Madam President, I had not anticipated coming to the floor tonight to talk about health care in this country, but I feel compelled to do so after listening to a number of our colleagues share with us…
Madam President, I had not anticipated coming to the floor tonight to talk about health care in this country, but I feel compelled to do so after listening to a number of our colleagues share with us letters and messages from folks whose lives have been adversely affected apparently because of changes made in the coverage of their health care through the Affordable Care Act.
I regret any of the consequences that have been shared with us here this evening. My hope is that we will find ways over the next coming weeks and months to address the kinds of concerns that have been raised.
I just wish I heard some of that concern in past years as we prepared to take up the Affordable Care Act. As a member of the Finance Committee, I wish I heard those kinds of concerns about the tens of millions of people in this country who really don't have any health care coverage tonight--some 40 million. For a lot of them, this health care is a chance for them to go to the emergency room of a hospital. When they get really sick, they can be admitted to the hospital and get the care they need. Without health care coverage, it is hugely expensive ultimately for the rest of us because we pay for it. Where is the outcry on behalf of those tens of millions of people?
Where was the outcry 4 years ago when we had several million people who signed up for the Medicare prescription drug program and found that when their purchases of prescription medicines reached a certain level--$3,000 or $4,000 a year--instead of Medicare paying 75 percent of the cost for their medicines beyond that in a year, Medicare paid nothing, which is known as the doughnut hole? A lot of people fell into it--a lot of older people fell into it--and they could not afford the medicines they needed to stay well or stay out of the hospital. Where was the outcry on behalf of fixing that problem?
Where was the outcry on behalf of the millions of young people who were dropped off of their parents' health insurance plans when they aged out at 22? Where was the outcry in those cases?
We have had Republican and Democratic Presidents who have had a chance for years--for decades to do something about the fact that we spend twice as much money for health care as the rest of the world but don't necessarily get better results and don't cover everybody. Frankly, I didn't hear a lot of outcry from our friends on the other side of the aisle during all those years.
As much as we feel for the people whose stories they shared with us here tonight, I wish that same sympathy and empathy had been extended to some of the people who now don't fall into that doughnut hole when their
prescription drugs exceed a certain amount during a year.
Now we have people who are 22, 23, 24, 25 years old who don't age off of their parents' health care coverage. They are covered until their 26th birthday.
We will add to the number of people who have health care coverage. Somewhere between 5 and 10 million people will have health care coverage either because they are able to qualify under the Medicaid Program or because they will get coverage through one of our State exchanges across this Nation.
Is the Affordable Care Act perfect? No. Are there problems with it? Sure. Anything that is this big and this difficult to do, there will be problems. I think the implementation of the startup in October and November was totally unacceptable. We are trying to work our way through it and provide the kind of access and explanation for this coverage that people deserve, and eventually we will get this right.
The outcry we now hear attributed to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act reminds me a lot of the outcry we heard--I want to say 2006 and 2007--when we were beginning to implement the Medicare prescription drug program. To put it bluntly, it was a mess. People were confused by it. The information technology didn't work. The headlines in the newspaper looked a lot like the headlines in October and November and even now. But a year or two later, guess what. We fixed the program with everything but the doughnut hole. And now we fixed the doughnut hole--it started about 4 years ago--through the Affordable Care Act. People don't fall off that cliff anymore the way they used to.
So rather than simply criticizing the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that are troublesome or problematic, why don't we fix them? That is what we did with the prescription drug program, Part D under Medicare, and that is what we should do here.
I did not come here tonight to respond to our colleagues. I just felt somebody needed to say something, and I am pleased I had that opportunity.
Mayorkas Nomination
Madam President, I rise tonight to speak again in strong support of the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to serve as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I spoke yesterday about Director Mayorkas' impeccable credentials and experience that has prepared him for this important position. My colleague from Louisiana Senator Landrieu did the same yesterday.
Today I would like to address some of the concerns about Director Mayorkas that have been raised by our friends on the other side of the aisle and seek to set the record straight.
