Biennial Appropriations Act

Madam President, a year ago the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out a piece of legislation that would do more than increase the gross domestic product, do more than reduce the deficit, do more than promote prosperity, and do more than create jobs. It passed legislation that would take 11 million people out of the shadows in America, prevent anyone from becoming a second-class citizen in this country, and finally establish comprehensive, commonsense immigration reform.

Today, 1 year later, it sits languishing in the House of Representatives and 11 million people wait and wait and wait. While they wait, while they hope that we come to our senses and govern as we should, the toll from inaction compounds: families suffer, children suffer, deportations continue, and injustice prevails.

There is a cost to our inaction, a cost those in the House of Representatives are forcing upon us, as we wait for them to act, that accrues every day. They claim they are for fiscal responsibility. Yet their inaction is costing us each year, on average, $80 billion of

real GDP, $40 billion in higher deficits, 40,000 STEM grads who earn a Master's or a Ph.D. in STEM fields from U.S. universities, 50 million in the Social Security trust fund, over 50,000 fewer jobs, and $13.5 billion in lost revenue.

I hope our Republican colleagues in the House understand exactly what the cost of inaction is. I hope they understand that every minute we waste passing commonsense immigration reform is costing American taxpayers more and more, and the cost is on them, and the losses I view as Republican losses.

The fact is Republicans are acting as if nothing is at stake, as if there is no cost, as if the lives of people and families are not in the balance, and they could not be more wrong. Besides the economic cost of inaction, there is a very real human cost. Franklin Roosevelt once said, citing Dante, that, ``Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.''

Let us not be frozen in the ice of our own indifference. Let us act, govern. I call on my Republican colleagues to warm their hearts and think about the costs of inaction not only in dollars and cents but in the lives of families and the future of this Nation. The legislation we are waiting for is a comprehensive way to tackle our immigration problem.

We are on the verge of historic change. I am proud to have been part of the Gang of 8 that hammered out a strong bipartisan effort that passed this institution with 67 votes. That is not usual these days for questions of great controversy.

I say to my friends in the other body: Do the right thing for America and, by the way, for your own party. Find common ground, lean away from the extreme, opt for reason, and govern with us.

In my view, the leadership in the other body has a chance to be American heroes, a chance to bring both sides together in an alliance that will ensure passage of this bill. I believe, based on poll after poll, that a vast majority of Americans want immigration reform to pass, and will thank them for doing the right thing. I hope they have the political will. I hope they have the political courage to unite the Nation and send this bill to the President's desk. I hope they will pass a bill that will increase the gross domestic product, reduce the deficit, promote prosperity, and create jobs.

As I have pointed out on this floor many times, this chart shows cumulative economic gains of the legalization process over 10 years after passage of this legislation. Fixing the broken immigration system would increase America's gross domestic product by over $800 billion over the next 10 years; it would increase the wages of all Americans by $470 billion over 10 years, and increase jobs by 121,000 per year for 10 years. That is over 1.2 million jobs.

What do we ever get to do here that increases the gross domestic product, reduces the deficit, raises the wages of all Americans, and creates 120,000-plus jobs per year? Very little. This legislation does that, not just simply because I say it but because the Congressional Budget Office said many of these figures were, in fact, a reality. Immigrants will start small businesses, they will create jobs for American workers, and it is time to harness that economic power.

The CBO report also tells us we reduce direct spending and the deficit by $158 billion over the next decade, and by another $685 billion more from 2024 through 2033. Let's remember, we are talking about almost $1 trillion in deficit spending that we can lift off the backs of the next generation, exactly what our Republican friends demand. Yet they are balking in the face of achieving one of their very fundamental principles. What other single piece of legislation increases GDP growth, increases wages, increases jobs, and lowers the deficit?

The Center for American Progress found that fixing the broken immigration system would increase wages of all Americans by $470 billion over 10 years and increase jobs by 121,000 per year. What we realize now and what the numbers tell us is that giving 11 million people a clear and defined earned pathway to citizenship is, in effect, an economic growth strategy that lowers the deficit and creates jobs. That is exactly what we are looking to do to move this economy forward.

