Honor Our Promise Act

Mr. President, let me thank Senators Murray, Durbin, and Blumenthal for their very thoughtful and important remarks regarding the needs of veterans and why it is absolutely imperative we pass this comprehensive veterans legislation. Let me also begin by thanking all of the members of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs for their very hard work in helping to craft what is not only an enormously important piece of legislation impacting the lives of millions of our veterans but is also, to a large degree, a bipartisan piece of legislation.

It is no secret that Congress today is extraordinarily partisan and, in fact, is largely dysfunctional. On major issue after major issue the American people are crying out to us and asking that we address the serious problems facing this country. Yet we are unable to do virtually anything. I hope--and I say this from the bottom of my heart, and as chairman of the Senate veterans committee--that at least on the issue of addressing their needs--the need to protect and defend those veterans who have protected and defended us, those men and women who have put their lives on the line to protect this country--we can rise above the partisan rancor that we see down here on the floor every single day.

That is what the American people want us to do. Not only has the veterans community been clear on the need to pass this bill, but that is what the American people want us to do. They understand the sacrifices made by veterans and their families, and they want us to rise above the partisan acrimony the American people see every single day.

Let me be very clear, and let there be no misunderstanding about this. I have tried, as chairman of the committee, to do everything I can to bring forth legislation which includes provisions from Republicans and provisions from Democrats. My view is, and has been, that if there is a good idea that improves the lives of veterans--I don't care if there is an ``R'' attached to a Senator's name, a ``D'' or an ``I,'' as in my case--let's bring forth that legislation.

The reality is, to the best of my knowledge, there are 26 separate provisions that Republican Members have authored or cosponsored--that is a lot--and some of them are very significant provisions. Further, perhaps most importantly, two of the most important parts of this comprehensive legislation are omnibus bills that were passed unanimously by the committee. So what we have done is brought ideas together in two of the most important provisions in this bill, with two separate omnibus bills passed unanimously by the committee. There are other provisions in the bill that were not passed unanimously but also passed with bipartisan support.

I also want to point out the two provisions that were not discussed at the committee level but have been passed almost unanimously by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and I believe have strong bipartisan support in the Senate. With almost unanimous votes, the House passed a provision that would solve a long-standing problem and enable the VA to enter into 27 major medical facility leases in 18 States and Puerto Rico. We have virtually that same language in our bill, and that was passed almost unanimously in the House. So I think that is a nonpartisan, bipartisan provision.

A second provision passed by the House with very broad support deals with ensuring that veterans can take full advantage of the post 9/11 GI bill and get in-State tuition in the State in which they currently live. That language I believe is identical in our bill.

So we have major provisions passed in the Republican House with almost unanimous support that are in this bill, and there are two omnibus provisions passed with unanimous support out of our committee, and we have other provisions passed with bipartisan support.

So while I am not here to say this is 100-percent bipartisan, because it is not, we have gone a very long way to do what has not been done very often here in the Senate, and that is to bring everybody's ideas together to pass something that is terribly important for our veterans.

The point I am trying to make here is that I happen to believe that virtually every Member of the Senate, regardless of their political point of view, does care about veterans. I say this especially about the members of the committee--the Veterans' Affairs Committee--who would not be on the committee if they didn't care about veterans. I believe that virtually every Member of the Senate wants to do the best they can for veterans. That is why I have worked so hard to do my best to make sure this bill is as bipartisan as it can be.

In my view, this is, in fact, a very good bill. But like any other piece of legislation, it can be made better. We have 50 States, we have Native American tribes, and we have all kinds of issues out there. There are 100 Senators here in this body who know their States, who know their issues. So let me be very clear in echoing what the majority leader said this morning, and that is he and I want to encourage every Member of the Senate--Democrat, Republican, and Independent--who has germane amendments dealing with veterans issues to please offer those amendments. Bring them to the floor.

My understanding is a number of amendments have already been offered by Democratic Senators and we have some amendments now that have been offered by Republican Senators. I understand Senator Rubio and Senator Collins have offered amendments, as well as a number of Democrats. We look forward to more amendments coming to the floor so that we can have a serious discussion about those amendments.

I hope the one thing that will not happen is that, as we discuss this legislation, instead of having an honest debate about the needs of veterans, that this legislation becomes another forum for the same old partisan politics we have seen for years--the sort of partisan politics the American people are increasingly disgusted with. The American people understand that honest people have differences of opinion on the issues, but they do not want to see serious legislation being sabotaged because of political partisanship.

In my view, with regard to this veterans bill and the fact we have language in this bill which can improve the lives of millions of veterans and their families, I believe it would be extremely disrespectful to the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend this country to use this piece of legislation dealing with veterans issues as nothing more than a political pawn for other issues that are totally extraneous to their needs.

I fully understand--no great secret here--that my Republican colleagues do not like the Affordable Care Act. They are entitled to their opinion. We have discussed this issue and this law over and over. I ask my Republican colleagues: Please, do not inject ObamaCare into the veterans debate. It has nothing to do with the needs of veterans.

I understand some of my Republican colleagues have strong feelings about sanctions in Iran. Clearly, this is an important issue. But it has nothing to do with the needs of veterans in this country. Please, do not inject the Iran sanctions issue into a debate on how we can improve the lives of veterans and their families.

I know there are strong feelings and disagreements about the wisdom or lack of wisdom of the Keystone Pipeline. I have my views on the issue. Other people have their views on the issue. But, frankly, the Keystone Pipeline has nothing to do with the needs of our veterans. And there are many other issues out there.

Let me at this point quote from a tweet that came out last night from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America association, and this is what they say. This is the organization that represents the men and women who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is what they said last night:

The Senate should not get distracted while debating and

voting on the vets bill. Iran sanctions, ObamaCare, et

cetera, aren't relevant to S. 1982.

That is the issue we are debating today, and I absolutely agree with the IAVA on this issue. They also say in another tweet:

In 2013, veterans were not immune from gridlock in

Washington. This year has to be different. We urge the Senate

to pass this legislation.

As I mentioned yesterday, this legislation, in fact, has the support of virtually every veterans organization in the country, representing millions and millions of veterans, from the American Legion to the VFW, the DAV to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Vietnam Veterans of America to the Disabled American Veterans and the Paralyzed Veterans of America. We have dozens of organizations that know how important this legislation is to their members.

So my plea to my colleagues is let's debate veterans' issues. If you have an idea to improve this bill, I welcome it. Let's have that debate. I do not believe this legislation is immune to improvement. We can improve it, but please do not inject extraneous issues in here for totally political reasons. I think that is unfair to the veterans of this country.

As the Presiding Officer well knows, on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, I--and I suspect every Member of the Senate--go out and speak to veterans. We express our deep respect for them and their families and the appreciation for all they have done for our country. Today I hope we can keep faith with those promises. Let us focus on veterans' issues. Let us get the best bill we can. Let's not kill this bill because of the same old same old partisan situation we face.

I will take a few minutes to discuss why we have brought forth this legislation, which has been described as the most comprehensive piece of veterans legislation to have come before Congress in decades.

While in recent years the President and Congress have made good progress--I think the President's budgets have been good; I think Congress, in a bipartisan way, has done a good job in addressing many of the problems facing the veterans community--the truth is, and I hope everybody knows, we still have a very long way to go. Now I will discuss some of the outstanding issues this bill addresses.

I think anybody who has nursed a child or a parent who is ill or injured knows how difficult and stressful this is; how sometimes you have to stay up all night, how sometimes you have to stay with your patient 24 hours a day. I would like people to be thinking about what it means day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, to be taking care of those veterans who are severely disabled in war.

Think about, for a moment, what the stress is and how much of your own life you have given up to your loved ones, and there are tens of thousands of spouses who are now doing nursing and caring for veterans from World War II, from Korea, from Vietnam, from Iraq, from Afghanistan. That is what they are doing right now, and they are doing it because they love their husbands or their wives or their sons or daughters.

The very good news is in 2010 Congress passed legislation to develop a caregivers program for post-9/11 disabled vets. This was a huge step forward. What it said is for those men and women who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps without legs, perhaps blind, perhaps without arms, perhaps ill in one way or another through PTSD or TBI, we were going to make sure their wives, their mothers, their sisters, their brothers, their children had the support they need to provide the kind of inhome nursing care those veterans need. This legislation has been very successful for post-9/11 veterans. I will give one example and there are obviously many.

One family who benefited from the VA's caregiver program is Ed and Karen Matayka. They live in my home State of Vermont. In 2010, Ed and Karen were deployed together as medics to Afghanistan with the Vermont Army National Guard, a National Guard of which many of us in Vermont are very proud. Just 2 days before Independence Day, the vehicle Ed was riding in was hit by an IED. The driver, Vermont's Ryan Grady, was killed. We remember that loss very well. Ed and three others were severely injured. Ed lost one leg immediately, suffered a stroke and a severe spinal cord injury. Soon thereafter his other leg was amputated above the knee and he suffered yet another stroke.

After 3 years of rehabilitation, Ed was medically retired from the Army. Because of VA's caregiver program--a program we established in 2010 for post-9/11 veterans and their families--his wife Karen was able to separate from the Army as well as become her husband's full-time caregiver. Karen spends a significant amount of time every day caring for Ed. She helps Ed with personal care, fixing his meals, and all of his transportation, including to and from medical appointments. Karen has gone through the training program and receives a monthly stipend to help compensate for her loss of income.

I think that is the right thing to do. I am not sure there are too many Members in the Senate who don't think that is the right thing to do. Here is a guy who suffered terrible wounds. His wife is now giving up her career to care for him. Should we not help that family? I think we should. Thanks to this program Ed and Karen are able to continue their lives together in their home.

Another important point: What might the alternative be? Send Ed to a nursing home where he would be uncomfortable, not get the care of a loved one, and at great expense to the VA? So this saves us money and provides better care for our veterans. This is what we did in the post- 9/11 caregiver bill. The problem is the bill only applies to post-9/11 veterans.

What I think should happen, what the veterans community thinks should happen, and what I believe the American people think should happen is we should expand that program to all veterans of all wars and their families. There are tens of thousands of family members today who are caring 24/7 for veterans wounded in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and other wars. They deserve the same benefits the post-9/11 veterans families are now receiving. That important provision is in this legislation, and I hope my colleagues support it.

There is another important provision in this legislation. This is a very important and sensitive issue. There are some 2,300 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who, because of a variety of injuries, are unable to start the families they have wanted to start. Some injuries are spinal cord, some may be genital injuries, some just affect the reproductive organs, and they are no longer able to have babies. Many of these young men and women want to have babies, to raise their children, and, as much as they can, to have a normal family.

Right now the VA does not offer reproductive treatments to veterans, meaning the most seriously injured among them cannot access the treatment or care needed to start a family.

Senator Murray, former chair of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, was on the floor yesterday speaking at great length about this important issue. I believe that if we send young people off to war and they become injured and if they want to start a family, we have to assist them in being able to do so. That provision is included in this legislation.

I will talk about another issue we deal with in this bill. Unfortunately, yesterday in discussion this provision was mischaracterized by some who spoke against it. This provision deals with expanding VA health care and making sure some, including some very vulnerable veterans who are today not eligible for VA health care, in fact become eligible.