I understand that some of our Republican colleagues believe we cannot move forward with consideration of Director Mayorkas' nomination until the Office of Inspector General finishes its investigation that it began--get this--in September of 2012. There was an investigation as to his management of the complex EB-5 program some 15 months ago.
Well, I must say I disagree with my Republican colleagues. I think we have waited long enough, and let me explain why.
As I said before, the Department of Homeland Security has been without a Deputy Secretary since April of this year--8 full months--and 6 months have passed since Director Mayorkas was nominated. For many of those months, we did not have a Senate-confirmed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Three days before Mr. Mayorkas' confirmation hearing in July, information about the OIG investigation was leaked to Congress and the media in a highly irregular manner. The information that was leaked indicated that in September of 2012, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security had received allegations about conflicts of interest, misuse of position, and an appearance of impropriety by Director Mayorkas and other agency officials. We also now know that the OIG did not actually begin investigating these allegations for almost 1 year after receiving them.
Importantly, the OIG confirmed that this was not in any way a criminal investigation. Let me say that again because some of our friends on the other side of the aisle seem to be confused about this. The OIG confirmed in July of this year and reconfirmed in December of this year, earlier this month, that this is not and never has been a criminal investigation.
To my amazement, Director Mayorkas has never been contacted nor interviewed by the OIG about this investigation. There was no phone call, no letter, no email. There was nothing in 15 months. Director Mayorkas only learned of this investigation after its existence had been leaked to the Congress in July, just days before our committee hearing on his nomination. Even then, Director Mayorkas ably and vigorously disputed the allegations in his interviews with committee members who would meet with him and staff who would meet with him as well at his confirmation meeting in July.
Unfortunately, rather than question the nominee about this matter and give him a chance to refute these anonymous allegations, Republican members of our committee boycotted his confirmation hearing and have refused to meet with Director Mayorkas to give him an opportunity to respond to these allegations from people whose names and faces we don't even know.
Senator Grassley said this week that Director Mayorkas has been given a chance to defend himself and has ``utterly failed'' to respond to Senator Grassley's letters. On the contrary. Director Mayorkas did, in fact, respond to Senator Grassley's letters this past August 20. In fact, he would have gladly spoken with Senator Grassley or any other Senator, Democratic or Republican, about the allegations face to face. That is the way we do things in Delaware. I can't imagine it is not the way we do things in other States.
I am perplexed that an even better option--speaking to Director Mayorkas himself--was not taken advantage of by Senator Grassley. In fact, I offered to fly to Iowa with Director Mayorkas in August to meet with Senator Grassley face to face so that Senator Grassley could have his questions answered face to face, but, sadly, Senator Grassley declined.
So I think the record shows that Director Mayorkas has been eager to meet with Senators on both sides of the aisle to answer their questions--not to duck them but to answer them. But our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been unwilling to give him what seems to me should be a common courtesy.
Again, we are not talking about a criminal investigation. We are talking about the mismanagement of a program and allegations brought by people whom, again, my staff has never been able to interview.
Getting back to the OIG investigation, of course, in a perfect world, I would prefer that it be completed before moving forward. At one point, I thought it would be.
First, let me make it clear to all that there is nothing improper about the chairman of a committee asking for an update on the status of a pending investigation. There is nothing improper about that. Accordingly, in July Dr. Coburn joined me in inquiring about the status of this investigation. I was told it would be completed in October. Again, this investigation started a year earlier--in September of 2012.
In October of this year, I inquired again about the status and was told it would be completed in December.
On December 2 a bipartisan group of committee staff participated in a telephone call with the head of investigations at the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security to receive a status update. They were told it would likely take 2 or 3 more months to complete the investigation. In fact, every time we have spoken with the IG staff, we have been told they are just 2 or 3 months away from completing an investigation that began some 15 months ago.
I respect that the OIG must do its job, but we have to do our job too, and the President has to do his job. We cannot wait another 2 months--every other month--especially for a position as critical as this one.
