to know
all of the truth about 9/11. We have fought to ensure that
anyone and any entity that may have had a responsible role in
the murder of 3000 people in New York, at the Pentagon and
across a field in Pennsylvania is held to account for their
actions. And, we have struggled to make sure that our laws--
and those who are sworn to uphold them--leave nothing undone
in our battle against terrorism.
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act addresses a
missing piece of America's antiterrorism campaign--a piece
that is missing because of grievously errant misconstructions
of earlier laws meant to ensure that the families of
Americans harmed or killed as a result of terrorist attacks
with respect to which foreign governments may be complicit
will be able to seek justice in our courts. That right is
important for our Nation, because it will help to deter
state-sponsored terrorism. It will help uncover truth--such
as the mysteries surrounding the ability of 19 hijackers--
barely educated, not speaking much English and without
visible resources--to come to America, learn to fly, set up
camps in several cities and hijack four commercial airliners,
crashing them spectacularly into the heart of our Government
and the heart of our economy.
You have had your differences with us about JASTA. And we
have been supportive of the reasonable efforts Congress has
made to address your misgivings. But, now, Congress is done,
and the result is legislation that both the United States
Senate and the House of Representatives passed without a
single dissenting voice.
JASTA will be delivered to you soon, perhaps tomorrow. And,
here lies the reason this day is made even harder than past
anniversaries: we don't know what you will do. We are left to
wait, to hear remembrances and reassurances and regrets.
Mr. President, we don't need your comfort. We have each
other. We don't need words--other than the words ``I will
sign JASTA into law when it reaches my desk.'' We need those
words and a simple action--the stroke of the only pen that
can give us and the American people the assurance they need
that your foreign policy and your defense of this great
Nation include a determination that truth be our guidepost,
that victims of terrorist attacks also have rights in our
courts and that the justice delayed for the 9/11 families
will not become justice denied.
Please, Mr. President, don't slam the door shut and abandon
us. We need the Executive Branch to join Congress and protect
us and all future victims of terrorism. Please sign JASTA.
Sincerely,
Terry Strada, widow of Tom Strada, North Tower; Sylvia
Carver, sister of Sharon Carver, Pentagon; Veronica Carver,
sister of Sharon Carver, Pentagon; Bill Doyle, father of
Joseph Doyle, North Tower; Gordon Haberman, father of Andrea
Haberman, North Tower; Alice Hoagland, mother of Mark
Bingham, Flight 93; Emanuel Lipscomb, survivor, civilian
rescuer, NYC; Marge Mathers, widow of Charles W. Mathers,
North Tower; Ellen Saracini, widow of Capt. Victor Saracini,
pilot of Flight 175.
Kristen Breitweiser, widow of Ronald Breitweiser, South
Tower; Curtis F. Brewer, widower of Carol K. Demitz, South
Tower; Gail Eagleson, widow of John B. Eagleson, South Tower;
Lisa Friedman, widow of Andrew Friedman from World Trade
Center; Tim Frolich, personal injury survivor, North Tower;
Monica Gabrielle, widow of Richard Gabrielle, South Tower;
John Jermayn, personal injury survivor FDNY; Mindy Kleinberg,
widow of Alan Kleinberg, North Tower; Kathy Owens, widow of
Peter J. Owens Jr, North Tower; Melissa Raggio Granato,
daughter of Eugen Raggio, South Tower; Charles G. Wolf,
widower of Katherine Wolf, North Tower.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The assistant minority leader.
The Appropriations Process and Zika Virus Funding
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, my friend and colleague from Texas came to
the floor to describe the budget and appropriations process which we
face in this session of Congress. Our fiscal year begins October 1, and
it is only a few weeks away. Under the orderly course of business, we
would pass 12 different appropriations bills and fund the government
for the next fiscal year. To date, we have not passed any of those
bills in the Senate.
I would like to say a word in defense of the Senate Appropriations
Committee on which I am honored to serve. This committee has had
lengthy hearings and has produced 12 appropriations bills. I would say
that these bills
[[Page S5491]]
are good, bipartisan bills and with only a few exceptions are being
brought forward in good faith in an effort to meet our constitutional
obligation to fund the government.
One of the earliest bills that were brought forward was the Military
Construction and Veterans Affairs bill. It is not considered to be a
highly controversial bill, and it was understandable that it was one of
the first appropriations bills brought to the floor. The Senators who
prepared the bill--Republican Senator Kirk from Illinois, my home
State, Democratic Senator Jon Tester--brought it to the floor. They
added a provision in the bill that the President asked for to deal with
the Zika crisis.
Back in February, President Obama asked for $1.9 billion to deal with
the public health crisis caused by this mosquito-borne disease, the
Zika virus. We have reports from around the world that pregnant women
who are infected with this virus by a mosquito or by other means are
giving birth to children with terrible birth defects. The President
called on us in February to give him the resources to help fight the
spread of this mosquito in Puerto Rico, one of the territories of the
United States, and in the United States of America and also asked for
the resources to help develop a vaccine, which all of us would be
interested in seeing as quickly as possible, to protect innocent people
from this mosquito-borne disease.
So we took the President's request, and after some debate, Senators
Murray and Blunt, a Democrat and Republican, agreed on $1.1 billion of
the $1.9 billion asked for by the President. They added it to the
Military Construction spending bill. It made sense. When they called it
for a vote here in the Senate, the vote was 89 Senators in favor of
this Military Construction appropriation bill with the Zika money
included. I felt pretty good about that.
On a bipartisan basis, we had responded to the President in May of
this year and passed the first appropriation bill to be sent to the
House. What my friend from Texas, the Senate majority whip, failed to
mention was what happened to that bill once it left the Senate. So 89
Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, supported the bill and sent
over what we considered to be a responsible, clean bill. What did the
House do? Did it take up this measure and pass it with the emergency
provisions to deal with the Zika crisis? No. Therein lies the problem
with the appropriation process. The same House Republican majority that
ran John Boehner of Ohio out of town as Speaker decided to flex their
muscles on this bill. Do you know what they put in the bill? They took
this bill that was a bipartisan clean bill and added the most
objectionable political issues.
Let me give an example. They added into this bill a question about
whether Planned Parenthood would be funded to provide family planning,
especially for women who were trying to avoid a pregnancy because of
the threat of the Zika virus. They put a prohibition against the
funding of Planned Parenthood. Last year, 2 million American women used
Planned Parenthood. It is understandable that when they attack Planned
Parenthood, it is a controversial issue. I stand in favor of what
Planned Parenthood does when it comes to family planning. Others
disagree. But why would you add that to a bill on a public health
crisis about Zika? Why would you put it in a Military Construction and
Veterans Affairs bill that has nothing to do with Planned Parenthood's
activities?
Secondly, the House Republicans cut $500 million out of the Veterans'
Administration that was being used to expedite the claims of veterans.