Currently, VA uses an extremely complicated system to determine eligibility based on income for veterans without service-connected injuries, often what we call priority 8 veterans. The VA now determines income eligibility by looking at the income of an individual and his or her family county by county in each State. I don't know how many thousands of counties we have in the United States of America, but I will discuss what this means in the real world in terms of how the VA currently determines income eligibility.

My own State of Vermont is a small State--620,000 people. We are a rural State. There are just 14 counties. In Vermont, as throughout the country, each county has its own threshold for determining eligibility for priority group 8 veterans.

For a veteran living in Chittenden County, where I live, the threshold to enroll in the VA health care is less than $48,000, but for a veteran living in Windham County, in the southern part of the State, the threshold is less than $39,000. That is a difference of nearly $9,000.

In the State of Georgia, there are 159 counties and nearly as many income thresholds. Imagine that. For a veteran living in Walton County, GA, the threshold is less than $41,000. But if a veteran lives in Coffee County, the threshold is just over $28,000. It may make sense to some people. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

In the State of Texas, there are 254 counties. For a veteran living in Brazoria County near Houston, the threshold is less than $48,000. For a veteran living in Bee County, the threshold is less than $31,000. That is a difference of over $17,000. Frankly, this whole process does not make a lot of sense, and I know from personal experience it is totally confusing to veterans: Am I eligible for VA health care? It depends on which county you live in. It depends on which side of the road you live. This makes no sense at all.

This legislation simplifies the system. We establish a single income threshold for an entire State. So instead of having thousands of income thresholds, we have 50. It is true that the threshold we use would be the highest in each State, therefore, making more veterans eligible for VA health care. In my view, this is exactly what we should be doing.

There may be some in the Senate who believe a veteran in a given State who earns all of $28,000 a year should not be eligible for VA health care because he or she is ``too rich.'' I respectfully disagree. VA provides high-quality, cost-effective health care. There are many veterans in this country struggling economically who want and need VA health care.

I should also add that these newly eligible veterans will pay a copayment just like all other currently eligible priority 8 veterans. Frankly, I would prefer those veterans receive high-quality care at the VA, rather than going into an emergency room at 10 times the cost when they become ill.

Let me reiterate. Unlike what some of my colleagues said yesterday, this important provision does not open VA health care to every veteran in America--and there are 22 million of them--nor does it open the floodgates, bringing in millions and millions of veterans.

I cannot give an estimate, nor can anybody else, how many will take advantage of this provision, but it will be a manageable number, largely because we make very clear--and this is an important point some of my colleagues apparently did not understand. We make it very clear in this legislation that the VA has 5 full years to fully implement this provision in a way that will not negatively impact current patient needs. So anyone who says it is going to open the floodgates for every veteran is not accurate, and that because all of these veterans are coming in we are going to diminish the quality of care for current veterans is not accurate. Let me reiterate this point, which is also in the bill. We understand that the highest priority--and we have talked to disabled American veterans about this issue--for VA health care is to take care of those veterans with service-connected problems. That is the case today and that will remain the case after this bill is passed tomorrow. Those with disabilities and those with service-connected problems will remain the highest priority.

This is a long discussion, and we could go on and on for hours about this. I am also on the health committee and I have studied this issue a little bit. There were some very harsh criticisms made yesterday about VA health care. The truth is that the Veterans' Administration runs 151 medical centers. They run some 900 community-based outreach clinics. They have hundreds of vet centers.

The VA is the largest integrated health care system in the United States of America. It employs hundreds of thousands of workers, doctors, nurses, technicians, you name it. Obviously no one has ever suggested that VA health care is perfect or that there aren't problems within the system. I have talked to veterans in Vermont, and I have talked to veterans all over the country, and by and large there is very strong support for VA health care. These veterans understand that when they walk into a VA facility, the people who are there to treat them understand their problems, and many of the workers are veterans.

I think if you talk to the veterans community, they will tell you not that the VA does not have its share of problems, it certainly does, and not that we should not focus vigorously on improving the care at VA, but they will tell you by and large the care they are getting is good care.

The point I want to make is that before we eviscerate, as was the case yesterday, the Veterans Health Administration's health care system, let us remember today about what is going on in terms of health care in America. Let us understand that the VA is not the only health care system in this country which has problems.

Today, as a nation, we are the only major country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all of its people as a right. Today there are tens of millions of people--even after the Affordable Care Act--who lack any health insurance.

Let's remember that 45,000 people--according to a Harvard study--die each year because they don't get to a doctor on time because they lack health insurance. Let us not forget that in the midst of high premiums, high copayments, and lack of insurance, the United States of America spends almost twice as much per person on health care as do the people of any other nation. Many of those other nations that spend a fraction of what we spend have better health care outcomes than we did in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality, and many other important outcomes.

I will also add that before we go about attacking, in a rather vicious way, the Veterans Health Administration's health care system, we should understand that according to a recent study that appeared in the Journal of Patient Study that between 210,000 and 400,040 people each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death. According to that study, that number would make medical errors the third leading cause of death in America behind heart disease and cancer.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.

My point in saying that is not to say that the VA health care system doesn't have its problems.

It is to say that we have problems in every health institution in America. That is what we have.

When you look at the VA--and I can go on and on--they are doing some cutting-edge work. If you look at health care technology and health care records, the VA has led the country in that direction.

There was a discussion yesterday--an absolutely correct discussion-- about our concerns within the VA and outside of the VA and about overmedication of people who are dealing with pain problems. To the best of my knowledge, the VA is leading the country and doing cutting- edge work in complementary and alternative medicine with good results. They are saying that maybe we don't have to use all of this medication. Maybe we can use acupuncture, maybe we can use yoga, and maybe we can use meditation. They are doing that aggressively. By the way, this legislation expands those programs.

One of the crises in American health care today is our failure in terms of developing a strong primary health care system. Guess what. The VA has 900 primary health care facilities all over this country. The VA has women's health centers which deal with the specific needs of children.

I could go on and on about it. It is not fair to pick on the VA. They are vulnerable. Every problem they have is on the front pages of the newspapers.

I will never forget that a good friend of mine went into a hospital and died of an infection. It didn't make the front pages of the paper. That is happening all over America.

Yes, of course, we want to improve the VA health care system, but let us thank the hundreds of thousands of highly qualified and dedicated workers who are providing quality care to their patients.

Lastly, I want to say a word on something I feel very strongly about. I have always believed that dental care should be an integral part of health care as a nation and within the VA, and what this bill does for a first time, through a pilot project, is begin the process of opening dental care for nonservice-connected veterans.

There are a number of other provisions I will talk about later. Here is the bottom line: We owe more than we can ever pay back to people who sacrifice so much for this country. I think it is important that we pass this comprehensive legislation. I think it is terribly important that we have a serious debate about the serious issues facing the veterans community.

I look forward to my colleagues--Republican, Democrat, and Independent--bringing forth their ideas and amendments, but please do not disrespect those people who have sacrificed so much by killing this bill because of the same old politics we have struggled with for years. This is a veterans bill. Let's discuss veterans issues.

I yield the floor and thank my colleague for allowing me the extra 5 minutes.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, earlier this afternoon I spoke about the many important provisions in this veterans bill that came out of the Veterans' Affairs Committee: the fact that we worked as hard as we could to make it bipartisan, the fact that there are many provisions in this bill that came from Republican Members, and the fact that some other provisions in this bill were passed unanimously by the House of Representatives, indicating very strong bipartisan support.

But what I also said is that while I believe the American people understand the full cost of war and understand the sacrifices made by veterans and their families, what they also believe is that when we have a piece of legislation--an important piece of legislation--on the floor dealing with the needs of millions and millions of veterans and their families--whether it is health care; whether it is dental care; whether it is sexual assault and how we address that issue; whether it is the fact that over 2,000 veterans have lost their ability to have kids and what we can do to make it possible for them to have children; whether it is the fact that we have tens of thousands of families in this country where loved ones are taking care of disabled vets, need some support, and we have a need to expand the caregivers act; whether it is the fact that we have some young people who are eligible to use the post-9/11 GI bill but are unable to do it because they cannot get in-State tuition; whether it is the issue of advanced appropriations and making sure we never again find ourselves in the position that we did a few months ago, where the government was shut down and where disabled veterans were 1 week or 10 days away from losing the checks they are dependent upon, I think there is widespread support in America for that bill, for the understanding that we do owe the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend us a debt of gratitude that can never be fully paid.

But we have to do our best. We have to make life as good as we can for those who were injured in war. We have to protect the hundreds of thousands who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD or traumatic brain injury. But whatever one may think of the bill--whether you like the bill, don't like the bill, think it is too expensive or think we should have done more--the one thing most Americans understand is that it is totally absurd to be bringing forth extraneous issues into a debate on veterans needs in order to kill the bill.

I say to my colleagues exactly what the majority leader said this morning. If you have amendments dealing with veterans issues, we welcome them. We have a number of Democrats who have come forward with amendments. We have some Republicans who have come forward with amendments. We welcome amendments that are relevant and germane to the needs of veterans. What we do not welcome are extraneous amendments that are designed only--only--for partisan, political reasons, exactly the process that the American people are disgusted with today.

Interestingly enough, that is my view. I mentioned earlier today that the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America sent out a tweet yesterday, and the folks who served us in Iraq and Afghanistan said: The Senate should not get distracted while debating and voting on the veterans bill. Iran sanctions, ObamaCare, et cetera, aren't relevant to S. 1982--which is the veterans bill we are dealing with today.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said: Focus on veterans' issues, which is a very simple request and the one that should be heeded.

But today, a little while ago, we heard from the largest veterans' association in America; that is, the American Legion, which represents 2.4 million members. The American Legion is the largest veterans' organization in this country. I suspect they have chapters. I know they are strong in Vermont. I suspect they are strong in Hawaii and strong all over this country.

American Legion National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger said today:

Iran is a serious issue that Congress needs to address, but

it cannot be tied to S. 1982, which is extremely important as

our Nation prepares to welcome millions of U.S. military

service men and women home from war. This comprehensive bill

aims to help veterans find good jobs, get the health care

they need, and make in-State tuition rates applicable to all

who use their GI bill benefits. This legislation is about

supporting veterans, pure and simple. The Senate can debate

various aspects of it, and that is understandable, but it

cannot lose focus on the matter at hand: helping military

personnel make their transition to veteran life and ensuring

that those who served their Nation in uniform receive the

benefits they earned and deserve. We can deal with Iran--or

any other issue unrelated specifically to veterans--with

separate legislation.

I think Commander Dellinger hit the nail right on the head. What he is saying is, fine, we can debate Iran at some point; we can debate ObamaCare, which has been going on day after day after day. We can do anything we want to do, but this is a bill that deals with veterans' issues.

I thank the American Legion not only for their support--they along with virtually every other veterans organization in this country supports this legislation: the VFW, DAV, Vietnam Vets, Iraq-Afghanistan Veterans of America, and dozens of organizations--but I thank the American Legion in particular for their statement in making it clear that our job is to debate a veterans bill, not kill this bill because of an extraneous issue such as Iran sanctions.