New Americans who follow this pathway we lay out will have to play by rules. They will have to pass criminal background checks, they will have to pay a fine, they will have to pay their taxes. But if they do, there will be no obstacle they cannot overcome to the day when they raise their right hand and pledge allegiance to the United States and become a naturalized citizen.

Too many families have waited too long for that day. Too many have waited too long to say those words that will change their lives forever. They changed my mother's life, and, in turn, gave me a chance to stand here today and vote for a pathway to citizenship that can change the lives of millions of others.

But it is not just the economics of the legislation that creates the urgency of now, it is the human toll, the toll on millions living in the shadows. That can be pretty dark and frightening. Last year over 150,000 people were deported just for paperwork violations. Hundreds of thousands have been deported despite having U.S. citizen children. They are not criminals; they are hard-working families trying to make ends meet.

For many years I have asked the administration to stop deporting fathers and mothers, stop separating families, stop taking away parents from their U.S. citizen resident children. Let me tell you about one of these cases, the case of Carlos Oliva-Guillen who was about to be deported away from his three U.S. citizen children, including his 7- month-old infant son who is suffering from a life-threatening disorder. The baby was on the verge of a coma and facing potential brain damage while his dad was in detention about to be deported.

The doctors needed to do a blood test on Carlos, the baby's dad, to see if the baby's illness is genetic. Thank God that Carlos was released and brought back to New Jersey so doctors could pursue these lifesaving tests and treatment.

Those tragedies continue as long as we do not have comprehensive immigration reform. With all of these economic benefits and the tremendous human suffering at stake, what are we waiting for? We are waiting for the House leadership to stand up to a minority--to a minority. We are waiting for Speaker Boehner to schedule a vote. We are waiting for reason to prevail, for our Republican friends in the other body to once and for all do what is right and think about the cost of inaction, not only in dollars and cents but in the lives of the families and the future of this Nation.

We are waiting for the Speaker to stop letting the most radical voices, such as Stephen King, dictate the future of immigration reform. Speaker Boehner himself has publicly denounced Congressman King for his ``hateful language.'' Yet the only--the only--immigration-related vote the Speaker of the House of Representatives has allowed in the past year was for radical proposals to end DACA and deport our Nation's DREAMers. It is time for Speaker Boehner to stand for the majority of the Republican Party and of the Congress in the House of Representatives and remove Stephen King's undeserved carte blanche on immigration policy.

If we had a vote in the House, the Senate bill as passed would pass. It would pass today. It would pass with both Democratic and Republican votes. We have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill. We just need the will of a Republican leadership behind a bill that reduces the deficit, increases the GDP, creates jobs. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why they cannot break the stranglehold by a few against the will of the many.

Considering that there are enough votes in the House to pass the Senate bill and send it to the President, we deserve action. Eleven million people deserve, at the very least, the political courage to face down the extreme minority and do what is right and govern from the commonsense center.

Time is not on our side. There is a limited window of opportunity. We only have about another 2 months at most for the Speaker to act. So it is in the Speaker's hands. Does he want reform or doesn't he? I know I hear him say he does. I want to believe that. I will be the first to applaud him.

Speaker Boehner, however, on the one side said he wants to get immigration reform. The next thing I hear is that he questions the President's commitment to enforce the law as the reason why they are not moving forward on immigration reform, even as this President is deporting more people than the Bush administration. This administration has deported almost 2 million people. I do not understand. When the Speaker says, ``We can't trust the President to enforce the law,'' it seems to me what he is calling for is even greater deportations than the greatest deportations that have taken place over the last Republican administration.

So saying the President isn't enforcing enough, the Speaker is really arguing for more deportations and has done nothing to stop those deportations.

The only conclusion we can draw is that my friends on the other side support the current dysfunctional system, and they do so at a cost to the country. They do so at a cost to families, and I also believe that beyond all the policy arguments that I have talked about--the GDP, the reduction in the deficit, the creation of jobs, the raising of wages, helping our agricultural industry through the ag jobs provision, helping our high-tech industries through the provisions of the legislation, and so many others--not only do they risk all of that and risk the families, but I believe they risk their political futures.