We know the story back in Chicago and Illinois. A lot of our deserving
veterans have been waiting in line for month after wary month for
approval of their disability claims. We put in resources to speed that
up. The House Republicans took the $500 million out of the Veterans'
Administration. That is controversial, unnecessary, and unfair to
veterans.
Then, to add insult to injury, there was a third provision. They
decided to suspend the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency
when it came to the use of certain chemicals to fight the mosquitoes.
Well, that carries controversy with it. Clean water is certainly
something we all value, and we wouldn't want to compromise it. The
House Republicans added that in.
There was one more provision they added to make it clear that this
was a political exercise from the House. Listen to this one. There was
a ban on the display of Confederate flags at U.S. military cemeteries.
The House Republicans removed that ban so that Confederate flags could
be displayed at U.S. military cemeteries.
So a bill we passed with 89 votes--a strong, bipartisan bill--a bill
that included a bipartisan compromise to deal with the Zika virus in a
timely fashion, was sent over to the House of Representatives and was
freighted with the most political issues imaginable to be sent back
home over here.
If the Senator from Texas wonders why the appropriations process
broke down, don't blame the Senate Appropriations Committee. For the
most part, they have done their work. Don't even blame the Senate
itself. When it came to voting on the Military Construction bill, we
voted on a bipartisan basis to go forward. The process fell apart
across the Rotunda with the House Republicans.
So if we are going to get this done--and I hope we do--we need a
short-term spending bill called a continuing resolution. It will take
us through the month of October, a campaign month, through the month of
November, when we return and face the Thanksgiving holidays, and into
early December. That, to me, is a reasonable thing to do to give us
time to finish the appropriations process, but in the meantime, we have
to get back on track--and the President joins me in what I am about to
say--to take out these controversial political provisions, particularly
those originating in the House from the Republican leadership, and get
down to the business of funding this government in a responsible
fashion.
I will take exception to one statement by the Senator from Texas. He
said the Democrats were trying to spend more money. That didn't quite
tell the whole story. We have an agreement which says that if we want
to increase defense spending--I will vote for that--we have to increase
nondefense spending in a similar fashion--same amount, equal amount.
Why would we want to increase nondefense spending? Education, Pell
grants, student loans, helping children in Head Start Programs, making
sure hungry families across America have enough to eat, making certain
the FBI is adequately funded--there are a lot of things when it comes
to the nondefense side that are important for America's future and for
our security. All we are asking for is fair treatment. Increase the
Department of Defense, similar increase in nondefense spending--that is
it.
If we can get back on track, I think we can, incidentally, get this
done. I hope the leadership on the Republican side--and they control
the House and the Senate--will decide to give us this short-term CR
until early December and put a clean Zika provision in, the same one
that passed the Senate. That would be a way to resolve our differences
and to address this public health crisis which has taken too many lives
across the world and has certainly caused horrible outcomes when it
comes to pregnancies of women who are infected.
Affordable Care Act
Mr. President, last week a number of my Republican colleagues came to
the Senate floor to discuss the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as
ObamaCare. They didn't come to offer the Republican alternative to the
Affordable Care Act. They didn't come forward with proposals on how to
improve the Affordable Care Act. They came here basically to say they
were against it, period. That is no surprise.
Considering that the Republicans have spent the last 6 years
attacking the Affordable Care Act, I think it is time that America
hears at least some part of the other side of the story. I would like
to take a moment to talk about what has happened in this country since
the passage of the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare.
Since the Affordable Care Act became law, the uninsured rate has
declined by 43 percent in America, from 16 percent uninsured in 2010 to
9.1 percent in 2015. To put it another way, the number of uninsured
people in the United States has declined from 49 million in 2010 to 29
million in 2015. Stated
[[Page S5492]]
another way, more than 20 million people have gained health insurance
because of this law. For the first time ever, more than 9 out of 10
Americans have health insurance.
Have you ever been in a position in your life when you didn't have
health insurance? Have you ever been a father with a brandnew baby who
needed the best medical care and you didn't have health insurance? Have
you ever wondered how you would take care of your child and your family
when you couldn't provide them with health insurance? I have. I went
through it. It scared me to death--a brandnew dad, so happy and proud,
and then a medical challenge in my family occurred, and we had no
health insurance. I went to a local hospital here with my wife and
baby, sat in the chair in the ward, and waited for our number to be
called. I was a law student and I didn't know what was going to happen
next. Luckily, we had good medical care. We paid for it. The care that
wasn't covered by insurance cost us quite a bit of money in those days,
and it took us a long time to pay it off. But I never felt more
inadequate as a father than sitting there without health insurance.
Have you ever been there? If you have, you will never forget it. I have
been there.
For this country, 20 million people today have the peace of mind of
health insurance who did not have it before ObamaCare. This represents
the largest decline in the uninsured rate since we created Medicare and
Medicaid in the 1960s.
Since the Affordable Care Act became law, Americans no longer have to
worry about a lot of discriminatory things that were being done to
families before we passed the law. Health insurance companies can no
longer refuse to provide you insurance because of a preexisting
condition.
Does anybody in your family have a preexisting condition? Certainly
in our family, and most. It could be diabetes, a child who survived
cancer--think of all the possibilities. In the old days before the
Affordable Care Act, they could just say no in terms of covering your
family or raise the rates to high heaven to make it impossible to pay
for insurance. This provision alone on preexisting conditions protects
129 million Americans, 19 million children. When the Republicans come
to the floor to say they want to abolish the Affordable Care Act, what
do they say about the 129 million Americans with preexisting
conditions? What do they say about the 19 million children with
preexisting conditions? Not one word.
These insurance companies can no longer charge women more than men
for the same insurance policies. That is right. There was blatant
discrimination--charging women more than men for the same health
insurance policies. Who is protected by that? Well, 157 million women
in America. Did the Republicans suggest, when they abolish ObamaCare,
what they are going to do to protect these women? Not a word.
Insurance companies can no longer impose annual or lifetime caps on
benefits. Remember those days? People get gravely ill, a diagnosis they
hadn't expected, an accident, and then they find out they are in for a
long period of care, which is very expensive, and they check and find
that their health insurance plan has a cap on how much it will pay. The
rest of it was on your shoulders, and for many people that meant a trip
to bankruptcy court. This provision alone protects 105 million
Americans--including 39.5 million women and 28 million children--who
were previously subject to these arbitrary caps. What did these
Republican Senators say about protecting these families if they
abolished ObamaCare? Nothing.
No longer, incidentally, under ObamaCare, can insurers spend large
percentages of your premium dollars on advertising and the salaries of
the fat cats who run the company. This has protected 5.5 million
consumers who received nearly $470 million in rebates last year. Under
ObamaCare, insurers can't impose copays on important preventive health
services, such as immunizations, cancer screenings, and birth control.
Because of the Affordable Care Act, because of ObamaCare, Medicare is
better for the 55 million seniors who depend on it. There was the
dreaded doughnut hole. Do you remember that one? That was when a senior
on Medicare would have pharmacy bills. The original Medicare Program
for pharmacy didn't cover all expenses. It is a strange thing to
explain, but it would cover expenses on the front end of the year, and
then they would have to go into their savings accounts. I would say to
the Senator from Florida, who knows senior issues better than most, it
was called the doughnut hole, and we changed it.