I wish to say one other word before I proceed to my main remarks. My colleague from North Carolina quoted from a group called the Concerned Veterans of America. In support of our legislation, we have the largest veterans organization in America, the second largest, third largest, fourth largest, the fifth largest, the sixth largest, and all the way down the line--many millions of Americans. Apparently supporting his position is a group called the Concerned Veterans for America. I don't mean to be personal, but this is just a simple fact that people should understand. This organization, according to the Washington Post, is significantly supported by Charles and David Koch--the Koch brothers. We are going to be running into the Koch brothers on every piece of legislation where there is some group out there that they fund, and in this case it is the Concerned Veterans of America.

I talked earlier about the many important provisions in the bill dealing with reproductive issues, the belief the Federal Government and the VA should assist those men and women who have lost their ability to have kids. We have talked about caregivers and all that, and I want to just touch on a couple more issues at this moment.

I have believed for a very long time that dental care should be regarded as a part of health care. I think we make a mistake as a nation saying this is

health care and this is dental care. Our legislation, for the first time, begins the process of providing dental care to nonservice- connected members through a significant pilot project. I have the feeling once we do this we will see veterans from all over the country who are dealing with long-term dental problems availing themselves of this service. It is the right thing to do and something I think we should be doing.

Another provision in this bill deals with the COLA issue for military retirees. I think everybody here is familiar with the fact that in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 it reduced by 1 percent annually the cost-of-living adjustments for military retirees until age 62.

The good news is the House and Senate recently passed legislation completely rescinding those cuts and the President has signed that bill. That is the good news. The bad news is those cuts continue to exist for those who join the military after January 2014, and I know the veterans organizations are concerned about that. I am concerned about that. I think that is wrong, and our legislation corrects that. So if one is talking about cuts to military retiree COLAs, we end it, pure and simple. Those COLA cuts will no longer exist if this bill is passed.

As I mentioned earlier, this legislation addresses the issue of the benefits backlog. There is great concern among all Members of the Senate that veterans are forced to wait much too long to get their claims processed. What this legislation does is support VA's ongoing efforts to end the backlog and would make needed improvements to the claims system. Again, this is the result of some bipartisan efforts.

Secretary Eric Shinseki of the VA, as he moves the claims system from paper into an electronic system, has advanced the very ambitious goal of making sure that every claim filed by a veteran will be processed in 125 days at 98 percent accuracy. That is a very ambitious goal, and the language we have is going to hold the VA accountable and make sure we reach this very ambitious goal.

I gather there may be differences of opinion on this view, but another provision in our bill deals with the educational needs of servicemembers and making sure they get a fair shot at attaining their educational goals without incurring an additional financial burden, which is what the post-9/11 GI bill was all about. That bill has been enormously successful. There are certain problems remaining in it and we address these problems.

Given the nature of our Armed Forces, servicemembers have little to no say as to where they serve and where they reside during military service. Thus, when transitioning servicemembers consider what educational institution they want to attend, many of them choose a school in a State other than their home State or the State where they previously served. I have heard from too many veterans that many of these public educational institutions consider them out-of-State students. Given that the post-9/11 GI bill only covers in-State tuition and fees for public educational institutions, these veterans are left to cover the differences in cost between the in-State tuition rate and the out-of-State tuition rate. In some States that difference can be more than $20,000 a year.

That is certainly not what the purpose of the 9/11 GI bill was about. As a result, many of our Nation's veterans must use loans to cover this difference and, in the process, become indebted with large school loans that will take them years to pay off.

My office has heard from a number of veterans and veterans organizations about this problem. We heard from Skye Barclay, who lived in Florida prior to joining the U.S. Marine Corps in 2006. After serving her country, Skye decided to remain with her family in North Carolina so her husband could finish serving his military obligations. Less than 1 year later, they moved to Skye's hometown in Florida to transition back to civilian life and finish their college education.

Skye and her husband changed their residency, immediately started renting a home, and ensured her car registration was up-to-date. However, the school she chose to attend could not consider either of these veterans as in-State students. As a result, they were forced to pay an additional $2,000 out-of-pocket each semester. Due to the additional financial burden, Skye and her husband were unable to afford daycare for their daughter and instead have to juggle two demanding schedules, with one of them attending school in the morning and the other late afternoon.

The bottom line is that we passed a post-9/11 GI bill which is working incredibly well. Over 1 million veterans and their family members have used this program. It is very important for higher education in America, and I think we should support our veterans who move to another State and make sure they get in-State tuition.

Let me conclude my remarks at this point, though I will be back later to reiterate the major point I wish to make. We can play the same old politics. My Republican colleagues can defeat this bill because of some extraneous matters in it. I think that is incredibly disrespectful to the veterans community that has sacrificed so much. That is not just my view; that is what the American Legion believes and what the American Legion says: Discuss veterans issues in a veterans bill. The Iraq- Afghanistan Veterans of America say the same.

So we may have disagreements on this bill. People may choose to vote against it for whatever reason. People may offer amendments that we would love to see--some of them may be good, some not so good--but let us respect those folks who have given so much to this country. Let us not demean the veterans community by killing this bill because of something to do with Iran sanctions. That has nothing to do with veterans' needs.

I hope we continue to have a vigorous debate on this piece of legislation. I see my friend from Florida is on the floor. People may want to vote for it. That is good. They may want to vote against it. Fine. But let us not play the same old politics which so disgusts the American people.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I have talked to a number of my Republican colleagues, some of whom have expressed support for many of the provisions in this comprehensive veterans bill. Many of my Republican colleagues say they would like to support the bill, but they have concerns about how it is paid for and the issue of deficit-- increasing the deficit. So let me say a word about this.

Unlike many expenditures, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the truth is this bill will not add one penny to the deficit. Let me repeat: This bill will not add one penny to the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office--the nonpartisan scorekeeper--has estimated that mandatory spending in this legislation will total $2.88 billion over the next decade. All of this mandatory spending is completely offset not by the overseas contingency operations--or OCO--but through more than $4.2 billion in actual savings from programs within the jurisdiction of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. As a result, CBO has determined that overall mandatory spending--mandatory spending in this bill--will be reduced by more than $1.3 billion.

In addition to the mandatory spending, this bill authorizes $18.3 billion in discretionary spending over the next 5 years to improve the lives of our Nation's veterans and their families.

As we know, there is no rule in the Senate that an authorization of funding has to be offset. In essence, the discretionary spending provisions in the legislation we are debating today are just recommendations on how much additional funding we believe is needed for our Nation's veterans. It will be up to future legislation originating in the Appropriations Committee to approve or disapprove these recommendations. In other words, the Veterans' Affairs Committee is an authorizing committee; the final decisions in terms of expenditures are made by the Appropriations Committee.

Many of my Republican colleagues have insisted even recommendations of new spending--spending which may never actually happen because it has to go through the Appropriations Committee--be offset. I have done my best to listen to their concerns and have come up with an offset which will not add to the deficit over the next decade.

Specifically, the discretionary spending authorized under this bill is paid for by using savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--otherwise known as the OCO fund. CBO estimates spending for overseas contingency operations will total $1.025 trillion over the next decade, so a little more than $1 trillion. Spending as a result of this legislation will be a tiny fraction of that amount--less than 2 percent.

OCO funds are designed, very broadly, to be used to fund war-related activities. In my view, it is totally consistent with the goals of this funding source to provide support for the men and women who have defended us in those wars.

In recent years OCO funds have provided assistance to Syrian refugees, and have helped the people of Haiti recover from a massive earthquake. Further, since 2005, the Defense Department has used OCO funding for childcare centers, hospitals, schools, traumatic brain injury research, and orthopedic equipment.

In 2010, $50 million in OCO funds was used for the Guam Improvement Enterprise Fund. Last year, OCO funds were allocated to the following countries: Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Somalia, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. Last year, OCO funds were used to combat trafficking in persons related to labor migration in the Kyrgyz Republic, and to establish a Tunisian- American Enterprise Fund.

In 2011, $89.36 million was used by the National Guard to support the southwest border of the United States.

This year, $218 million in OCO funding is being used for the TRICARE health care program.

These are some of the ways in the past OCO funding has been used. I am not here to argue about the wisdom of any of those expenditures. Many of them may well be valid. What I will say is the needs of our veterans are also valid. If we can spend OCO funds for the Guam Improvement Enterprise Fund, I think we can use OCO funds to protect the interests of our veterans. Again, this expenditure is less than 2 percent of the savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle call this a budget gimmick. I disagree. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate have voted several times to count war-related savings as a reduction in the deficit.

For example, virtually every Republican in the House of Representatives and Senate voted for the fiscal year 2012 budget resolution, introduced by Representative Paul Ryan, which counted $1 trillion in deficit reduction from ``phasing down overseas contingency operations''--not what I am saying, but what the Heritage Foundation points out.

If the savings from winding down wars can be counted as deficit reduction, clearly we owe it to our Nation's veterans to use a very small percentage of this fund to make their lives a little bit better at home.

To me, placing modest caps on OCO--overseas contingency operations-- funding to pay for the most comprehensive veterans legislation in a decade is a no-brainer. This money was always intended to assure the well-being and success of those brave men and women who have served our great country.

Finally, I think we should be very clear: The cost of war does not end once the last shots are fired and the last battles are fought. When members of the military lose arms, legs, eyesight, come back with PTSD or TBI from fighting in wars which Congress authorized, we have a moral obligation to make sure those veterans receive all of the benefits they have earned and deserve. When American soldiers die in combat, we have a moral obligation to make sure the spouses and children they leave behind are taken care of as best as we possibly can.

This speaks to the funding of this legislation, and I hope we will have strong support from all of our colleagues.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as Paul Harvey used to say on the radio: Now the rest of the story. We just heard a very glamorous description of bipartisanship and benefits that have been not provided equitably to veterans. What I would like to do is try and focus on reality and discuss what is actually in the bill, what is not in the bill, and what was the intent of Congress. What is the shape of the Veterans Administration?

I will start with one very important thing. My colleague pointed out that most of the veterans organizations support this bill. He is, in fact, correct. I will read from an editorial written by the CEO of Concerned Veterans of America. I won't read the whole thing and bore the President or those who listen, but he says:

But given the vast scope of this bill, we should be

skeptical. In recent years, the VA, which will take on a wide

range of expanded responsibilities should this bill become

law, has come under fire for dysfunctional management and

poor service to veterans. If the VA is already failing to

meet its obligations to veterans, is it wise to extend its

mission even further? Of course not. And while we need to

restore the shortsighted cuts to the military pensions, there

are more narrow ways to address these cuts, such as Sen.

Kelly Ayotte's (R-N.H.) military pensions bill, S. 1977.

It's troubling that under this bill, VA services would be

expanded far beyond veterans with combat injuries and

service-connected disabilities, fundamentally changing the

founding mission of VA. This will only flood the VA system

with new claimants, many of whom would be better served by

health coverage in the private insurance market.

Veterans seeking VA care already face wait times of months

and even years; further expanding eligibility to veterans who

would be better served by other healthcare options will only

stretch the VA to its breaking point. There is also currently

no cost estimate of this massive expansion.

Meanwhile, there is another compelling question of costs.