Lest we forget, the Department of Homeland Security is charged with helping to protect our Nation and its citizens from all kinds of attacks, foreign and domestic--terrorists from abroad, homegrown terrorists from within--securing our borders, our aircraft, you name it. They respond to all kinds of natural disasters whether they
happen to be hurricanes or tornadoes. There is a lot going on. It is a busy and tough neighborhood to run and manage, and we need confirmed leadership.
I thank our Democrat and Republican colleagues for their vote earlier this week on behalf of Jeh Johnson to become Secretary of the Department. He needs a team, and he needs a team that includes Alejandro Mayorkas.
During the call I mentioned a little bit ago with the bipartisan committee staff in December of this month and trying to find out the status of the investigation, the OIG confirmed that to date they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by anybody at DHS, including Director Mayorkas. That is right, no evidence, none, nada.
Given that the investigation appears to be months away from conclusion and that its completion date has already slipped several times and given the confirmation by the OIG that there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, I believe it is time to move forward. In fact, it is past time to move forward.
The allegations that have been made public cluster around Director Mayorkas' administration of the EB-5 visa program. It is an extremely complicated program that provides foreign investors an opportunity to immigrate to the United States in exchange for significant investments in job-creating enterprises right here in America. The Department of Homeland Security OIG just completed an audit of this program, as a matter of fact, but I will get to that in a little bit.
The primary complaint about Director Mayorkas concerns an EB-5 related application by Gulf Coast Funds Management, the regional center which has ties to Virginia Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe.
Anonymous sources have reportedly alleged that Director Mayorkas improperly intervened to help change a draft legal decision so it would come out in favor of Chairman McAuliffe's former company, Greentech Automotive.
First of all, I think it is important for everybody to understand upfront that Greentech Automotive did not get what they wanted. Let me say that again. The final decision in this case did not come out in Greentech Automotive's favor, from the agency run by Director Mayorkas.
Second, it is important to note that the author of the Greentech decision, the former head of the Administrative Appeals Office at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Mr. Perry Rhew, told my staff last week that he strongly disputed the allegation that Director Mayorkas had inappropriately influenced his decision.
Many of the other allegations that have been made public about the Director's management of the EB-5 program contend that applications appear to have been processed without regard to security concerns. However, in reviewing the leaked emails that were attached to these accusations, Director Mayorkas actually says the exact opposite.
I found this disconnect between the allegations and the emails presented as evidence so striking that I am going to read exactly--I want my colleagues to hear exactly what Director Mayorkas said in this email to support his contention on January 30 of this year concerning his application for a regional center in Las Vegas. This is what he said:
We will take the time needed to resolve the security issue
and we will not act until we have achieved resolution. I
agree that we need to run enhanced security and integrity
checks.
This email directly refutes the claim that Director Mayorkas was pushing to expedite applications despite the security concerns raised by his subordinates.
In another email attached to one of the letters making accusations against Director Mayorkas, he forwards a question about Mr. McAuliffe's company to subordinates and he notes--this is how he does it: He says-- Mr. Mayorkas' words:
I want to make sure that we are providing customer service
consistent with our standards, but that we are not providing
any preferential treatment.
I would ask: Are these the actions of someone who is trying to exert improper influence or subvert security checks? I think any fair-minded person would agree the answer is no. No. Even our committee's ranking member, my friend, Dr. Coburn, indicated that the allegations against Mr. Mayorkas, although serious, are most likely not grounded in reality. I don't want to mince his words, so I will quote him directly. In reference to the allegations against Mr. Mayorkas, Dr. Coburn said in a committee meeting--again, this is a quote: ``I doubt they are true, but we do not have the facts.''
I agree with Dr. Coburn. We don't have any facts pointing to any sort of wrongdoing by Director Mayorkas at all, as best I can tell. None of the anonymous sources or so-called whistleblowers have presented information to the majority regarding their concerns, something I think is unprecedented in these types of circumstances for our committee. We have been unable to question those bringing these anonymous concerns on the majority side, and our Republican friends on the committee--and maybe largely in the Senate--have refused to talk to the accused, and he has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing. That doesn't add up to me. Maybe it does to some people. That just doesn't add up. We don't get to talk to the people who raised these concerns and our Republican friends won't talk to the accused who has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.