So we changed it. We are filling the doughnut hole. We are closing it
and phasing it out. That saves 10.7 million Medicare prescription drug
beneficiaries an average of almost $2,000 each. What have we heard from
Republicans about replacing that provision? Nothing.
The Affordable Care Act also encourages health care providers to
focus on quality of care, not just quantity. As a result, American
lives are being saved. Because of the provisions in ObamaCare,
hospital-acquired conditions have declined 17 percent in 6 years.
Infections, adverse drug events that resulted in patients staying in
hospitals longer and even dying have dramatically decreased. That has
prevented 87,000 deaths over the last 4 years.
In Illinois, we have seen the benefits as well. Between 2013 and
2015, the rate of uninsured among 18- to 64-year-olds decreased from
17.8 percent to 10.6 percent, a 7.2-percent drop, one of the largest in
the Nation. Prior to ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, an estimated
1.8 million Illinoisans were uninsured. Today, the number is below
800,000.
In terms of health insurance monthly premium costs, Illinois ranks
15th as one of the most affordable nationwide. Now Republican Senators
single out newspaper headlines talking about premium increases. They
have claimed ObamaCare is the reason. I am troubled by certain aspects
of these rate increases. I think it is important to take a close look
at them.
In recent years, there have been a lot of stories in the press about
premium increases for some plans, in some cities, for some people. The
Republicans have come to the floor to tell all of these stories that
they can. It is important to note that premiums for employer coverage,
Medicare spending, and health care prices have all grown more slowly
under the Affordable Care Act than before.
For employer premiums, the past 5 years included four of the five
slowest growth rate years on record. Medicare spending is $473 billion
less than was projected before the Affordable Care Act. Health care
price growth since the Affordable Care Act became law has been the
slowest in 50 years. You don't hear that in the speeches from the other
side of the aisle.
Where premium increases have been most prevalent is in the individual
market. Out of 350 million Americans, 11 million are in this market. I
am troubled by the increases in those markets. But it is important to
remember that is a small portion of the overall market. Most people who
get coverage through the insurance exchanges of ObamaCare--that is more
than 80 percent of them--receive a tax credit to help them pay their
premiums. Let's not forget that premium increases were around long
before the Affordable Care Act.
In 2005, 5 years before the Affordable Care Act, a Los Angeles Times
headline read, ``Rising Premiums Threaten Job-Based Health Coverage.''
In 2006, 4 years before the Affordable Care Act, a New York Times
headline read, ``Health Care Costs Rise Twice as Much as Inflation.''
In 2008, 2 years before we passed the law, the Washington Post headline
read, ``Rising Health Costs Cut Into Wages.''
Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act to combat these premium
increases, which were devastating families, bankrupting individuals,
and squeezing employers' budgets. Despite all the anti-ObamaCare
rhetoric being peddled by my Republican colleagues, the major aspects
of this law are working. More Americans are insured than ever before.
We have ended the most discriminatory and dishonorable practices of the
health insurance industry, and we have taken important steps to improve
and strengthen Medicare.
Is the law perfect? No. The only perfect law was carried down the
side of a mountain on clay tablets by Senator Moses. All the rest of
our efforts can use a little work. I think Senator Nelson from Florida
and I would agree. We
[[Page S5493]]
supported the bill, but we would sit down with the Republicans tomorrow
to find ways to strengthen it, make it fairer, make it better. That is
constructive, but that is not what we hear from the other side. The
other side says: It must go away. That is no way to bargain.
Instead of working, Republicans have, at every possible opportunity,
tried to end the Affordable Care Act. They broke all records in the
House of Representatives. We think they voted 60 times to abolish the
Affordable Care Act. It almost became the regular vote before they went
into recess: Oh, before we leave, let's vote to abolish it--knowing
that that wasn't going to happen and shouldn't happen.
What we know now is that we can make this law better. We should work
to do it. We have to deal with some of the issues that are before us.
If the Republicans would sit down, there are some steps we could take
together. The marketplaces are working for the vast majority of
Americans. Some 88 percent of enrollees live in a county with at least
three choices for health care. There is still more we can do for those
who have only one or two choices to face in their areas.
When we debated the Affordable Care Act, many of us on the Democratic
side, myself included, said: Why don't we have one Medicare-like public
plan that is available across the United States? That could compete
with private insurers and bring prices down. There was a lot of
fearmongering. People stopped us from our efforts to include a
universal Medicare plan as part of it. I would like to return to it.
To help balance the risk pool and attract Americans in the
marketplaces, particularly healthier younger people, we should expand
financial assistance to help middle-class families better afford
coverage. We must address one other issue that we all know is front and
center--the price of pharmaceuticals, the price of drugs. This is the
elephant in the room when it comes to this conversation. It is one
which most Members of the Senate and House are running away from.
When drug companies increase their prices or put new treatments on
the market that are exceedingly expensive, insurance companies are
forced to come up with the money to cover the cost, and often they pass
the cost along in higher premiums. An Illinois insurer recently told me
that drug expenses, the cost of pharmaceuticals, used to account for
about 15 percent of this health insurance policy cost. The number now,
a year later, is up to 25 percent, and there is no end in sight.
We have asked doctors and hospitals and medical device companies and
other medical professionals to bring us quality and lower costs, but we
put no burden on the pharmaceutical companies. The most recent Medicare
Part D data show that 46 percent of the most commonly prescribed drugs
had a double-digit price increase in 2014. A recent Reuters report
found that prices for 4 of our Nation's top 10 drugs have increased by
more than 100 percent since 2011. Six others went up 50 percent. What
did that mean for those who use the drugs?
The price for the arthritis drug Humira went up 126 percent. The
multiple sclerosis drug COPAXONE went up 118 percent. The asthma drug
Advair went up 67 percent. Mylan Pharmaceuticals just increased the
price of EpiPens. Did you read about that one? They increased the price
of EpiPens from less than $100 for a pack of two in 2007 to more than
$600 today. It is the same drug but a 550-percent increase in cost.
This last Friday in Chicago, a young man came to see me. He has been
battling diabetes for as long as he has been alive. It is a daily
battle; it is an hourly battle to try to ensure that he doesn't succumb
to this disease. His mom and dad were with him. He put in front of me a
list of what it costs now for insulin and for the basics that diabetics
need across America. The costs just keep going dramatically. It is not
pinned to the original research cost of the drug at all. Many of these
drugs were on the market for years at a reasonable cost, but now the
pharmaceutical companies are kiting the costs. Let me be clear. We will
not be able to get a handle on rising health care costs if we are
unable or politically unwilling to address escalating drug prices.