Sanders has proposed shifting funding from the Pentagon's

Overseas Contingency Operations to pay for these expanded

veterans priorities. But taking funding from the men and

women serving in Afghanistan and elsewhere is shortsighted

and could otherwise endanger their lives. That approach will

likely meet a chilly reception in the House of

Representatives, and justifiably so.

This means that Sanders' $30 billion bill would be paid for

through the accumulation of additional debt. The CVA has been

clear that Washington needs to ``cut debt, not vets.'' With

$17 trillion in debt and massive annual deficits, our country

faces a fiscal crisis of unparalleled scope. Now is not the

time, in any federal department, to spend money we don't

have.

To be sure, there's much to like in the Sanders bill. And

if those components were presented as separate, smaller

bills, as part of a carefully considered long-term strategy

to reform the VA, hold leadership accountable and improve

services to veterans, we would have no problem extending

enthusiastic support.

As with so many bloated legislative projects in today's

Washington, the overreaching and overpromising in this bill

will only lead to disappointment and recriminations as the

high costs and unanticipated consequences are revealed. That

will be followed by demands for an entirely new round of

``comprehensive'' reform, and the cycle will begin anew.

Congress should go back to the drawing board, assume a more

modest approach and take up these proposals on an individual

basis. That's the better path to achieving enduring and

effective reform of, and accountability for, the services we

provide to our veterans.

I point that out because he is a CEO of a veterans organization. Not all veterans organizations agree that more is necessarily better and that to blindly add to the system is not necessarily good.

My colleague mentioned that there was a 5-year implementation. I have the legislation right here. It is title 3, subtitle A. Expansion and improvements of benefits generally, requirements for enrollment in the patient enrollment system of the Department of Veterans Affairs of certain veterans eligible for enrollment by law but not currently permitted to enroll.

It goes through all the subsections and basically says the Secretary shall provide for the enrollment in the patient enrollment system of veterans specified in paragraph 2 by no later than December 31, 2014.

Well, in section 2, veterans with noncompensible service-connected disabilities rated as zero percent disabled who are not otherwise permitted to enroll in a system as of the date of enactment of the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefit Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014--under this section they do not have access to health insurance except through a health exchange.

My colleague sat on the floor and begged me not to talk about the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act is in his bill. It is referenced in his bill.

Now, get this: The Affordable Care Act has been portrayed as the solution to the health care problem in America. Forget for a minute the fact that premiums have increased for practically everybody in America--90 percent have seen increases. The $2,500 savings per family is a wish, a hope, and a dream.

My colleagues think so much of the Affordable Care Act that if the only choice for a veteran is the Affordable Care Act, then they can opt to go into the VA. If the Affordable Care Act and the exchange are so good, why would we want to shift them from something good into something that is questionable, based upon what the editorial said.

My colleague said the VA has the best health care system in the world. It does. The hospital system has been rated high practically every year it has been rated. I made the statement yesterday: Why would we take a system that is broken and stuff more people into it? Why wouldn't we focus the debate on how to reform the system?

This is one year's worth of inspector general reports on health care facilities, over 40 healthcare inspections reports that have been released by the inspector general. I can tell my colleagues what is in front of the VA. They can't even get their hands around their own inspector general's report. These are deaths of veterans. These are individuals who used somebody else's insulin pen. This is legionnaires disease. This is a system that drastically needs reform. This is not a Member of the Senate making an accusation, it is the inspector general of the Veterans' Administration and all of these reports from 12 months. Yet we are talking about a massive expansion of the Veterans' Administration, where the chairman says: Oh, they have 5 years to do it.

I am reading the legislation. There is no 5 years. There is a specified expansion of who is included in it, and it says the Secretary will do it by December 31, 2014. If the phase-in is there, then the chairman can come down and read me the language where it says 5 years. I am certainly not trying to mislead anybody, although I am trying to make sure we get the facts on the floor of what this legislation actually does.

The chairman talked about bipartisanship. He is correct. Quite a few of the bills in his package are my bills, and they passed out of committee with unanimous support. Incorporated in his bill are 143 provisions, 26 of which are Republican. I have never judged whether I liked the bill based upon how many of my proposals were in it or how many proposals from my side of the aisle were in it; I base it on what is in the bill. What are the policies? What is our intent? Do we accomplish that in the language of the legislation?

Let's look at it for just a minute. There are no reforms--zero. Zero reforms are in the bill. It is a massive expansion of individuals in the system. As a matter of fact, under this piece of legislation, the VA doesn't even support it. Let me read what the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Robert Jesse, said. He indicated that expanding enrollment of Priority 8 veterans ``presents many potential complications and uncertain effects on VA's enrollment system.'' This is the individual in charge of health at the VA who says: I don't think this is a good idea.

So I guess the only mistake the chairman made was--he suggested that I was opposed to it, and he was accurate, but he didn't ever say the VA is opposed to this massive expansion.

He talked about the caregiver bill. I know something about it because I wrote it. We implemented it as a demonstration project. Why? Because Senator Akaka and I believed the VA was not in a position to absorb this massive program and to administer and implement it in an effective way. As a matter of fact, Senator Akaka said at the time--he was then the chair of the veterans' committee--he said there were three reasons he was reluctant to--well, let me just say that when the caregivers program came up in debate on the Senate floor, Senator Akaka, then chair, noted that these benefits and services were not made available for all veterans for three reasons:

[O]ne, the needs and circumstances of the newest veterans

in terms of injuries are different--different--from those of

veterans from other eras; two, the family situation of the

younger veterans is different from that of older veterans;

and three, by targeting this initiative on a specific group

of veterans, the likelihood of successful undertaking is

enhanced.

I say to my colleagues, would the author of the caregivers program not be the first one to come to the floor and lobby for an expansion? I think the answer is yes. But would the author of the caregivers legislation want to wait until the system can handle it?

Do my colleagues realize that in two States in America, a veteran can file for caregiver status in one State and be denied and file the same application in another and be granted caregiver status? It happened in Colorado and Florida. How, in a system that is created to equally treat veterans, is that possible? Now we want to extend it to veterans of all eras. I would suggest to my colleagues that this is almost ludicrous to even think about.

I see quite a few Members here, and I am not going to take up but a couple more minutes. I want to make sure my colleagues understand that my opposition is not to veterans. My opposition is to proceeding with legislation that could hurt veterans, not help them. In this particular case, more is not necessarily better. As the CEO of Concerned Veterans of America stated, the right congressional action would be to stop, take a breath, and focus what is broken. Fix the system. Then have a debate about which veterans, if any, should be included in the VA delivery of care.

The chairman highlighted yesterday that incorporated in both his bill and my bill is a House provision that provides leases for 27 new VA outpatient facilities. He said: That is proof we have in the system enough facilities to handle the population. No, Mr. Chairman, that is not proof. Those 27 leases are for trying to make sure we have facilities to handle our current population within the VA. Those veterans who are driving over 2 hours for a primary care visit, those individuals whose transportation is their No. 1 issue--27 doesn't even get us up to taking care of today's population.

As I said yesterday, we have I know $14 billion worth of construction that is currently underway in the VA; yet we appropriate $1 billion a year. It will take us 14 years to build out the inventory we have today. But the legislation calls for an incredible increase in the size of the veterans population by December of 2014. We won't have any of those 27 facilities that would be legislated in this bill done by December 2014.

So I am going to urge my colleagues, as we move forward, let's not do anything to damage veterans. Let's not do anything to overwhelm the Veterans' Administration. Let's commit to work with them to reform the system. Let's listen to what they want and not put them in a situation where they are telling us: We don't want what you are proposing. Let's listen and let's apply common sense to legislation versus to just be focused on the cheers we receive from a few who are paid to represent folks in Washington.

The chairman said a number of times that this is about veterans. I can tell my colleagues it is a little bit more. It is about the American people. It is about my kids, our kids, our grandchildren. It is about what they inherit from us. They are going to inherit from us probably the most important thing: the obligation to keep our promise to veterans of all eras.

I think the decision we have to make as we debate this legislation is whether we are going to commit to a promise that is bigger than what our kids can fulfill, that costs more than our kids can afford, and that doesn't necessarily enhance the health care delivered to our veterans. If anything, today it would probably be detrimental to those who need it the most.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience. I thank my colleagues for their indulgence as they have patiently waited. This is way too big an issue to rush forward with. I look forward over the next several days to a real debate about the specifics in this bill and, more importantly, about what we should do as a Congress to help veterans and to help the Veterans' Administration.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I come to the floor as the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee as we consider S. 1982, the Sanders bill. I have been down to the floor several times, and I will not take up a lot of the Senate's valuable time right now. But I do want to cover some things that have transpired since the last time I was on the floor today, when I read from an editorial that was written by Concerned Veterans of America. The group was challenged by some of my colleagues here as to whether it was a front group, whether this was a political front group.

Let me assure my colleagues, it represents real veterans. But in an effort to try to debunk the belief that this is just about one political group, I want to read some from another editorial written by Stewart Hickey of AMVETS. Now, nobody can question whether AMVETS is a legitimate veterans service organization. They have been around for a while. I will be selective in my reading:

While we agree the bill addresses many critical issues and

recommends important solutions for our veterans, we do not

support this bill for several reasons. First, it would be

morally irresponsible and fiscally unsound, given the

historically volatile situation in Afghanistan, to hang the

funding for such robust legislation on any potential ``peace

dividend.'' Throwing more money--upwards of $30 billion, and

taken from war funds no less--at a failing department will

only make matters worse.

This kitchen sink-like bill also endeavors to be all things

to all veterans, and is very enticing to all of us ``Veterans

Service Organizations'' as the panacea for all of our

legislative agendas. The problem is, in its current

configuration, it has little to no chance of passage, it's

just too ``pie in the sky'' and lacks the power base to hold

VA accountable for providing excellent care and services to

veterans currently accessing the system.

It goes on to say:

We all want what is best for the veterans community, and

many of the provisions in S. 1982 are positive. However,

``bigger'' does not mean ``better.'' And the Sanders bill

further expands a VA system that is already overwhelmed and

cannot meet the current needs of veterans. Before

overcommitting the Department of Veterans Affairs and

subjecting our veterans to more broken promises, Congress

should rally on legislation that keeps the promises already

made.

Yet another veterans service organization says: Reform the Veterans Administration.

Dr. Coburn from Oklahoma, the Senator from Oklahoma, was talking about horror stories within the veteran's facilities. So I say to my colleagues: You know, the mistake here is that we are not on the floor debating the reform of the VA and then debating any expansion.

But the fact is that we look at editorial after editorial of people who have some contact with the VA. They are saying: The last thing you should do is expand service. The last thing you should do is use gimmicks to pay for it. The last thing you should do is saddle our kids with not only the debt for it but the responsibility to uphold a promise that might be impossible.

Let me speak a little further on some of the things Dr. Coburn hit on. This is about hospital delays, veterans dying at VA facilities. I came down earlier--and I might add right now that this is the stack of the Inspector General of the VA for 1 year, 1 year's worth of investigations on VA facilities where they made specific recommendations of changes that had to be made.

This dealt with the death of veterans. It dealt with Legionnaire's Disease. It dealt with things as simple as more than one patient using a disposable insulin pen--something meant for one patient that was used for multiple patients, exposing them to potential illnesses.