On the one hand, we have over 30 people from both sides of the aisle who are well-known and hugely respected citizens who have gone on the record with glowing support for Director Mayorkas. On the other hand, not one person--not one--has stepped forward publicly opposing Director Mayorkas.
Some of the people who have written in strong support of Director Mayorkas include the last Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jane Holl Lute; the last Senate-confirmed inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, Richard Skinner, who is a Bush appointee; and the three most senior border security officials in the George W. Bush administration, Robert Bonner, Al Ralph Basham, and Jason Ayhern.
The fact is that Director Mayorkas has been proactively addressing national security and fraud concerns in the EB-5 program for years. Soon after being confirmed, he took a number of administrative and operational steps to address national security concerns. Where he lacked the administrative authority to improve the EB-5 program, he repeatedly appealed to Congress for the legislative authority he needed.
Unfortunately, Congress dealt Director Mayorkas and his entire agency a bad hand when we authorized the EB-5 program in 2012. We failed--we failed--to give the agency any of the legal authorities that Director Mayorkas and his team at CIS had specifically requested in order to enable them--and they just requested in 2012, made a request--in order to enable them to address the national security and fraud vulnerabilities they could not address on their own. It said: Congress, we would like to do this. We need the authority; please give it to us. They started asking for that in June of 2012.
Earlier this year, during the Judiciary Committee's debate on S. 744, the immigration reform bill, Senator Leahy introduced an amendment that made virtually all the national security fixes that Director Mayorkas had requested. While the comprehensive immigration reform bill passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support, it is unfortunately stalled in the House.
Fortunately, Senate Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy is working on a stand-alone bill to address these national security and fraud concerns, much of what Director Mayorkas and his team asked for in June a year ago. I urge all of my colleagues concerned about security issues in the program to join me as a cosponsor of that bill.
It strikes me as grossly unfair to punish Director Mayorkas for the inability of Congress to address the vulnerabilities in the EB-5 program that Director Mayorkas and his team brought to our attention and asked us to fix over a year and a half ago. In essence, those of us in Congress failed to do our job. Yet Director Mayorkas is taking the fall for our failure. How is that fair? I will tell my colleagues: It is not.
I mentioned previously that the OIG completed an EB-5 audit, and although that report has not been publicly released yet, some of my colleagues have
been discussing the OIG's findings earlier today. In light of that, I think this is a good time to get some facts straight because this audit, remarkably, misses some key facts.
First of all, the report says the EB-5 program is vulnerable to fraud and national security risks and that the legislation that created the program makes it difficult to fully address those risks. That is something that has been well-known by Congress and the administration long before this report and long before Director Mayorkas took over the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in August of 2009. The emails I just discussed demonstrate that Director Mayorkas did not take national security and fraud matters lightly. In fact, a review of the legislative history of the last year and a half might suggest that we take them lightly.
Despite the widespread knowledge about the national security and fraud vulnerabilities in the EB-5 program--and all visa programs, for that matter--CIS did not and does not have the authority that it asked Congress for in order to adequately police regional centers and the EB- 5 program. I find it incredible that the OIG audit report makes no mention of Director Mayorkas' efforts to get Congress to pass legislation to address this problem since June of 2012.
In the absence of being granted those authorities by Congress, Director Mayorkas took it on himself to implement other reforms. Yet many of these reforms took place before or during this audit--and yet, incredibly, those reforms are not even mentioned in the audit report.
One of his first actions as the Director was to elevate the Fraud Detection and National Security Office to a director reporting directly to Mr. Mayorkas. This ensured that national security professionals had a seat at the management table and a voice in all major decisions.
He expanded reporting requirements and security checks for regional centers, which led CIS to increase the number of national security investigations in the EB-5 program by more than 50 percent in the last 4 years.