Something has to be done. I support a wide range of ideas, from
requiring drug companies to disclose how they arrive at pricing, to
allowing Medicare to negotiate for drug prices, from shortening the
monopoly period that drug companies enjoy before generic competition,
to ending the pay-for-delay arrangements that necessarily keep generic
drugs and lower prices away from consumers. We should also explore
imposing a tax on companies that arbitrarily raise their prescription
drug prices significantly over the previous year.
I will close. The bottom line is, the Affordable Care Act is working.
Twenty million Americans now have health insurance. Being a woman is no
longer considered a preexisting condition. Kids can stay on their
parent's health care plans up to age 26. Insurers can no longer kick
someone off insurance if they get sick or cost too much.
Just as we had to make changes and improvements in Medicare over the
years, the Affordable Care Act can work better if we set aside politics
and sit down together and work on it. The Affordable Care Act is here
to stay. So let's stop trying to repeal it and undermine it. Let's make
it stronger and better for the future of America.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I will be happy to yield through the
Chair.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to say to the Senator from Illinois
that that was an excellent recitation of what the Affordable Care Act
has done to ensure health insurance and provide health care for the
people of our country. This Senator just wants to underscore one
statistic that the Senator from Illinois cited. The Senator cited that
20 million people in the country have health insurance who did not have
it before.
If the Senator would recall, when we started this deliberation on
cobbling together this new law, we were told that there were
approximately 45 million people in the country who did not have health
insurance. Now, when you break down that 45 million, 11 million of them
are undocumented and, therefore, under the law are not eligible to have
health insurance.
So that leaves 34 million. When you take the 20 million that
presently have health care that the Senator cited and add to that 4
million more that will be covered by Medicaid expansion in the 16
States that have refused to expand Medicaid to 138 percent of poverty,
now we are talking about 24 million of an eligible population of 34
million. That is two-thirds. That is extraordinary. That has happened
just in the last few years.
Would the Senator from Illinois believe that?
Mr. DURBIN. In response through the Chair, the Senator from Florida
knows this issue as well as or better than most. He understands the
progress that has been made. I am sure he agrees with me that we can do
better; we can improve this law. We can make it work better, but only
if we do it in a constructive, bipartisan way. I listen carefully when
my Republican colleagues come to the floor thinking they want to
abolish the Affordable Care Act and replace it with--they never finish
the sentence. They don't have a replacement.
So what are we going to say to the 20 million Americans who now have
health insurance because of this law? You are on your own again. Sorry,
your family is not covered. That is no answer. I would agree with the
Senator from Florida that we have come a long way. We can improve this
law and make it better and stronger. I think our goal to bring more
people under the protection of health insurance and to slow the rate of
growth in health care costs has been achieved. But to make it go
forward in the right way we need to work together.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Florida.
Zika Virus Funding
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to speak about health care, and it
is a health care crisis that is upon us right now. It is the Zika
crisis. Happily, if my voice will hold out, I am here to share with the
Senate that I think we have finally found a path forward to fund the
fight against Zika. The specifics are still being worked out, but it
seems that there will be a deal, and we
[[Page S5494]]
will soon be able to move forward on doing what we tried to do last
summer, which is to fund the crisis that we know as the Zika crisis.
Let me just briefly describe it. Populations outside of the
continental United States, such as Brazil, are highly infected
populations because of the presence of this type of mosquito, the Aedes
aegypti mosquito. It is not like a normal mosquito. Normal mosquitoes
come out at night. They fly all around in the countryside. When this
Florida boy grew up, I was bitten by so many mosquitoes I was almost
immune. But this aegypti mosquito lurks in the dark corners of your
house. She lays her eggs, her larva, in stagnant water--but not a pool,
not a pond like normal mosquitoes; they can lay their larva in a still
surface of water as small as a bottle cap that has caught water. As a
result, this mosquito transmitting the virus feeds not on one person at
a feeding but four people. Thus, an infected mosquito has now
transmitted the virus to four people who, in turn, can now transmit it
to others by sexual contact or another uninfected mosquito bites the
infected person. Now that mosquito is infected and it goes go on. You
see how it can expand.
In Florida, there are 756 cases of the virus that we know of, and
that includes 84 pregnant women. Why do I say pregnant women? Because
if you get the virus, it is just like a mild flu, but if you are
pregnant and you get the virus in the first trimester of pregnancy,
there is a 2-percent to 11-percent chance that your baby is going to be
deformed. The virus attacks the developing fetus in the brain stem and
causes the brain and the head to shrink. That is what we are dealing
with.
When we left in the summer, early July, to some Senators it was ``out
of sight, out of mind,'' but we have seen the increasing numbers of
cases, thousands now nationwide, 756 in Florida alone. By the way, that
is just what we know of. The CDC is estimating that there are four
people walking around with the virus for every one that we know of, so
you see the problem.
To bring this back to politics, I can tell you that the people in
Florida are very agitated. I have been there the last two weekends, and
I can tell you it is the No. 1 issue on their minds. The fact that some
of our Republican colleagues--particularly in the House of
Representatives--are willing to put ridiculous riders on the Zika
funding bill and insist on that for three votes--let me take you back.
Remember, we had an overwhelming, bipartisan vote in this Senate for
$1.1 billion to get at it. To do what? Local mosquito control, health
care assistance, and continued research on the vaccine. We are another
1 year or 2 years away from the vaccine, but the Food and Drug
Administration is ready to go with the first trial. It takes money.
They have run out of money. We need to do it. The Senate recognized
that.
We passed it months ago, I think by 89 votes out of the 100 Senators.
We sent it to the House, and the House decided to play politics. They
add something to do with the Confederate flag. They add something to do
with defunding Planned Parenthood. They add something that has to do
with cutting Medicaid money going to Puerto Rico. Why is that
particularly onerous? The CDC estimates that 25 percent of the
population of Puerto Rico is infected, that a quarter of the people are
infected. Of all places, an island territory with American citizens--a
territory of the United States--is where we ought to be helping with
health care for a very poor population. We shouldn't be cutting
additional funds for Puerto Rico. Yet that is what we have been faced
with.
I am of a mind of new optimism now because I think common sense is
beginning to break out.
In this Florida situation of 756 cases, we have seen newspaper
reports that the State of Florida government hasn't been transparent
about the spread of the virus in our State. Over the weekend, the Miami
Herald reported that ``the information issued by the governor and state
agencies has not been timely or accurate--cases announced as `new' are
often several weeks old, because of a time lag in diagnosis--and
excludes details that public health experts say would allow people to
make informed decisions and provide a complete picture of Zika's
foothold in Florida.''
As we have said many times on this floor, this is not the time for
political games. Those games should be over, and we should do it. The
wonderful news that a deal is being struck is welcome news to this
Senator.
The threat that this country faces from the spread of this virus is
real. The virus-carrying mosquito, the Aedes aegypti, is in the State
of the Senator from Iowa--a State you wouldn't normally think of as
having mosquitoes. We are in the midst of a public health crisis, and
it should be treated like the emergency it is.