If the question is, do we keep the promise of the quality of care to our veterans? And if that is not important enough, let me go to the veterans that are in the system trying for the first time to get a disability rating because of a service-connected disability.

The number of claims pending in America right now is 673,000 veterans. These are individuals who have filed a claim with the Veterans' Administration, who are waiting in line for the determination to be made about what percentage of those claims they will approve. The number of claims that are considered backlogged right now is 389,000 veteran's claims.

Once a veteran receives a disability rating, if in fact they feel that the VA has come to the wrong conclusion as to the percentage, they file an appeal. The

number of appeals pending is 272,000 appeals. So one can conclude from this that the number of claims pending is 673,000 plus 272,000. So there are over 1 million veterans right now waiting for a determination by the VA specifically or by the Court of Appeals to sort out their disability status.

The number of days to complete a claim is 265 days. Let me say that again: 265 days to complete a claim. Right now, claims pending are 673,000. The number of days for an appeal that is pending is 600 days-- 600. So let's just say of that 1 million claims that are either pending or that have been appealed, which is 1 million veterans, the number of days to complete the claim on average took 265 days, and the number of days for an appeal, on average, was over 600. We are now at 800 days. That is almost 3 years.

I hope my colleagues are understanding what I am saying. We have a severely dysfunctional Veterans' Administration today. We have a population of warriors who are coming out of the battlefield in Afghanistan. They are coming back from deployments. They leave the service; they file for disability; they wait, they wait, they wait, they wait. When they finally get their disability claim and they are going to the VA, now all of a sudden we are talking about dumping millions of additional veterans into the line with them.

My good friend and chairman Senator Sanders said: We can handle this because we have 27 clinics, outpatient facilities in this bill that, under a lease agreement, we are going to build out--27 facilities. They are for the veterans we have today. We don't have enough facilities to handle the current population, and he said this could handle the millions who are going to come in.

Let me remind my colleagues once again that currently we have $14 billion worth of veterans construction underway. We appropriate about $1 billion a year. That is a 14-year backlog on the construction of these facilities, and none of the 27 leases that are in this bill will be ready in December 2014 when the enactment of this legislation takes place.

There is one other area of massive expansion other than to veterans with nonservice-connected disabilities, and that is to a program called our caregivers program. I am pretty passionate about this because I wrote the legislation. My good friend Senator Akaka, who is no longer here, who was chairman of the Senate veterans' committee, became a champion of it. Earlier, I read Senator Akaka's statements on the Senate floor the day it was passed. He stated as clearly as anybody ever has why we limited this to a demonstration project, why we rolled it out to a small group. Our intention was that when the VA was fixed, reformed, and was capable of implementing a plan that expanded the caregiver program, we would do that but not a day sooner.

Now, all of a sudden, we are not just talking about extending the caregiver program to every current-era veteran; Senator Sanders' bill extends it to every era. Veterans from every era who served who are still alive would be eligible for caregivers.

On occasion, he has pointed to the wounded warrior program. I will read a letter the Wounded Warrior Project sent to the committee when this legislation was being considered.

They said:

More than 2 years after initial implementation, VA still

has not answered--let alone remedied--the problems and

concerns that WWP and other advocates raised regarding the

Department's implementing regulations. For example, those

regulations leave ``appeals rights'' unaddressed (including

appeals from adverse determinations of law); set unduly

strict criteria for determining a need for caregiving for

veterans with severe behavioral health conditions; and invite

arbitrary, inconsistent decisionmaking. Simply extending the

scope of current law at this point to caregivers of other

veterans would inadvertently signal to VA acquiescence in its

flawed implementation of that law. We recommend that the

Committee insist on VA's resolving these long-outstanding

concerns as a pre-condition to extending the promise of this

law to caregivers of pre 9/11 veterans.

If there is one thing I have made perfectly clear yesterday and today, it is that there is nothing in this bill that reforms the VA. Look at any area of the legislation. There is no reform. Yet editorials from service organizations, letters from the Wounded Warrior Project-- and they were, make no mistake, behind caregivers. Their letter to the chairman said: Don't do this until it is fixed.

Well, we are where we are. To suggest that all veterans, all veterans organizations, all organizations that deal with veterans are for this is just inconsistent with the paper trail that exists, letters and editorials.

There are two things that don't go away: one, the need to reform and, two, the promise we made to our country's warriors.

We have to ask ourselves: Are we better off fixing the VA before we enlarge the population or after we enlarge the population? I can answer that. It is tough to do now, and it is not going to happen without congressional leadership. But if we expand the population, dump it on a system that is physically not capable of handling it, administratively not capable of handling it, what do we say to those veterans who need the VA health care system and can't get in to see a primary care doctor? What do we say to a person who needs mental health treatment but can't see a psychiatrist, can't get in to be evaluated, and doesn't get the medication they need?

I plead with my colleagues, don't make this mistake. There is an alternative bill. It is taken from the Sanders bill. It is 80 percent, but it doesn't have the massive expansion. It doesn't reform, but it really moves forward on some important issues.

No matter what we do, at some point we are going to have to show the leadership how to reform the VA. Why? Because we are going to keep our promise to veterans. The promise to veterans was that we would provide them a quality of care that was unprecedented.

I am not sure there is a Member of this body who believes we can dump this population onto the Veterans' Administration and that we can look any veteran in the face and say: We kept our promise to you. Yes, you may have access, but it may be months from now. You may have the ability to go to the VA, but we don't have any room; there is no room in the inn.

These are all part of keeping your promises.

I will go back to what the AMVETS editorial said, and I will end with that because I see my colleagues here.

Bigger is not necessarily better. When I gave these statistics on backlogs of claims and appeals, these are veterans who aren't asking for bigger, they are asking for better. They are asking us to sort out this system and make it work in a way they deserve. All we will do is exacerbate the problem if, in fact, we pass S. 1982.

I urge my colleagues, support the alternative--if we are given the opportunity to offer one. If not, then don't do this to our country's veterans. Wait and let us reform the VA. That is our responsibility. That is our promise.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to inquire as to the pending business before the Senate. Is it the veterans bill, the motion to proceed?

Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to address a number of matters of great concern. There might be, but I don't know of any State that has a greater presence of veterans within it than Florida, certainly per capita. We have a huge military presence in our State and a large number of veterans.

I have commented to people, by the way, that in my time in the Senate, which is now about 3 years and 2 months, a substantial percentage of the calls we get to our office are from veterans regarding veterans' issues. I have a veteran in my family--my brother-- who has recently encountered some bureaucratic hurdles he is trying to overcome in terms of getting service from the VA. So these are relevant matters that are of great importance.

I am glad the Senate is on the debate. I am glad we have proceeded to have this debate. It is an important one, and I do hope I will have an opportunity to offer an amendment I have relevant to the bill that involves and gives the opportunity for the Secretary who oversees this Department to be able to hire and fire, particularly to hold accountable mid- and higher level officials within the Veterans' Administration who are not doing their jobs and are contributing to this backlog.

I can tell you that in Central Florida we have a veterans hospital that has been well over budget and has timeliness issues and it needs to be addressed. I think that is a veterans' issue that has extraordinary bipartisan consensus. So my hope is we will be able to address it and we will have an amendment process that allows these ideas to be brought forth. From what I heard from the Senator commenting just a few moments ago, he welcomes amendments. So I hope I will have an opportunity to offer that.

I know as part of this debate the issue of Iran sanctions has been raised. I don't think it is rare to have issues that perhaps are not directly on point to a bill offered in debate, particularly when getting into a debate on an issue that has been so difficult. That is part of the problem with the Iran sanctions issue.

I understand when someone files a bill, the managers have worked hard on it, and the last thing they want is for it to be slowed down because of debate on another topic that is not directly on topic. I understand that concern. I do. But on the other hand, I hope Members will understand that part of the frustration has been the inability to even get a debate on what truly is an extraordinarily important issue.

For those here watching and those at home watching and those who may see this later, let me take a moment to briefly discuss what is at stake. I briefly discussed this a few weeks ago, but I wanted to take this opportunity to do so again.

Here is the issue: Iran, a few years ago, began developing a nuclear processing capability. What that basically means is they take uranium, for example, and they reprocess it to a certain level. You need to have a certain level of reprocessing in order to, for example, provide domestic energy for nuclear energy plants. Many countries in the world have nuclear energy, but only a handful actually process it themselves. Most decide to buy it already processed from abroad.

We have agreements and arrangements with countries all over the planet that do that. Only a handful actually retain the capacity to reprocess it or to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. So when we see a country announce they are going to invest money, time, and energy in developing a reprocessing or an enrichment capability, that raises red flags, and here is why. Because while you only need a certain level of enrichment to be able to provide nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and a little bit higher level in order to use it for medical isotopes, the exact same scientists, the exact same machines, the exact same facilities are the exact same ones that can also reprocess or enrich to an even higher level to use in a weapon.

The story of Iran has been, over the last few years, to increase their enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. That in and of itself raises red flags. Adding to that uncertainty and concern about it has been the fact they have tried to hide most of this. Consistently, Iran has been found to have secret development projects ongoing that they only admit to once they are discovered. They take a tremendous amount of effort to hide it from the world. That begins to raise red flags, because if it is truly just a peaceful program, there would be no reason to hide it or to hide their capabilities. But Iran has consistently hidden them.

There is even more reason to be concerned. In addition to increasing their capacity to enrich and reprocess, Iran is also developing long- range missile capabilities. A long-range missile--basically a missile that can fly from Iran 1,000 miles, 1,500 miles, 2,000 miles, 3,000 miles--costs a lot of money to develop. It takes a lot of time to develop.

You don't spend time or money developing those capabilities for purely conventional purposes or for defensive purposes. Usually when you undergo those efforts to develop that kind of capability, it is because you want to have the opportunity to one day put a nuclear warhead on one of those rockets.

So that is the story of Iran: massive expansion in their enrichment and reprocessing capabilities; secret enrichment programs which they try to hide from the world; and the development of long-range missile capabilities. Add to it that we are not dealing with the government of Belgium, Japan, South Korea, or any other responsible government on the planet; we are dealing with a government that actively uses terrorism all over the world as an active element of its foreign policy. They are involved in supporting various terrorist elements around the country, not just in the Middle East. Open-source reporting revealed that just a couple years ago they were involved in a plot to assassinate a foreign ambassador in Washington, DC--not in the Middle East somewhere but here. They have an active cyber capability designed to attack, disrupt, and create acts of terror online. They have been implicated, for example, in the bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina. There are few, if any, countries in the world that more actively support terrorism than the Government of Iran.

So this is with whom we are dealing. As a result, the international community, through the United Nations, imposed sanctions. Not only did they impose sanctions, they imposed the requirement that they immediately suspend and stop all enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. We can imagine why the neighbors of Iran are concerned. It is not just Israel that is concerned. Ask the Saudis, ask the Turks, ask any number of the other countries in the region.

Recently, the President and this administration have begun to undertake conversations with Iran about this program. Their hope is that we can get Iran to a place where we can lock them in; where they, in exchange for the loosening of these sanctions, agree not to do certain things.