The road to the White House goes through the barrio, as my friend in the House of Representatives, Congressman Gutieerrez, says. If we look at States across the country in which there are large immigrant populations who vote, who are U.S. citizens, and who look at this as the civil rights issue of their time, you cannot win the electoral votes of those States if you cannot find a way to a commonsense immigration reform. So their own futures, politically speaking, are at risk.

But even more than that political risk, our country is at risk--a risk that will hinder our own economic growth and leave millions in the shadows as second-class citizens, a risk that deportations will continue to tear parents away from their infants, despite the parents desperately seeking to register, get right with the law, and pay their taxes.

I thought that so many of my colleagues talk about the family values. Well, family values isn't about ripping families asunder. Family values isn't about ultimately saying that someone has a paperwork violation, so you rip them apart from their three American children--a risk that we will address as one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time.

I have cases in my office of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents of the United States unlawfully detained in immigration raids because of the happenstance of where they live or what they look like or how they speak.

Who among us, who have the privilege of serving in this institution, is ready to become a second-class citizen because of the happenstance of where you live, what you look like or how you speak, when you are a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident? This includes among others, in one case, an Iraq war veteran who was detained while his status was determined.

My first and foremost focus is on getting the House Republican leadership, after 1 year of this body's having passed an immigration bill, to either consider the Senate legislation or their own comprehensive version. That is the ultimate solution. Everything else is a bandaid. But let me be clear. There is a limited window of opportunity we have open to us until the end of July.

If Republicans do not act, they will have forced the President to ultimately use his executive powers on enforcement questions and on deportation relief.

Either they are tone deaf to the priorities of the Nation's largest- growing and fastest-growing minority or they are ignoring the will and interests of their own party and acting against their own stated goal of reducing the deficit.

They can keep finding excuses for inaction, but there are no more excuses. Enough is enough.

The community across the country is riveted in their attention as to what is going to happen in the House of Representatives. I hope that attention will ultimately be a joyful one if the House acts. But if it does not, it will reap the wrath of a community who sees this as the critical civil rights issue of their time and the consequences will be longstanding. I hope they meet the better angels that are within them and ultimately produce the comprehensive immigration reform the Nation needs for its security, for its economy, for doing the right thing as a nation of immigrants, by doing the right thing for those families.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his comments about a problem--and how extensive it is--we are seeing across the United States. I don't think there is a Senator who is not looking into that and ensuring that something is done. I looked at the resources that have been allocated, and noticed that we increased the resources 60 percent in the last 5 years. I think there is a severe management problem, and after reading some of the emails I have received, I am very concerned about that.

I want to talk about a different subject today. A recent headline from a Capitol Hill newspaper declared that our current Congress could be the ``worst ever.'' Another said negotiating political agreements is a ``lost art.'' The whole country knows something is wrong with our government. The problem is that Senators are being prevented from doing their job. Common sense is ignored because bills are being made in a political vacuum. This results in more lengthy, complex, incomprehensible laws that defy logic.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said that Congress would first have to pass a bill in order to find out what was in it. That is a problem. Legislation is often hundreds, if not thousands, of pages long. One bill could contain provisions affecting everything from health care to housing and increase the debt by hundreds of billions of dollars.

I recently introduced a bill with Senator John Barrasso, also from Wyoming, that would take a page from Wyoming's State legislature handbook. In order to stop Congress from passing bills with countless, unrelated measures, S. Res. 351 would require any legislation considered by the Senate to be limited to a single issue. One topic per bill will help get things done. It means more understandable and manageable bills. This is not a flashy concept, but I have found people of both parties are receptive to it. It makes sense to them.

Change is hard and those who control the Senate now like the system we have. Most Members of Congress have no opportunity to weigh in, and neither does the public--directly or indirectly. This is a very tidy arrangement for those who are in power now, especially in the Senate. Nothing is approved unless the majority leader allows it to come out.

Dissenting opinions are rarely considered. The majority leader uses procedural tactics to prohibit amendments to improve bills in order to control the legislation and to prevent his party from taking politically difficult votes. He has done this more than any other majority leader--perhaps more than all the previous leaders. Political motivations and consolidation of power should not be used to deny Senators from either party the right to represent their people.