So as we await the final details of this possible deal, it is
important to remember that no one agency, State, or leader is going to
solve this crisis alone. Those who saw this virus as a political
opportunity are the ones who got us into this mess of delay, month
after month. The virus is not a political opportunity; it is a public
health emergency. To stop the spread of the virus, we are going to have
to do what we did months ago--come together in a bipartisan fashion.
As Congress comes together to finally act, we are going to need
leaders across the country to act prudently and expeditiously to put
these funds to use as quickly as possible.
Members of Congress, pass the Zika bill. We need it now.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.
FBI's Release of Clinton Investigation Material
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record at the end of my speech articles from the Boston Globe on
September 6, 2016, and the New York Times on September 8, 2016.
Mr. President, today I wish to discuss my very serious concerns about
the FBI's selective release of Clinton investigation material and
especially how the Senate is handling the unclassified but not yet
public information provided by the FBI.
On the Friday before a holiday weekend, the FBI chose to release to
the public only two of the dozens of unclassified documents it provided
to the Congress.
Director Comey said: ``The American people deserve the details in a
case of intense public interest'' and ``unusual transparency is in
order.'' He is right. The people have a right to know, but actions
speak louder than words. Right now the public has only a very narrow
slice of the facts gathered by the FBI.
The FBI has released only its summary of the investigation and the
report of the interview with Secretary Clinton. However, its summary is
misleading or inaccurate in some key details and leaves out other
important facts altogether. There are dozens of unclassified reports
describing what other witnesses said, but those reports are still
hidden away from the public. They are even being hidden from most
congressional staff, including some who have been conducting oversight
of the FBI on these issues. Why? Because the FBI improperly bundled
these unclassified reports with a very small amount of classified
information and told the Senate to treat it all as if it were
classified.
This is certainly not the ``unusual transparency'' Director Comey
said he would provide. In fact, it is just the opposite: unusual
secrecy. Normally, when an agency sends unclassified information to the
Office of Senate Security, the office that handles and controls
classified information, there is a very simple solution. The executive
order and regulations governing classified information require that
information be properly marked so that the recipient knows what is and
is not classified.
In the past, when the Judiciary Committee, which I chair, needed to
separate classified information from unclassified information, the
Office of Senate Security very simply looked at the markings on the
paper and provided copies of the unclassified information without any
restrictions, but that has not been done in this specific case. Why
not? Because the FBI has instructed the Senate office that handles
classified information not to separate the unclassified information
which could then be made public. Think about that. The FBI, part of the
executive branch of government, is instructing a Senate office about
how to handle unclassified information.
[[Page S5495]]
Our Constitution creates a carefully balanced system of separation of
powers--executive, judicial, legislative. The executive branch cannot
instruct a legislative branch office to keep information from the
public unless the legislative branch agrees or there is a legal basis
for keeping the information secret.
There are laws governing the handling of classified information, but
those laws cannot and should not be used to shield unclassified FBI
documents from public scrutiny and vigorous constitutional,
congressional oversight. But even setting aside the constitutional
concerns, what is happening now is totally inconsistent with the
executive branch's own rules and regulations regarding classified
information. This is what Executive Order No. 13526 says:
The classification authority shall, whenever practicable,
use a classified addendum whenever classified information
constitutes a small portion of an otherwise unclassified
document or prepare a product to allow for the dissemination
at the lowest level of classification or in unclassified
form.
That is the quote from Executive Order No. 13526. The binder the FBI
delivered containing interview reports is, very largely, unclassified.
The vast majority of these reports are unclassified in full and the
rest have only a few classified paragraphs in each one.
According to the executive order I just quoted, the FBI--part of the
executive branch of government--should have provided a separate set
containing primarily classified material that could not be separated
from an unclassified portion.
Further, that same executive order states--and I want everybody to
get this quote: ``In no case shall information be classified, continued
to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:
prevent or delay the release of information that does not require
protection in the interest of national security.''
That is an executive order that ought to bind the FBI. Unclassified
material is, by definition, information that does not require
protection in the interest of national security. Yet contrary to this
executive order, it is being locked away from the public and even most
congressional staff and maintained as if it were classified.
Americans deserve accountability from their government. There will
not be any accountability if the Federal Government is not transparent.
The American people deserve to know the truth. I want to be clear with
the American people about what is going on here. If the FBI wants to
provide unclassified information to Congress but also keep it hidden
from the public, then it should discuss the issue with the committee
and negotiate any restrictions beforehand. It should not be allowed to
unilaterally impose its will on its oversight committee by delivering
documents with all kinds of restrictions that prevent the committee
from using those documents. The selective releases of some of the
documents deprives Congress and the public of the full context. It is
not fair to the public, to the Congress, or to Secretary Clinton. That
is why, using common sense, even Secretary Clinton has called for
information to be released in full. I agree with her 100 percent.
The FBI says it sent these documents to the Hill in keeping with our
oversight responsibilities. Well, oversight and investigation mean more
than just receiving whatever information the FBI provides. Independent
oversight means double-checking the facts, it means contacting
witnesses, and it means asking followup questions. We can't use these
documents to help us perform these three steps if they are locked away
in the basement of this building. In order to do its job, the committee
will have to refer to these documents in the course of speaking to
other witnesses and writing oversight letters. This is principles of
investigation 101--very elementary.
The FBI is still trying to have it both ways. At the same time the
FBI talks about ``unprecedented transparency,'' it is placing
unprecedented hurdles in the way of congressional oversight of
unclassified law enforcement matters. It turns over documents but with
strings attached. It unilaterally instructed the Senate to keep them
secret, even though they are unclassified. They want to keep the
information locked up. If we honor that instruction, we cannot do our
constitutional duty of acting as an independent check on the executive
branch and, in this case, the FBI.
At least the FBI has publicly released small portions of this
unclassified material I am talking about. However, that selective
release has contributed to inaccuracies in the public discussion of
this issue. That is why I agree with Secretary Clinton that it should
all be released as soon as possible.
Here is why: On Tuesday, the Boston Globe article wrote about
evidence from the publicly released FBI summary that suggests an
engineer for an IT company managing the server may have intentionally
deleted emails, even though that engineer knew they were the subject of
a congressional investigation subpoena.
That is the article I asked for and received permission to put into
the Congressional Record.
The timeline of that deletion the Boston Globe is talking about
occurred around the conference call with that engineer, Cheryl Mills,
and David Kendall--Hillary Clinton's lawyers. Relying on the publicly
available information, some have claimed the engineer deleted the
emails on his own volition.
Whether he did so on his own or at the instruction of somebody else
is of course a very key question, and there is key information related
to that issue that is still being kept secret, even though--it is being
kept secret--even though it is unclassified. If I honor the FBI's
instructions not to disclose the unclassified information it provided
to Congress, I cannot explain why.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that a second computer
expert that worked on Secretary Clinton's servers for a contractor was
also given immunity by the Department of Justice. The Department of
Justice didn't inform Congress about the immunity deal. The Department
of Justice is briefing the New York Times anonymously while refusing to
answer questions from its oversight committee about the immunity deals.