I don't know of anyone here who would not love to wake up to the news tomorrow that the Supreme Leader in Iran has decided to abandon the reprocessing and enrichment capability and to truly show that all he is interested in is domestic energy for peaceful purposes. The problem is that is not what is happening. I believe what is happening is the United States, through the State Department and this administration, de facto, is already--but if not, is on the verge of--agreeing to allow Iran to keep in place its enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, and I will explain why this is a problem.

If that capability is still there, if they retain all the facilities necessary for enrichment and reprocessing, even if they agree to limit it to a certain level for now, at any point in time in the future they can ratchet it back up and can go on to develop a weapon. In fact, unfortunately, the design for a weapon is the easiest part of all this. The hardest part is reaching the technological capability to enrich uranium to a certain point to weaponize it.

If we allow them to keep all the equipment, all the technology, all their scientists, all the infrastructure in place, then at any point in the future when they decide it is time for a weapon, they can break out and do that. And I would submit that the evidence is strong that this is exactly what their strategy is.

I don't think, I know for a fact that the mandate given to those negotiators on behalf of Iran and the Supreme Leader was the following: Do whatever you can to get these sanctions lifted off our shoulders, but do not agree to anything that is irreversible.

Put yourself in their position. If you want to retain the option to one day be able to enrich and then build a weapon, you are probably willing to take one step back by agreeing to suspend enrichment only to a certain level in exchange for the lifting of these sanctions, knowing that at some point--in 2 years, 3 years, or 4 years--when the world is distracted by something else, when something else is going on around the planet, you can then decide to come up with any excuse to build a weapon.

One of the reasons I know that is their strategy is because it is exactly what the North Koreans did. The playbook has already been written. They would engage in these ongoing negotiations, on again, off again, all designed to buy time.

Why does a government like Iran need or want a nuclear weapon? And they do. It is pretty straightforward.

No. 1, because of deep historical reasons, they desire to become the dominant power in the Middle East, to drive not just the United States but other nations out of the region and diminish everyone's influence at their expense.

The other is because they view a weapon as the ultimate insurance policy. They don't want to be the next Muammar Qadhafi; they want to be North Korea so they can now act with impunity, so they can do anything they want against us or anyone in the world because no one could possibly attack them because they have nuclear weapons.

I have heard stories about, well, we will know; we will be able to see this happening before it happens and do something about it. But look at Pakistan and India, which was a surprise to everybody, particularly India's capabilities. It is not outside the realm of the reasonable to believe that at some point one day we will wake up to the news that Iran has detonated a device and proven their capability. In fact, I have zero doubt in my mind that this is where they want to go.

What I find offensive in this whole conversation is the notion by some in the administration that anyone who

feels this way or anyone who has doubts or skepticism about these negotiations is warmongering.

I actually think the failure to impose sanctions now will inevitably place a future President--perhaps even this one--with a very difficult decision to make, and that will be whether to go in and take military action to stunt or stall their weapons program because, make no mistake, a lot of damage has already been done. A lot of damage has already been done to the sanctions that were already in place. There is already growing evidence that the amount of revenue coming into Iran, the amount of business dealings coming into Iran just simply on this talk about the interim deal has truly spiked.

We also see it in their comments. The leaders of Iran--from the President, to the Supreme Leader, to the chief negotiator--are not just bragging in Iran; they are bragging all over the world that they have agreed to nothing and the West has capitulated.

What we were told by the State Department is, well, that is only for domestic consumption; they are just saying that to be popular at home and to appease the radicals within Iran.

By the way, the term ``radical'' is an interesting term when applied to Iran. All the leaders in Iran are radical; it is just degrees of radicalism.

But to get back to the point I was making, we hear the comments they make in Iran--bragging how they have won, how they snookered the West, how they agreed to nothing, how everything they were doing before is going to move forward--and we are told: Just ignore that. They are just saying that for domestic political considerations.

That is not true. In fact, the Supreme Leader himself, the Ayatollah, has announced that these talks are going to lead to nowhere. He is not going to interfere, but they are going nowhere.

This is a transparent effort. All you have to do is open your eyes and see what they are doing. All they are doing is buying time. All they are doing is looking to relieve as many sanctions as possible without giving up anything they can do in the future or are doing now. For a deal such as this to work, you have to rely on all sorts of verification systems with a government that has made a specialty out of hiding their intentions and programs in the past.

The reason we see the push for the additional sanctions to be put in place is because at least 59 of us in the Senate--and I suspect many more who haven't lent their names to this effort yet--recognize that we cannot afford to be wrong about this because a nuclear Iran would be one of the worst developments in the world in a very long time.

In addition to being able to hold the region hostage, in addition to now being able to act with impunity--they don't have a weapon now, and they try to assassinate Ambassadors in Washington, DC. Imagine what they think they can get away with if they do have a weapon.

Beyond that, think about the risk it poses to our allies in that region, and think about this: Think about the reaction of other countries in the region to the news. The Saudis are not going to stand by and watch Iran develop a nuclear capability and not have one of their own. So I submit a nuclear Iran isn't just one more country joining the nuclear weapons club; it can be as many as two or three more countries eventually joining the nuclear weapons club in the most unstable region in the world, a place that has only had conflict, I don't know, for 5,000 years. This is what we are on the verge of here.

I appreciate the work diplomats working in the State Department do. There is a role for diplomacy in the world, and the good news is that we can negotiate agreements with most of the countries on this planet. But I think diplomacy also requires us to understand its limitations. It is very difficult to negotiate settlements and agreements with governments and individuals who don't ever feel bound by them, who see them as one-way streets, who see them as tactics and vehicles to buy time. That is what we are dealing with.

The other part we forget is that in some parts of the world and with some governments on this planet, the language of diplomacy is viewed as a language of weakness. It becomes an invitation to become aggressive or miscalculated.

I don't know of anyone in this body who is looking to get into another war or armed conflict. That is not what Americans are all about. If we look at the story of the conflicts we have been engaged in, almost all of them involved a reluctant nation having to get involved for geopolitical purposes, because we were trying to stem the growth of communism, because we were attacked in Pearl Harbor. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. Americans aren't into that. What we want to do is live happy lives and raise our families in peace. We want to be able to sell to and buy from other countries. We want a peaceful world we can partner with for business and culture.

But I also think it is important to understand that when mistakes are made in foreign policy, it is a lot harder to reverse than when they are made in domestic policies. If we pass a bad tax bill, we can always come back and pass a new one. If we make a mistake--as this body did by passing ObamaCare--we can always come back and repeal it. If we make a mistake in domestic policy, we can always come back and reverse it somehow. It is not the same in foreign policy. Once there is a nuclearized, weaponized Iran, it will be quite difficult to undo, and so are all the things it will lead to.

Let me also say that additional sanctions are no guarantee that they will never get a weapon, but it changes the cost-benefit analysis. It tests their pain threshold economically. It forces them to make a decision about whether they want to continue to be isolated from the world economically and whether weaponizing is worth it.

If you put in place an interim agreement or a final one that allows them to retain the capability to enrich in the future, they will build a weapon. That is not a matter of opinion; in my mind, that is a matter of fact. Maybe this President won't be here by the time that happens, but someone is going to have to deal with that, and it is not just the President; our country is going to have to deal with that. I at a minimum want to be on record today as making that point because if, God forbid, that day should ever come, I want it to be clearly understood that I, along with my colleagues, warned against it.

By the way, I think this opposition to additional sanctions is part of a pattern of flawed foreign policy decisions on behalf of this administration, one that has largely been built on the false assumption that our problems in the world were caused by an America that was too engaged, too involved, too opinionated, was providing too much leadership and direction, when, in fact, the opposite is now true.

Many of the conflicts happening around the world today are a result of the chaos left by this administration's unclear foreign policy. Many of our allies openly question--and I can tell you from my travels that privately they strongly question--whether America's assurances remain viable and whether we can continue to be relied upon in the agreements we have made in the past to provide collective security for ourselves and our allies.

When you leave a vacuum, it is going to be filled. What it is being filled by right now are some of the most tyrannical governments on the planet. Look at what happened with Moscow over the last 5 years. Moscow viewed the whole reset strategy of the United States under this President not as an opportunity to engage us but as an opportunity to try to get an upper hand on us.

Look at what has happened in the Asia-Pacific region where the Chinese regional ambitions to drive the U.S. out have grown exponentially, as have their capabilities. Meanwhile, our partners in the region, while they welcome the rhetoric of a pivot, question whether we will have the capability to carry it out.

Certainly in the Middle East an incoherent foreign policy with regard to Syria left open an ungoverned space where foreign jihadists have poured into that country and have now basically converted entire parts of Syria as the premier operational space for global jihadists to train and operate.

Now Iran. The situation in Iran, to use a colloquial term, is freaking out all the other countries in that region who have no illusions about who Iran

truly is. They know exactly who these people are, and they are baffled at how the most powerful and informed government on the planet doesn't realize what they realized a long time ago--that you are not dealing with a responsible government here with Iran. You are dealing with a nation that openly supports terrorism as a tool of statecraft, that openly has shown that they want to develop a nuclear weapons capability so they can become untouchable and the dominant power in that region.

If we don't put in place a mechanism for additional sanctions to take place, I submit that the negotiation that is going on with the Iranians will become irrelevant. By that point, even if you wanted to impose more sanctions, it would be impossible to do because so many other countries will have reengaged with commercial transactions with Iran. You are not going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle, and the genie is already halfway out.

I hope we will take this more seriously, but at a minimum I ask this: Why can't we vote on it? If we are wrong, debate us on it. But why can't we vote on it? Since when has the Senate become a place run by one person on a matter of this importance and magnitude? Since when has the Senate become controlled by one person's opinion?

Are you telling me that the people of Florida who I represent do not deserve the right to be represented and heard as much as the people of Nevada or any other State? Are you saying that on an issue of this importance, one individual should have the power to basically say we will have no debate when 59 Members of this body--in a place where it is tough to get 51 votes on anything--have expressed the strong opinion that they favor this?

Why can't we have this debate? Isn't that what the Senate was designed to be, a place where the great issues of our time could be debated and flushed out before the eyes of the American public and the world?

What we are consistently told is we can't have this debate and we're not going to do it. Why? Why can't we debate this? This is important. Its implications will be felt by people long after we are no longer here. I hope more attention is paid to this.

Let me just say that I understand the frustration. A piece of legislation is filed on behalf of veterans, and the Iran issue comes up. But we are running out of time. This is the only mechanism that exists to have this debate.

I would argue that it actually is relevant because it is our men and women in uniform we are going to turn to--when this thing ends up the way I know it will--and ask them to take care of this problem.

If in the end these negotiations fail, and I tragically have to say they are destined to fail, and Iran retains their enrichment capability and eventually develops a nuclear weapon, it is the men and women in uniform of these United States--our sons, our daughters, our neighbors, our friends, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters, and our fathers-- whom we will ask, as we always do, to go solve the problem for us. But if we put in place sanctions that clearly articulate and lay out the price they will have to pay to continue with these ambitions, we may be able to delay that, and even prevent it; otherwise, that day will come. This piper will be paid, and I hope the price will not be so high. I fear that is where we are headed. We are on the verge of making an extraordinary geopolitical blunder that will be very difficult to undo or reverse once it is already made.