Last week the majority leader used procedural tactics to prevent us from voting on tax amendments important to Wyoming, such as the permanent State and local sales tax deduction amendment offered by my friend on the other side of the aisle, the Senator from Washington. We were also prevented from voting on amendments that would be important to all of us, such as preventing waste of taxpayers' dollars by stopping the IRS from giving bonuses to employees who have not paid their taxes. Amendments were filed by Members from across the country. By my count, more than 60 amendments to the tax package were filed by Senators from the other side of the aisle. Nobody is being represented by amendments. At some point we need to actually vote on the issues that are important to our constituents, and Members on both sides of the aisle who support these amendments need to insist on that.

Last week Politico's Huddle claimed ``Senate GOP Filibusters $85B Tax Extenders,'' but there is no opportunity to filibuster when the debate is cut off before it ever begins. That is what the majority leader did by filing cloture on the tax extenders package. Cloture is a political tactic designed to bring debate to a close after a supermajority of the Senate is satisfied that a matter has received adequate consideration.

In recent years this majority leader has often filed a cloture motion immediately--before there is an opportunity to debate or introduce amendments, not after adequate consideration. The number of same-day cloture filings has more than doubled compared to when Republicans last controlled the Senate. We are not even being given a chance to debate, much less offer amendments, and that is why I have joined Senator Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, in cosponsoring his Stop Cloture Abuse Resolution. It would amend the Senate rules to prohibit filing cloture until there has been at least 24 hours of debate.

Another telling statistic is the number of amendments the current majority has blocked from being considered in the Senate. As this chart shows, in 2005 and 2006, the Senate voted on almost 700 amendments on the Senate floor. Since the Senate has been controlled by the current majority, the number has dwindled. In 2011 and 2012, there were about 350 amendments, and since July of last year, the majority leader has allowed votes on only 9 Senate Republican amendments. The House--where debate is very limited and controlled by the majority--had 132 votes on Democrat minority amendments.

Let's see. The minority in the Senate--the cooling saucer for the country where there is supposed to be open debate--had nine amendments. The House--always controlled by the majority in a very strict way with a rules committee--had 132 Democratic minority votes on amendments.

The leader has used the tactic of filling the amendment tree to prevent amendments from being introduced, and because of that tactic, the amendment to prevent wasting taxpayers' dollars by stopping the IRS from giving bonuses to employees who have not paid their taxes doesn't get to come up. That is just one example of many that has happened. In the last 8 years, he has used this tactic 86 times, and of course, we are still counting. By contrast, the last six majority leaders combined only filled the tree 40 times.

What is filling the tree? It is a political tactic of setting up a few amendments that cannot be taken down, that have to be voted on before the bill can be done, and filing cloture even prevents those from getting done.

The chart shows that there have been 86, and still counting, and the six previous leaders only filed cloture 40 times.

Filling the amendment tree has become a routine way to prevent any Senator--majority or minority--from exercising their right to offer an amendment because once the tree is filled, no Senator can offer an amendment.

Almost half of the Senate has been here less than 6 years. Yes, 45 of the 100 Senators are in their first term. They don't realize that there is a better way. They have not seen how it could work, how it did work, and how it should work.

I know how this can hurt. I once had a bill that would have been the first step of 10 for solving health care in this country, and it was a small business health plan. It would have allowed small businesses across the country to join together through their association to get a big enough block to effectively negotiate with the insurance company or even set up their own selfinsurance pool.

The majority leader was willing to bring it up and then filled the tree and filed cloture. I had 2 people that would have made the 60 votes necessary to get that passed, but each had 1 amendment to the bill, and they would have been good amendments. They were not allowed to bring up their amendments, and consequently I wound up being just short to pass a very important bill that would have brought down health care costs for this country and might have encouraged people to do the other nine steps in the plan that Senator Kennedy and I put together and provided more in the way of insurance than what we have now, and it would have been paid for.