Why is it the New York Times gets information for investigation, but
the Committee of Commerce doesn't get that same information? At the
same time, the FBI is putting a stranglehold on unclassified documents
that describe what these witnesses said to the FBI. This is the
opposite of the transparency which we are told by the FBI is so
important because this is a high-profile case.
The other witness granted immunity--Bryan Pagliano--pled the Fifth to
Congress. Congress has a right to question these individuals. They have
reportedly received some sort of immunity for their cooperation with
the FBI. The public ought to know what information they provided in
exchange for a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The American people deserve the whole truth. The public's business
ought to be public, and if it is not classified, then all the facts
should be part of the public discussion.
Inaccuracies are spreading because of the FBI's selective release.
For example, the FBI's recently released summary memo may be
contradicted by other unclassified interview summaries that are being
kept locked away from the public. Unfortunately, the public can't know
without disclosure of information, that the FBI has instructed the
Senate not to disclose.
I have objected to those restrictions. I have written to the Office
of Senate Security twice, noting that the Judiciary Committee did not
agree to those restrictions. I have asked the FBI to provide the
unclassified material directly to the committee. That letter has not
been answered.
These kinds of restrictions and document controls on unclassified
information have no legal basis and there is no authority for them.
They are unprecedented and out of bounds. They violate the executive
order I quoted--the executive order on classified information--and they
intrude on Congress's constitutional authority of oversight.
This is not only an issue for the Judiciary Committee, this isn't
only an issue in regard to what the FBI investigated or didn't
investigate in regard to Secretary Clinton, this is an issue for every
Senator--all 100 Members of the Senate--and every Senate committee to
give deep consideration to because Senators need to consider the
consequences of allowing the executive
[[Page S5496]]
branch to unilaterally impose restrictions on unclassified information
like this and tell a separate branch of government what we can do under
the Constitution.
Every Senator should realize, if this is allowed to stand, that other
agencies will be able to abuse the system to undermine transparency,
and we need transparency in government to have accountability in
government. The Senate should not allow its controls on classified
material to be manipulated to hide embarrassing material from public
scrutiny, even when that material is unclassified.
The FBI ought to do what it should have done from the very beginning:
release all the unclassified information to the public.
When Director Comey told me that he was going to bring these binders
to the Hill and cooperate with Congress, giving us this information, I
raised this very question with him in that telephone conversation.
Now more than ever, the public has a right to know the whole picture
and all the facts gathered by the FBI. Let the people see all of the
evidence, and let the people judge for themselves. That would be true
transparency.
As a constitutionally elected official, I have an obligation to my
constituents to represent them, be honest with them, assist them to the
best of my abilities, and to make sure that what is the public's
business actually is public. I cannot in good conscience do that when
the FBI attempts to assert a vise grip on unclassified information that
would be helpful in answering the calls and letters from my
constituents. How can I look Americans in the eye and tell them that I
have answers but can't share those answers because the FBI says so,
even though the answers come from unclassified information?
So to my fellow Americans but most importantly to my colleagues here
in the Senate, in times like these, I cannot help but think about a
quote from Thomas Jefferson: ``It is the people, to whom all authority
belongs.'' It is the Federal Government that works for us; we do not
work for the Federal Government. Facts and information gathered by
public officials that are relevant to the debate over a public
controversy belong to the public. I urge my colleagues to discuss and
resolve this issue together.
I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure that the full
set of facts is brought to light.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From The Boston Globe, Sept. 6, 2016]
House Republicans Seek Inquiry on Whether Clinton Obstructed Justice
Over E-Mails
(By Michael S. Schmidt)
Washington.--House Republicans asked the Justice Department
on Tuesday to investigate whether Hillary Clinton, her
lawyers, and the company that housed her e-mail account
obstructed justice when e-mails were deleted from her
personal server.
It was the second time in two months that Republicans urged
authorities to open an inquiry related to Clinton.
Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, chairman of the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the e-
mails should not have been deleted because there were orders
in place at the time from two congressional committees to
preserve messages on the account.
``The department should investigate and determine whether
Secretary Clinton or her employees and contractors violated
statutes that prohibit destruction of records, obstruction of
congressional inquiries, and concealment or coverup of
evidence material to a congressional investigation,''
Chaffetz said in a letter to the US attorney's office for the
District of Columbia.
Chaffetz also sent a letter to the Denver-based company
that housed the account, Platte River Networks, with a
request for documents and information related to the account
and the deletions.
Since FBI Director James B. Comey announced July 5 that the
bureau would recommend that Clinton not be charged in
connection with her use of the account, Republicans have
pushed the Justice Department to continue investigating her.
Just five days after Comey's announcement, they asked the
department to open an inquiry into whether Clinton had lied
in October when she testified before the committee
investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
Clinton dismissed Chaffetz's request when asked about it by
reporters on her campaign plane in Tampa, Fla. ``The FBI
resolved all of this,'' she said. ``Their report answered all
the questions; the findings included debunking the latest
conspiracy theories.''
Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the
Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the request
for another investigation was ``just the latest misguided
attempt to use taxpayer funds to help the Republican nominee,
Donald Trump, and to essentially redo what the FBI has
already investigated because Republicans disagree with the
outcome for political reasons.''
The Republicans' request has been met with silence from the
Justice Department and the FBI, and prosecutors have shown no
indication that they are willing to open another
investigation. Legal analysts have said making a perjury case
against Clinton would be hard.
The FBI released 58 pages of investigative documents Friday
related to its inquiry into Clinton's e-mail practices and
whether she and her aides mishandled classified information.
The documents included a summary of an interview agents
conducted with her and a memorandum about the case.
According to the documents, a top aide to Clinton told
Platte River Networks in December 2014 to delete an archive
of e-mails from her account. But Platte River apparently
never followed those instructions.
Roughly three weeks after the existence of the account was
revealed in March 2015, a Platte River employee deleted e-
mails using a program called BleachBit. By that time, both
Chaffetz's committee and the special committee investigating
the Benghazi attacks had called for the e-mails to be
preserved, according to Chaffetz.
``This timeline of events raises questions as to whether
the PRN engineer violated federal statutes that prohibit
destruction of evidence and obstruction of a congressional
investigation, among others, when the engineer erased
Secretary Clinton's e-mail contrary to congressional
preservation orders and a subpoena,'' Chaffetz said in the
letter to Platte River.
Chaffetz said a series of events in the days leading up to
the deletions, including a conference call with Clinton's
lawyers and the creation of a work ticket, ``raises questions
about whether Secretary Clinton, acting through her
attorneys, instructed PRN to destroy records relevant to the
then-ongoing congressional investigations.''
Democrats said Chaffetz's facts were wrong. The FBI's memo
shows that the Platte River employee who deleted the
documents ``did so on his own volition and before the
conference call with Clinton's attorneys,'' said Jennifer
Werner, a Cummings spokeswoman.