All we are asking is to have a vote on this issue. This matters enough to the American people. This matters enough to the safety and future of our children and future generations. This matters enough to the world. It deserves a full debate, and it deserves a vote.

If you are against it, you can vote against it. If you are against it, you can debate against it. We want to hear their arguments and thoughts. Why can't we vote on it? It deserves a vote. It is that important.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I would like to be recognized for 10 minutes, if I could.

Madam President, thank you. If the Presiding Officer would let me know when the 10 minutes expire, I would appreciate it.

I wish to rise in support of Senator Burr's alternative to Senator Sanders' veterans bill. We are having a contest here about how best to help veterans. There is a lot of bipartisan agreement over the substance of the bill. The real difference is how to pay for it, but there is one key difference. In Senator Burr's alternative, we have the Iranian sanctions bill. I believe it is imperative for this body, the Senate, to speak on sanctions against Iran before it is too late. I hate the fact that we have lost our bipartisan approach to this topic.

We have been together for a very long time as Republicans and Democrats. We have had 16 rounds of sanctions since 1987, 9 U.N. Security Council resolutions since 2006 demanding the full and sustained suspension of all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and full cooperation with the IAEA.

The United Nations, the Congress, in an overwhelming bipartisan fashion, have been imposing sanctions in speaking to the threat we all face from the Iranian nuclear program. Unfortunately, the bipartisanship has come apart in terms of whether we should have another vote. The bipartisan bill that would reauthorize sanctions at the end of the 6-month negotiating period has 59 cosponsors, 17 Democrats.

We believe desperately--at least I do--that the sanctions that have been so effective in bringing the Iranians to the table are literally falling apart, and I will have some evidence to show that.

But here is what Senator Reid, the majority leader, said on November 21, 2013:

I am a strong supporter of our Iran sanctions regime and

believe that the current

sanctions have brought Iran to the negotiating table.

I believe we must do everything possible to stop Iran from

getting nuclear weapons capability, which would threaten

Israel and the national security of our great country.

The Obama administration is in the midst of negotiations

with the Iranians that are designed to end their nuclear

weapons program. We all strongly support these negotiations

and hope they will succeed, and we want them to produce the

strongest possible agreement.

However, we are also aware of the possibility the Iranians

could keep negotiations from succeeding. I hope that won't

happen, but the Senate must be prepared to move forward with

a new bipartisan Iran sanctions bill when the Senate returns

after the Thanksgiving recess. I am committed to do just

that.

I will support a bill that would broaden the scope of our

current petroleum sanctions, place limitations on trade with

strategic sectors of the Iranian economy that support its

nuclear ambitions, as well as pursue those that divert goods

to Iran.

While I support the administration's diplomatic efforts, I

believe we need to leave our legislative options open to act

on a new bipartisan sanctions bill in December, shortly after

we return.

The challenge of the majority leader was to find a bipartisan bill that could speak anew to sanctions. We are able to do that. Senator Menendez has been absolutely terrific, along with Senator Kirk, in making sure that sanctions have worked. The Obama administration deserves a lot of credit for keeping the sanctions regime together and getting Iranians to the table.

But the interim agreement that has been entered into between the P5+1 and the Iranians quite frankly is well short of what we need. My goal, and I think the body's goal--at least I hope--would be to dismantle the plutonium-producing reactor that the Iranians are building; not just stop its construction, but dismantle it; take the highly enriched uranium that exists in Iran today and move it out of the country so it cannot be used for a dirty bomb or any other purposes.

This is what the U.N. resolutions have called for, removing the highly enriched uranium that exists in great number from Iran to the international community so it can be controlled; and, last but most importantly is to dismantle their enrichment capability. If the Iranians truly want a peaceful nuclear power program, I am all for that. I do not care if the Russians are jointly with us, that we build a nuclear powerplant in Iran to help them with commercial nuclear power. We just need to control the fuel cycle. There are 15 countries that have nuclear power programs that do not enrich uranium, Mexico and Canada being two, South Korea being another.

The point I am trying to make here is if you leave enrichment capability intact in Iran, the only thing preventing their abuse of that capability would be a bunch of U.N. inspectors. We tried this with North Korea. We provided foreign aid and economic aid and food assistance to control their nuclear ambitions. Well, they took the money and now they have nuclear weapons. The U.N. failed to stop the desire of the North Koreans to develop a nuclear weapon.

That type of approach is not going to work in Iran. Israel is not going to allow their fate to be determined by a bunch of U.N. inspectors. If that is the only thing between the Iranian ayatollahs and nuclear weapons is a bunch of U.N. inspectors, Israel will not stand for that, nor should we.

So when the Iranians demand the right to enrich, that tells you all you need to know about their ambitions. If they want a peaceful nuclear power program, they certainly can have it. We need to control the fuel cycle.

The interim deal has not dismantled any centrifuges. They have unplugged a few, but all of them exist, the 16,000 to 18,000 of them. Here is what the Iranian Government has been openly saying about the interim deal:

The iceberg of sanctions is melting while our centrifuges

are also still working. This is our greatest achievement.

This is the head of the Iranian nuclear agency. The Foreign Minister said:

The White House tries to portray it is basically a

dismantling of Iran's nuclear program. We are not dismantling

any centrifuges, we're not dismantling any equipment, we're

simply not producing, not enriching over 5 percent.

Pretty clear. This is the President of Iran, Mr. Rouhani, on CNN.

So there will be no destruction of centrifuges--of existing

centrifuges?

No. No, not at all.

Another statement, another tweet:

Our relationship with the world is based on Iran's nation's

interest. In Geneva agreement, world powers surrendered to

Iran's national will.

You could say this is all bluster for domestic consumption. But just keep listening to what I have to tell you. The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister said of the interconnections between networks of centrifuges that have been used to enrich uranium to 20 percent, so that they can enrich only to 5 percent: ``These interconnections can be removed in a day and connected again in a day.''

So you are not dismantling anything. You are unplugging it. They can plug it right back in. Here is what has happened, the President of Iran again:

We have struck the first blow to the illegal sanctions, in

the fields of insurance, shipping, the banking system,

foodstuffs and medicine and exports of petrochemical

materials.

You are witness to how foreign firms are visiting our

country; 117 political delegations have come here: France,

Turkey, Georgia, Ireland, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, China, Italy,

India, Austria, and Sweden.

The French Chamber of Commerce hosted a delegation to Iran after the interim deal. The International Monetary Fund says the Iranian economy could turn around due to the interim agreement. Prospects for 2014 and 2015 have improved with the agreement. They are getting a stronger economy. The interim deal has done nothing, in my view, to dismantle their nuclear program that is a threat to us and Israel.

India's oil imports from Iran more than doubled in January from a month earlier. China has emerged as Iran's top trading partner, with nonoil trade hitting $13 billion over the past 10 months. U.S. aerospace companies are talking about selling them parts. Thirteen major international companies have said in recent weeks they aim to reenter the Iranian marketplace over the next several months.

The value of their currency has appreciated about 25 percent. Inflation has been reduced substantially. In other words, the interim deal is beginning to revive the Iranian economy that was crippled by sanctions. The international community is lining up to do business in Iran. The sanctions against Iran are crumbling before our eyes, and the Iranians are openly bragging about this.

The only way to turn this around is to pass another piece of legislation that says, we will give the 6-month period of negotiations time to develop, but at the end of the 6 months, if we have not achieved a satisfactory result of dismantling their nuclear program, the sanctions will continue at a greater pace.

Without that threat, without that friction, we are going to get a very bad outcome here. The administration says that new sanctions will scuttle the deal and lead to war. I could not disagree more. The lack of threat of sanctions, the dismantling of sanctions, the crumbling of sanctions is going to lead to conflict. I do believe that if this body reinforced that we were serious about sanctions until the program gets to where the world thinks it should be, then we would be reinforcing our negotiating position.

So to my Democratic colleagues and Democratic leadership, I am urging you, please, to let this bipartisan bill go forward, if not in the Burr alternative, bring it up as a separate piece of legislation. Let's act now while we still can. I am hopeful we can avoid a conflict with the Iranians. But the only way to do that--I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.

The only way to do that is to make the Iranians understand that they are never going to have prosperity and peace until they comply with the will of the international community, which is give them a peaceful nuclear power program, not a weapons capability. Rather than us bending to their will, they need to bend to ours, simply because a disaster is in the making if Iran comes out of this negotiation with their nuclear capability intact.

If you allow the Iranians to enrich uranium, that is the final deal, where they still have an enrichment capability, theoretically controlled by the

U.N., every Sunni Arab state will want an enrichment program of their own, and you have destroyed nonproliferation in the Mideast.

I say again, if this final agreement allows enrichment at any level by the Iranians, Sunni Arab states are going to go down the same road. Then we are marching toward Armageddon, I fear. The last thing in the world we want to do is allow the Iranians to enrich, telling our allies they cannot. That will lead to proliferation of enrichment throughout the Mideast, and you are one step away from a weapon.

If you had to make a list of countries based on the behavior that you should not trust with enriching uranium, Iran would be at the top. For the last 30 years they have sown destruction throughout the world, a state sponsor of terrorism. They have killed our troops in Iraq; they are supplying weapons to the enemies of Israel; they have been up to just generally no good. Why in the world we would give them this capability I cannot envision.

So the sanctions are crumbling. We see it before our eyes. The threat of military force against the regime I think has been diminished after the debacle in Syria. Do you really think the Iranians believe after the Syrian debacle that we mean it when we say we would use military force as a last resort? I do not want a military engagement against the Iranians. I just want their nuclear ambitions to end and give them a nuclear powerplant that is controlled to produce power and not make a bomb.

The Israelis will not live under the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. They will not allow this program to stay intact, unlike North Korea, where the South Koreans and the Japanese did not feel they needed a nuclear program to counter the North Koreans.

The Mideast is different. The Sunni Arabs will not be comfortable with an enrichment capability given to the Iranians. Israel will never accept this, because it is a threat to the Jewish state unlike any other. So I will urge the body, before it is too late, to take the earliest opportunity to pass the bipartisan legislation that would reimpose sanctions if the agreement does not reach a satisfactory conclusion in the next 6 months.

We have 59 cosponsors. If we had a vote, I am confident we could get an overwhelming vote. It would be the right thing to send to the Iranians. It would tell the Western World: Slow down. The idea of giving this 6 months to continue at the pace it is going, it would be impossible to reconstruct sanctions if we do not do it now. Six months from now, if the deal falls apart, President Obama says he would impose sanctions in 24 hours. By then, the regime will have been broken. Western Europe will have been basically out of the game; they have a different view of this than we do. So the idea you can wait for 6 months and the damage not be done, I think is unrealistic. You can see where the world is headed. Sanctions as a viable control device seems to be in everybody's rearview mirror unless the Congress acts, and acts decisively.

What I hope we can do, in a bipartisan fashion, is let our allies and the Iranians know that sanctions are going to be in place as long as the nuclear threat continues to exist. I hope the President will reinforce to the Iranians: Whatever problem I had in Syria, I do not have with you.