He increased EB-5 staffing from 9 people in 2009 to more than 80 today, and hired senior economists and national security officers to work side by side with immigration specialists.
He positively engaged other agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, and the Treasury Department to help police the program. In fact, Senator Grassley himself noted this week that Director Mayorkas convened a national security staff working group to examine the problem last year.
The actions I have described are not the actions taken by someone who does not care about national security.
The audit report says the EB-5 adjudication process is ambiguous. CIS has recognized there was a need for a consolidated adjudication manual and they published one in May of this year--one more fact that was not even mentioned in the audit report.
The audit report says the program is fraught with the perception of outside influence. There is no denying the fact that this program gets a lot of attention, including from us--from Congress. In fact, the USCIS receives 1,500 queries about the EB-5 program each year from Congress, from Senators, from U.S. Representatives--1,500. As it turns out, almost half of our Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle have inquired about the EB-5 program since 2009. That is an enormous amount of interest from Congress in this one program. In many cases-- most cases--that interest was provided or demonstrated to CIS on behalf of our constituents, from States from one corner of America to the other.
But let me be clear: The fact that this program garners a lot of attention from a lot of Members of Congress and a number of high-level officials from all parties about the frequency and status of pending applications does not mean that the Citizenship and Immigration Services adjudicators are swayed by the attention. Perception is not always reality. Contrary to what some have suggested or assumed, the OIG reported that all the files they reviewed in their audit--including the ones associated with Terry McAuliffe's company--appear to support the final decision.
Let me say that again. The OIG audit concluded that the evidence it reviewed in these cases supported the final decision.
Based on the evidence we have before us, I believe it is clear that Director Mayorkas has taken strong steps to improve the EB-5 program. These are the actions of a dedicated, thoughtful, and committed public servant. They are the actions of a leader who is willing to make tough but necessary decisions in order to shake things up and improve a program that needed improving. That is exactly the kind of leadership we need at the Department of Homeland Security. I think we need it across the Federal Government.
I also believe we need leaders who are committed to doing what they believe in their heart is the right thing to do. At his confirmation hearing in July, I specifically asked Director Mayorkas about the allegations raised by some of these anonymous sources. Director Mayorkas testified before this committee under oath that he has never put his finger on the scale of justice, and I have seen no evidence since then that would lead me to question his veracity.
I do not believe that we can allow rumors spread by anonymous sources to rule the day.
Some of our colleagues have been very critical of DHS shortcomings and they are quick to point out its failures. However, one of the major reasons the Department fails to live up to expectations more than they and the rest of us might like is because their top leadership ranks have been riddled with vacancies for much of this year, and the same is true of many other agencies. Again, it is not fair to criticize the agency on the one hand and yet seem content on the other to leave them without Senate-confirmed leadership for months on end. We can't have it both ways. We have some responsibility here as well.
It is time to stop playing political games. It is time to vote to confirm Ali Mayorkas for the Deputy Secretary position at DHS.
There is something else that came to my attention today that I thought was interesting. It is not from an anonymous source. It is not rumor or innuendo. It is actually a report from the Partnership for Public Service. One of the things they do at the partnership is issue, I think maybe on an annual basis, the rankings of the best places to work in the Federal Government in 2013 and, as it turns out, also maybe the worst, because they do a ranking from top to bottom.
I was dismayed to find out this week that the Department of Homeland Security ranked last--ranked last--on their list of Cabinet Departments in terms of employee morale--last. It is not the first year. It has happened for a number of years in a row. However, although the Department ranked last among all the Departments, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, led by Director Mayorkas, was one of the highest ranked components within DHS, coming in at, I think out of 300 Federal agencies, No. 76, which, if my math is good, that puts them in maybe the top 25 percent of all agencies.
After Mr. Mayorkas took over in 2009, employee satisfaction with senior leadership there increased by over 20 percent. It has increased by over 20 percent since he took over in 2009.