The FBI said it was later able to find some of the e-mails,
but it did not say how many had been deleted or whether they
were included in the 60,000 e-mails that Clinton said she had
sent and received as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
____
[From The New York Times, Sept. 8, 2016]
Justice Dept. Granted Immunity to Specialist Who Deleted Hillary
Clinton's Emails
(By Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt)
Washington.--A computer specialist who deleted Hillary
Clinton's emails despite orders from Congress to preserve
them was given immunity by the Justice Department during its
investigation into her personal email account, according to a
law enforcement official and others briefed on the
investigation.
Republicans have called for the department to investigate
the deletions, but the immunity deal with the specialist,
Paul Combetta, makes it unlikely that the request will go
far. Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the top
Republican on the House oversight committee, asked the
Justice Department on Tuesday to investigate whether Mrs.
Clinton, her lawyers or the specialist obstructed justice
when the emails were deleted in March 2015.
Mr. Combetta is one of at least two people who were given
immunity by the Justice Department as part of the
investigation. The other was Bryan Pagliano, a former
campaign staff member for Mrs. Clinton's 2008 presidential
campaign, who was granted immunity in exchange for answering
questions about how he set up a server in Mrs. Clinton's home
in Chappaqua, N.Y., around the time she became secretary of
state in 2009.
The F.B.I. described the deletions by Mr. Combetta in a
summary of its investigation into Mrs. Clinton's account that
was released last Friday. The documents blacked out the
specialist's name, but the law enforcement official and
others familiar with the case identified the employee as Mr.
Combetta. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because
they did not want to be identified discussing matters that
were supposed to remain confidential.
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton's presidential
campaign, said that the deletions by the specialist, who
worked for a Colorado company called Platte River Networks,
had already been ``thoroughly examined by the F.B.I. prior to
its decision to close out this case.''
``As the F.B.I.'s report notes,'' Mr. Fallon said,
``neither Hillary Clinton nor her attorneys had knowledge of
the Platte River Network employee's actions. It appears he
acted on his own and against guidance given by both Clinton's
and Platte River's attorneys to retain all data in compliance
with a congressional preservation request.''
A lawyer for Mr. Combetta and a spokesman for the Justice
Department declined to comment.
In July, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, announced
that the bureau would
[[Page S5497]]
not recommend that Mrs. Clinton and her aides be charged with
a crime for their handling of classified information on the
account.
Five days later, Mr. Chaffetz--who has led the charge in
raising questions about the F.B.I.'s decision--asked
prosecutors to investigate whether Mrs. Clinton had lied to
Congress about her email account in testimony in October
before the special committee investigating the 2012 attacks
in Benghazi, Libya. That request has been met with silence
from the Justice Department.
The House oversight committee has asked officials from
Platte River Networks, Mr. Combetta and others to appear at a
hearing before his committee on Tuesday about how the email
account was set up and how the messages were deleted.
According to the F.B.I. documents, Mr. Combetta told the
bureau in February that he did not recall deleting the
emails. But in May, he told a different story.
In the days after Mrs. Clinton's staffers called Platte
River Networks in March 2015, Mr. Combetta said realized that
he had not followed a December 2014 order from Mrs. Clinton's
lawyers to have the emails deleted. Mr. Combetta then used a
program called BleachBit to delete the messages, the bureau
said.
In Mr. Combetta's first interview with the F.B.I. in
February, he said he did not recall seeing the preservation
order from the Benghazi committee, which Mrs. Clinton's
lawyer, Cheryl D. Mills, had sent to Platte River. But in his
May interview, he said that at the time he made the deletions
``he was aware of the existence of the preservation request
and the fact that it meant he should not disturb Clinton's
email data'' on the Platte River server.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be
recognized for such time as I may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are going to have a vote here shortly,
and it is going to be one of the major, significant votes.
First of all, I know the occupier of the Chair is very aware of the
things we have been doing in the committee called Environment and
Public Works. Most of the stuff we have been doing is very meaningful,
including the highway bill, the chemical bill, and now the WRDA bill.
These are all things that have to be done.
Last week I talked about the WRDA bill and why it is important to
pass it now. Just to take a look at some of the major news stories from
the past few months, earlier this summer we saw algae wash up on the
beaches of Florida. This is a problem that will have significant impact
on the health of Floridians, as well as negatively impacting Florida's
biggest industry--tourism.
The WRDA bill 2016 has a solution to the problem. We have a project
that will fix Lake Okeechobee to prevent this problem in the future.
I know a little bit about this because a lot of people are not aware
that in my State of Oklahoma we have more miles of freshwater shoreline
than any of the 50 States. That is because most of them are manmade
lakes. They have a dam down here with lots of shoreline going around
them, but, nonetheless, I had a personal experience with what they call
blue-green algae. You think you are on your deathbed when you are
there.
This chart behind me shows a plume in St. Lucie, FL. It is a picture
of an algae plume caused by deteriorating water conditions. Not only
are these plumes environmentally hazardous, but they also are
economically debilitating to communities living along South Florida's
working coastline. Communities along the coast depend on clean,
freshwater flows to drive tourism.
Just weeks ago, we saw historic flooding in Baton Rouge, LA, and we
have seen communities destroyed and lives turned upside down. In this
WRDA bill, there are two ongoing Corps projects that will prevent the
damages we saw. WRDA 2016 directs the Corps to expedite the completion
of these projects.
The second chart shows the flooding in Baton Rouge, LA. We can no
longer use a fix-as-it-fails approach as it concerns America's flood
control. There is just too much on the line. We are not just talking
about economic loss but devastating floods. We have all seen that,
experienced that, and we are talking about loss of human life. So this
is not an option.
Last year there were several collisions in the Houston Ship Channel.
Due to a design deficiency, the channel is too narrow and the Coast
Guard has declared it to be a precautionary zone. The Houston Ship
Channel collision in 2015 was a serious one, and without this bill, the
navigation safety project to correct this problem will not move
forward.
Last week I spoke about what we will lose if we don't pass this
important legislation. There are 29 navigation flood control and
environmental restoration projects that will not happen. There will be
no new Corps reforms to let local sponsors improve infrastructure at
their own expense. I am talking about this for a minute because this is
significant. They are willing to spend their own money and yet it is
not legal for them to do. We correct that.
There will be no FEMA assistance to States to rehabilitate unsafe
dams.
There will be no reforms to help communities address clean water and
safe drinking water infrastructure mandates. This is something that
those of us from rural States--in my State of Oklahoma, we have a lot
of small communities, and there is nothing that horrifies them more
when they have an unfunded mandate. They say we are going to have to
treat the water and it is going to cost $14 million. They don't have
any access to that kind of money. I suggested last week that there are
a lot of similar problems. So this goes a long way to correcting these
unfunded mandates. When I was mayor of Tulsa, the biggest problem we
had was unfunded mandates.
Without this bill, there will be no new assistance for innovative
approaches to clean water and drinking water needs, and there will be
no protection for coal utilities from runaway coal ash lawsuits. We
will be addressing this and recognizing that there is a great value to
coal ash if properly used.