I hope the Congress could send a message to the Iranians that we do not want a conflict, but we see your nuclear ambitions as a threat to our way of life. While we may be confused about what to do in Syria, we are not confused about the Iranian nuclear program. We want a peaceful resolution. Sanctions have to be in place until we get the right answer. But if everything else fails, then we are ready to do what is necessary as a nation as a last resort to use military force. I say that understanding the consequences of military force. It would not be a pleasant task. But in a war between us and Iran, we win, they lose. They have a small navy, a small air force. I do not want war with anyone. But if my options are to use military force to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon, I am picking use of military force. Because if they get a nuclear weapon, then the whole Mideast goes down the wrong road. You would open Pandora's box to attack the Iranians. They could do some damage to us, but it would not last long. They lose, we win. If they get a nuclear capability, you have created a nuclear arms race in the Mideast and you will empty Pandora's box and put Israel in an impossible spot.

So, my colleagues, we have a chance here to turn history around before it is too late. But the way we are moving regarding this negotiation with Iran and the outcome, I have never been more worried about. I do not want to allow the last best chance to stop the Iranian nuclear program to be lost through inaction.

If we misread where Iran is actually going, it will be a mistake for the ages.

I am urging the majority leader, if not on this bill, as soon as possible, to allow the bipartisan Iranian sanction legislation to come to the floor for debate and a vote. I think it can change history before it is too late.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee for

his remarks, and for the relentlessness, enthusiasm, and passion which he has pursued putting together this extraordinarily strong bill for our veterans. I look forward to supporting it, and I commend him for his excellent work.

Climate Change

Mr. President, I am here because every week the Senate is in session, now for 59 weeks, I give my climate speech, hoping some day sparks will hit tinder.

I could give a whole separate speech about the evil done by the Supreme Court Citizens United decision, and I could give a separate speech about the gridlock which bedevils the Senate. But this week's climate speech will touch all three--Citizens United, gridlock, and climate change--to show how the three are connected.

We fail here in this Senate to address climate change because of the peculiar gridlock in Congress. And Congress is peculiarly gridlocked because of the evils of Citizens United. Our failure to address climate change is a symptom of things gone wrong in our democracy.

I have spoken before on the Senate floor about the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, one of the worst and most disgraceful decisions ever made by the Supreme Court, destined to follow cases such as Lochner v. New York onto the ash heap of judicial infamy. But we are stuck with it now. Until the Supreme Court gets its bearings back, their Citizens United stands.

In a nutshell, the Citizens United decision says this: Corporations are people; money is speech; so there can be no limit to corporate money influencing American elections under constitutional principles of freedom of speech.

If that doesn't seem right, it is because it is not. To unleash that corporate power in our elections, the conservative Justices had to go through some pretty remarkable contortions: They had to reverse previous decisions by the Court which said the opposite; they had to make up facts which are demonstrably flat-out wrong; they had to create a make-believe world of independence and transparency in election spending; and they had to maneuver their own judicial procedures to prevent a factual record which would belie those facts they were making up. It was a dirty business, with a lot of signs of intention, and it has produced evil results.

Let's start with the contortions the conservative Justices had to go through to uncork all that corporate money. They had to first make the leap that corporations are people and money is speech to ensure corporate money is protected by the First Amendment. They went a more circuitous route, but that is where they ended up. And it is quite a leap when you think of how suspicious the Founding Fathers were of corporations. There is no mention of corporations in the Constitution. So much for these conservative Justices' fidelity to originalism--a constitutional theory the conservatives put a lot of credence in when it suits them.

To treat corporations as people and money as speech, the conservative Justices also had to overrule previous Supreme Court decisions which had said the exact opposite, which they did, upending a century of law. So much for fidelity to precedent.

The conservative bloc then had to deal with the inconvenience that First Amendment doctrine actually allows the government to regulate elections, to protect against either political corruption or even the appearance of corruption.

So how do you take away the people's ability to restrain corporate money in elections when protecting against corruption is a legitimate reason for restraints on corporate money? What you do--and what they did--is decide, by making a finding of fact, that corporations' money would not corrupt elections or politics; indeed, that no amount of corporate money could even appear to corrupt elections or politics. So much for fidelity to the judicial rule which appellate courts, State or Federal, are not supposed to engage in fact-finding.

This fact-finding about corruption by the conservative Justices caused another little inconvenience: The assertion that corporate money can't corrupt politics is laughably false. This meant the conservatives couldn't allow a factual record in the case. A factual record, with testimony and evidence about such a ludicrous proposition, would have blown it out of the water. So they let the little, narrow Citizens United case get all the way through the judicial process, including briefing and argument before them, and then they went back and changed the question into a big one.

This clever maneuver at the very end of the case guaranteed there would be no factual record developed on the new and larger question. And that freed their hand.

I should emphasize that this was a third transgression. The first transgression was for conservatives to ignore their own constitutional theory of originalism in getting to the ``corporations are people and money is speech'' result. The second transgression was violating the traditional rule that appellate courts were not supposed to engage in factfinding at all, let alone ludicrous factfinding. The third transgression was this maneuver with the question presented.

As a general rule, when cases come to a supreme court, State or Federal, the court defines the ``questions presented'' by the case. This may not seem like a big deal, just something in the ordinary course, but it is actually an important limit on judicial power under our constitutional separation of powers. It is what prevents a supreme court from roving willy-nilly into any question it wants any time. Courts have to wait until a case comes that presents a particular question, and then they identify what the question is. So it was odd indeed when the Chief Justice went back, after the case was briefed and argued, and did his own new ``question presented.'' But it did the job.

Now the court--with no record saying otherwise--could pretend that corporate money just plain can't corrupt American elections, can't do it, no way, no how--the conservative immaculate conception of corporate money.

Pretending that corporate money couldn't possibly corrupt or even appear to corrupt American elections allowed them to sweep away any interest of the people in keeping corporate corruption out of our politics and elections. People don't need to worry their little heads about corruption, they said. Corporate money in elections is immaculate and can't corrupt.

Bingo. That got them where they wanted. We, the people, could no longer limit corporate spending in our elections. As we have seen, the big money began to flood in.

Citizens United actually gets worse in its plain errors about how independent corporate money was going to be from candidates and how transparent it was going to be whose money was truly behind all of those negative ads. Independent? Transparent? Look at the last elections. How did that work out? Subsequent history shows the falsity of that nonsense.

Those contortionist justices completely ignored a big, important fact: what big money can do, big money can threaten to do or promise to do, and there is going to be nothing independent or transparent about those private threats and promises. The Citizens United decision opened this avenue to corruption while pretending corruption was impossible.

So on to the next step: How do the evils of this Citizens United decision lead to the evils of gridlock? Look around. Look at who is scared of whom and look at who is angry with whom around here.

Democrats and Republicans actually get along pretty well--at least Democrats and most Republicans. We are policy adversaries on many subjects, but Democrats and Republicans have been policy adversaries for decades. Democrat versus Republican is old news. It doesn't explain the new weirdness around here.

Look at what you see. The real fear and the real anger around here is between the mainstream Republicans and the tea party extremists. Look around. Ask around. Where do emotions run high? Where are the shouting matches? Where are the insults hurled? Where are Senators heckled by their colleagues? The worst of it is not between Democrat and Republican, it is between tea party and Republican.

Who is being told how they can and cannot vote and what they can and cannot say? Who is being bullied and punished when they don't follow the party line--the tea party line? Not

Democrats, Republicans. No one likes being bullied.

Is it the irrefutable logic of tea party argument that scares regular Republicans? Is it the clear grasp by the tea party of modern economic, cultural, and scientific realities that scares regular Republicans? Is it the broad way the tea party represents our great and diverse democracy that scares regular Republicans? Is it the keen political acumen of the tea party, say, shutting down the U.S. Government and darned near blowing the debt limit, that scares regular Republicans?

Those questions answer themselves, don't they? No. The thing that scares regular Republicans is the big money--the big corporate money, the billionaire money--behind the tea party.

The Koch brothers, for instance, may be a living cartoon of avarice, out to pollute even more and make even more money, but when the Koch brothers' big money comes in and bombs you in a small primary election, it is pretty scary. When the paid-for rightwing attack machine turns on you in your Republican primary, that can be pretty scary.

So the gridlock comes when the Republican party will not work with Democrats--not because we don't make sense and not because most Republicans don't want to make sense but because they are scared of tea party attacks funded by Citizens United money.

That brings us to climate change. As I have described in a recent speech, tens--perhaps even hundreds--of millions of dark-money dollars are being spent. Is all that money being spent having any effect on Republicans? Just look.

In this body we have Republican colleagues who have publicly acknowledged in the past carbon-driven climate change and have called for legislative action. In this body we have a former Republican Presidential nominee who campaigned for President on addressing climate change.

In this body we have Republicans who have spoken favorably about charging a fee on carbon, including the Republican original cosponsor of a bipartisan carbon pollution fee bill. We have a Republican colleague who cosponsored climate change legislation when he was in the House and another who voted for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill when he was in the House.

In this body we have Senators who represent historic villages now washing into the sea and needing relocation because of climate change and sea level rise, and Senators who represent great American coastal cities that are now overwashed by the sea at high tides because of climate change.

We have Republican Senators whose home State forests--by the hundreds of square miles--are being killed by the marauding pine beetle, and Republican Senators whose home States' glaciers are disappearing before their very eyes in their own lifetimes. We have Republican Senators whose home States are having to raise offshore bridges and highways before the rising seas.

We have Republican voters who actually get that climate change is real. It is the tea party that has the deniers. Sixty-one percent of nontea party Republicans say there is solid evidence the Earth is warming, but only 25 percent of tea partiers agree--a 36-point swing between Republicans and tea partiers.

Republicans outside of Congress, immune from the effects of Citizens United, have actually supported a carbon pollution fee so long as it is revenue neutral and doesn't add to big government. You could actually lower other taxes with it. But Republicans in Congress will now scarcely say a word about climate change--not since Citizens United; not since that disgraceful decision uncorked all that big, dark money and allowed it to cast its shadow of intimidation over our democracy.

So that is how Citizens United connects to climate change.

While our American democracy suffers and stalls, the evidence of climate change relentlessly mounts. The damage will be done in our atmosphere and oceans. The damage has already started.

I have to warn my colleagues that the denier machinery--the beast I described earlier this month--will ultimately be shown for the evil apparatus of lies that it is. When that happens, there will be more damage to go around. There will be damage to a party that allowed itself to be taken over and silenced by that corrupt apparatus, ignoring the plain facts in front of their faces.

There will be damage to a supreme court that went through such peculiar contortions to let that dark money loose, ignoring plain facts in front of their faces. We Americans, who hold our lamp high to the rest of the world as a beacon of democracy, will have some explaining to do about how we--to the dismay of the rest of the world--let our great democracy be stifled by greedy polluters, ignoring the plain facts the world faces.

The historian David McCullough spoke at the Library of Congress 2 weeks ago about John Adams and America's founding generation. He reminded us that when those men signed the Declaration of Independence, they were signing their own death warrants. When they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to this cause, it was not mere words. David McCullough explained: ``It was a courageous time.'' And look at us, our great democracy mired in polluters, lies, and money.

But I still believe this can be a courageous time. As Americans have in the past, we can shed the shackles of corrupting influence and rise to our duty. It just takes courage to make this a courageous time.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.