Every now and then, in driving on my way to the train station in Wilmington to catch a train to come down here to start our day, I listen to the news. Usually I arrive at 7 o'clock. About a year ago I heard a report on NPR of an international study that was done involving thousands of people across the country. In the international study, they asked the same question of thousands of people from all walks of life with different kinds of jobs in different locations. The question that was asked of each of those thousands of people was, what is it about your job that you like? What is it about your job that you like the most? Not surprisingly, those people who were asked the question had different responses. Some people said they liked getting paid. Some people said they liked getting a pension. Some people said they liked having a vacation or having health care. Some people said they liked the environment in which they worked. Some people said they liked the folks they work with. But do you know what most people said? Most people said the thing they like most about their job is they
felt the work they were doing was important and they felt they were making progress. Think about that. The reason most people cite for liking their job, the work they do, is because they know it is important and they feel they are making progress.
It is ironic to me--if you rely on the anonymous sources the majority side has not been permitted to talk with, it is ironic to me that in a department where morale has been low and a problem and a concern for years, at this agency that Mr. Mayorkas has led now for 4 years, employee morale is, by comparison, fairly high. He does not get any credit for that. But if employees really do care that the work they are doing is important and they are making progress, maybe that belief is reflected in these numbers. Maybe that is reflected in these numbers on behalf of the leadership that Mr. Mayorkas has provided for Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Let me close, if I could. My friend from Kansas has arrived.
There are a couple things I want us to keep in mind. This is one that is hard for me to understand. People whom we do not know, whom we on the majority side have not talked to and have not had an opportunity to hear from to hear their story--it is maybe unprecedented for that opportunity to be denied the majority or for the majority to deny that to the minority in a case like this. We have been denied that opportunity.
I think the person who is maybe best able to provide or to rebut or to respond to concerns that have been raised by these anonymous folks whom we have not been able to talk to is Mr. Mayorkas himself, but our Republican colleagues have refused to talk to him. Even though there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, they refuse to talk to him to give him a chance to rebut or to respond to the accusations from anonymous sources we have never heard from. That one just blows my mind.
If the shoe were on the other foot, if Democrats were in the minority and Republicans were in the majority, if I were the ranking member on the minority side and we had a Republican President who nominated somebody for office and the chairman of our committee asked me as the ranking minority member to meet with someone whom the Republican President had nominated, I would meet with them in a heartbeat. I would want to hear that person's story. That is what I would want to hear.
If the anonymous sources were talking just to us, I would encourage them to talk to the other side as well.
By the way, the one person we did talk to--and we got this person, Mr. Rhew--I think we got his name out of a statement given by Senator Grassley on the floor. We talked to him. He set the record straight. He set the record straight. I have already cited that in my comments. But we have never had the chance to talk to any other, I think, half a dozen or so sources.
The other thing I would say is that there is nothing inappropriate about the staff of a committee chairman inquiring of an OIG about the pace and the resources provided to conduct an investigation. This is just not any Department that has lacked Senate-confirmed leadership from us; this is the Department of Homeland Security. Americans have a lot riding on that Department doing their job well. They need senior leadership, and they have not had the kind they need.
But despite the repeated efforts to get the OIG to expedite their efforts, begun in September 2012--a joint letter from Dr. Coburn and me to the OIG in July of this year; 2 months later, get a response that, oh, maybe we will have something in October. Two months later, it is December, and bipartisan staff--Democratic, Republican; majority, minority--have a chance to be briefed by the OIG, and rather than say, well, this investigation we started 15 months ago is done, is ready to wrap up, they say, a couple more months, maybe 2 or 3 more months.
Are we supposed to continue to wait? We have the leadership we need at the Department of Homeland Security. At some point you just say: Enough already.
What we have learned is that in terms of full-time people working on this--I think there are about 650 full-time equivalent people at the Office of Inspector General at DHS, about 650, and as I understand it, 3 full-time people--1 investigator and 2 research assistants--have been devoted to this investigation. No wonder it is taking 15 months.