These are not State problems or even regional problems, but what we
have is a bill that addresses problems faced by our Nation as a whole.
To reiterate how important this bill is, I want to give a few more
real examples to show how the problems we are facing now are affecting
our citizens, the people who sent us here, and in Washington, this is
what we are supposed to be doing.
The water resources of this bill expand our economy and protect
infrastructure and lives by authorizing new navigation, flood control,
and ecosystem restoration projects, all based on a recommendation from
the Corps of Engineers and a determination that the projects will
provide significant national benefits.
The Corps has built 14,700 miles of levees that protect billions of
dollars' worth of infrastructure and homes. These are referred to as
high-hazard dams or high-hazard levees, and that definition means that
if something happens to one, people will die. It is not saying people
will be hurt; people are going to die. We have many examples of that so
the Corps projects nearly $50 billion a year in damages. Many of these
levees were built a long time ago and some have failed just recently.
Chart 4 is the Iowa River levee breach. If that doesn't tell the
story, the significance of this--this is a levee in Iowa that was
overtopped and eventually breached by disastrous floodwaters. In many
cases, levees like this one were constructed by the Army Corps of
Engineers decades ago but no longer meet the Corps' post-Katrina
engineering and design guidelines. WRDA 2016 will end the bureaucratic
nightmare local levee districts face by allowing them to increase the
level of flood protection most of the time at their own expense when
the Corps is rebuilding after a flood--something they can't do now.
Let's look at the economic benefits of investing in our Nation's port
and inland waterway system. We need to invest in our ports and inland
waterway system to keep the cost of goods low. If we don't do that,
costs will go up, and of course we want to keep creating good-paying
jobs.
WRDA 2016 has a number of provisions that will ensure we grow the
economy, increase our competitiveness
[[Page S5498]]
in the global marketplace, and promote long-term prosperity. These
provisions include important harbor-deepening projects, such as those
in Charleston, SC; Port Everglades, FL; and Brownsville, TX.
Take Charleston as an example. They have a 45-foot harbor. Now that
they have expanded the Panama Canal and we have the boats called
Panamax vessels going through--those are the great big vessels, and
this poster gives you an idea of what can be carried on those. The
problem with the Panamax vessels is that they take up 50 to 51 feet in
the harbor. What happens to Charleston, SC, if they have the big
vessels coming through the Panama Canal, coming up to come into our
harbors in the United States, they have to instead go into one of the
harbors in the Caribbean and divide up the containers. It is very
expensive. That is just one of several of the harbors we are working
on.
Everyone knows the Corps' maintenance budget is stretched thin, but
WRDA 2016 comes up with a solution. This is a solution that we have in
the bill we will be voting on, and we will have the major vote tonight.
In the WRDA bill, we will let local sponsors, such as ports, either
give money to the Corps to carry out the maintenance or get in and
start maintaining using their own dollars. That is something you would
think they could do now, but they can't. That is in this bill. That was
the major thing the ports were pushing for in this bill.
What about in communities? I mentioned that in my State of Oklahoma,
we have a lot of rural towns that don't really have the resources to do
a lot of these things in the form of mandates. The bill provides
Federal assistance to communities facing unaffordable EPA safe water
and clean water mandates. WRDA 2016 targets these Federal dollars to
those who need it the most. I know that years ago when I was the mayor
of Tulsa, that was the biggest concern we had, and it is even more of a
concern in these small communities. So we do it by having assistance
for smaller, disadvantaged communities, with priority for underserved
communities that lack basic water infrastructure; assistance for lead
service line replacement, with a priority for disadvantaged
communities; and assistance to address the very costly sewer overflow
system.
It is worth noting that all the money in this bill is either subject
to the Budget Control Act caps that govern the annual appropriations
bills or is fully offset.
This is an introduction to economics. By passing this legislation and
securing the appropriate funding, we can improve economic opportunities
for all Americans. This is a critical moment. We must get back to
regular order, passing WRDA every 2 years. We went through a period in
2007--we didn't have a WRDA bill following that until 2014. The year
2014 was the last time we did it. We decided then that if we are
supposed to do it every 2 years, then starting in 2014, we are going to
do it. The best evidence of that is that we are going to do it tonight.
So we will have a 2016 budget. Doing this will help us modernize the
water transportation infrastructure through flood protection and
environmental restoration around the country. The process we follow in
this is very open. I think one of the reasons we have been successful
in our committee doing the Transportation bill, the chemical bill, and
now this bill, is because everybody knows what is going on and they
have time to determine what is the best thing for their State.
Way back on December 9, we sent this bill from the committee to all
Members of the Senate saying: We are going to do the WRDA bill, so go
ahead and start working on amendments. They did that, and then, of
course, for the last few weeks, we have been talking about getting
amendments down to the floor, and we have done that. We brought a
substitute amendment that was a result of that work to the full Senate
on September 8. That amendment included over 40 provisions that were
added after the committee markup.
Finally, last week I came to the floor and let all of you know that
Senator Boxer and I needed to see your amendments by noon on Friday for
the managers' package. By noon on Friday, we had amendments in. We
considered some 35 provisions, and we have addressed most of these--I
think to some degree all of them. Now those provisions are in the
Inhofe-Boxer amendment that we filed today and hope to get consent to
adopt shortly after the cloture vote tonight.
This has been a very open and collegial process, and all Members have
had their concerns and priorities heard. We have done our best to
address Members' priorities. After cloture this evening, we will
continue to do our best to clear germane amendments until final passage
this week.
I am very excited that we are going to be able to get this done. A
lot of people sit back and say that nothing ever gets done in
Washington. I have to say that in our committee we get things done, and
we are going to get this done tonight.
With that, 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. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The assistant bill clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment
No. 4979.
Mitch McConnell, James M. Inhofe, John Cornyn, Orrin G.
Hatch, Shelley Moore Capito, Thom Tillis, Dan Sullivan,
Mike Rounds, Marco Rubio, Cory Gardner, Dean Heller,
Pat Roberts, David Vitter, Roy Blunt, John Barrasso,
Roger F. Wicker, Steve Daines.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on
amendment No. 4979, offered by the Senator from Kentucky, Mr.
McConnell, to S. 2848, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake),
the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Alaska
(Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Perdue), and the Senator
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Toomey) would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Kaine),
the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Reid), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr.
Sanders) are necessarily absent.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from
Virginia (Mr. Kaine) would vote ``yea.''
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Are there any other Senators in the
Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 90, nays 1, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 138 Leg.]
YEAS--90
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Franken
Gardner
Gillibrand
Grassley
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Lankford
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Paul
Peters
Portman
Reed
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Schatz
Schumer
Scott
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Udall
Vitter
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--1
Lee
[[Page S5499]]
NOT VOTING--9
Coats
Flake
Graham
Kaine
Murkowski
Perdue
Reid
Sanders
Toomey
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 90, the
nays are 1.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The Senator from Wisconsin.
____________________