I would ask us to keep in mind our failure--our failure--to act on the recommendations made to Congress for reforms in the EB-5 program to address national security concerns and to address concerns about fraud.
Mr. Mayorkas did the right thing. He and his staff pulled together a long list of changes they need, legislative changes they need so they would be authorized to address his concern. We dropped the ball. We did not include those changes when we reauthorized the EB-5 program for 3 more years--a straight reauthorization. We did not make any reforms. We did not make any changes despite the fact that he had suggested them months before we acted.
Finally, those changes ended up in the immigration bill. We passed it here. Most Democrats voted for it, some Republicans. It is over in the House. It is languishing and not moving. If we are really concerned about giving this agency, CIS, the tools they need, the authority they need to address these security concerns, fraud concerns, why don't we join Senator Leahy in the legislation he is going to introduce that largely is taken from the immigration reform bill? When he introduces it, let's cosponsor that bill.
Finally, if we are going to accept as gospel criticism about the way a person has run a particular agency--and not of a criminal nature but criticisms about the way it has been run--why not give that person a chance to defend himself? Why not give him a chance to say: Well, there is another side to this story or maybe there is not, but at least give him that opportunity.
Lastly, the morale at the Department of Homeland Security--they do some great work, important work, the Department of Homeland Security. And they do a lot better work. I will mention a couple things, if I can.
Remember the response of FEMA, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security? Remember their response to Katrina? It was deplorable. How about the response of FEMA to Hurricane Sandy? All around--for the most part, all around kudos were won.
How about TSA? TSA has been a whipping boy for a lot of folks. All of us who have the opportunity to fly commercially, we have seen TSA make changes. They have taken criticism they have taken to heart. Among other things, they have created the Trusted Traveler Program so a lot of people do not have to take off their shoes or their belts or do all kinds of things to get through a security check. The TSA has done a number of things. Some of the technology they are using is not intrusive, as it was before. Security is actually strong.
For 10 years, our friends at GAO, the Government Accountability Office, have, every 2 years, on their high-risk list at the beginning of every Congress, cited that the Department of Homeland Security needs to be able to earn a clean financial audit of its books. They said: 10 years; that is enough time.
Well, it turns out the Department of Defense, which has been around for, gosh, about 70 years--over 60 years--is still not auditable. The Department of Defense is not auditable, much less to have a clean audit.
Last week the Department of Homeland Security, for the first time in their existence, received a clean financial audit. They did it in 10 years. DOD, also a big operation--it is 60 years and counting, and they are not even audited yet.
So for those who want to constantly criticize the Department of Homeland Security, I would just say that the people who work there work hard. They have tough jobs. They need our help. One of the things they need our help in doing is securing the kind of leadership they have not had, and that is Senate-confirmed leadership.
We have had some very good people who have been acting as the Secretary, acting as the Deputy Secretary, but, friends, it is not the same. They need leadership that is going to be there with not just the blessing of the President but the blessing of this body and that is going to be there today, tomorrow, next month, next year, and provide the leadership that is needed.
The most important element I have ever seen in my time in the Navy-- 23 years Active and Reserve--my time as Governor, my time here in the Senate, the most important element I have ever seen in any organization to determine whether it is going to be successful is leadership. Show me a school with a great principal, I will show you a school that is on the way up. I do not care how ineffective the teachers might be, I will show you a school that is on its way up. Show me a business with a strong leader, and the same thing is true. Show me a body like this or a military unit, leadership is always the key. And it is the key at the Department of Homeland Security.
If the improvement that I have noted, that I mentioned here just a minute ago, is to continue and actually be strengthened, they need Senate-confirmed leadership. We will have the opportunity in a couple of hours to give Jeh Johnson, the newly confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security, a key player in the leadership team that he is trying to build at that Department. He deserves our support, and so do the people at that Department. And if they get it, they will provide the support we need in this country to be safer in the days ahead.
With that, Madam President, I thank you for allowing me to give this statement.
I see my friend from Kansas on the floor. I thank him for his patience, and I am happy to yield the floor.