Committees should have the first opportunity to shape legislation. It is there that Members are able to iron out unintended consequences and craft better legislation before it goes to the floor. There is a lot of flexibility in the committee process. I used to sit down and go through all the amendments. There might be 200 amendments on a bill we were working on, and we would put them into piles according to what we covered. We would look to see who was involved in that particular pile and send that bipartisan group off to come up with a solution to these multiple solutions that had been presented. They were usually able to craft something out of that and bring it back as another amendment that would make the bill better and eliminate unintended consequences and perform a real service for our country.

Most of the bills now don't go to committee first. After a bill goes to committee, then it comes to the floor. All 100 Members of the Senate should have an opportunity to improve the legislation. The reason we have so many people in Congress--100 here and 435 at the other end of the building--is to bring together 535 different backgrounds that can suggest improvements to bills. Different Members may know something from their background that others may not have noticed, and that is why we do amendments. Rarely is that happening in today's Senate. More often than not, committees are ignored and massive legislation is the result of a few people behind closed doors deal making for the more than 535 Members of Congress. We need to get away from deal making and start legislating again, and that is apparent, especially in our spending. The job of Congress is to decide how much the Federal Government should spend and on what priorities. That is not being done under the Senate's current management. Deals are made.

In fact, last January, the legislation we voted on was a deal between one Member of the House and one Member of the Senate. Do you know how many amendments we got on that? Nobody had an amendment to it. The debate was very limited. There was $1.1 trillion spent on one vote that was put together by two people. That is deal making, not legislating, and that is what is costing this country so much money and what stifles things.

A couple of weeks ago we had a bill that was allowed to have amendments, and in 2 days we covered the amendments and passed the bill unanimously because it had been improved significantly. That is what we need to get back to. More time is spent on negotiating not to have amendments than it would take to vote on 75 amendments on a bill. Yes, a lot of them would fail, and that is typical, but at least a Senator could feel that his constituents have been heard but he just didn't have the votes for it. At least they have been heard, and that is what we are missing right now.

We are not getting to cover the amendments, and they can be covered relatively quickly. So deals are made and then spending bills are all packaged into one massive ``take it or leave it'' bill and the deficit has increased.

In 2013, the Senate didn't pass a single appropriations bill. We were supposed to do 12 of them right after April 15. We didn't do any of them. We only considered 1 of the 12 bills on the Senate floor, and that bill was shut down because the first amendment the majority leader didn't like, so he pulled it off of the floor and he never brought it up again, nor did he bring up any other spending bill. Is it any wonder that since January 2009 the total Federal debt stood at $10.6 trillion and now it is over $17 trillion? We don't budget; we don't appropriate; we just deal-make. It has never risen so high so fast in our country's history.

Similar to legislation on one topic per bill, we should look at each spending bill individually. The committees should be able to look closely at each branch and each agency. That is how it used to work before the power shift, but we can make some changes now to encourage more spending scrutiny. We could switch to a biennial appropriations process. That means once every 2

years for each agency. I have introduced S. 625, the Biennial Appropriations Act, and I am cosponsoring Senator Johnny Isakson's version of the legislation.

My bill would require the President to submit a 2-year budget resolution at the beginning of each Congress. Congress would then adopt a budget resolution. Following adoption of a budget resolution, Congress would focus on appropriations bills. Each Congress would debate the Defense appropriations bill; however, the other appropriations bills would be split into two groups. The more controversial bills would be debated in the first year after an election and the easy ones would be done the year before an election. Of course the bill would mandate at least one joint oversight hearing with the authorization committee and the Appropriations Committee in the off-appropriations year for those particular bills.

When you are spending a trillion dollars, it is so much money that nobody can look at the details. I don't even remember the last time we looked at something as small as a billion dollars, let alone a million dollars, and a million is a lot of money out where I live. We have to get back to where we can have some scrutiny on the appropriations, not a one-time deal.

Congress has 535 elected representatives. When each of us looks at every proposal, lots of viewpoints and experience get put into the decisions we make for our country, but if all decisions are made by the majority leader, the vast majority of Americans get shortchanged. Shortcuts are taken, committees are skipped. Legislation is long, cumbersome, and it is not easily read and understood. If you skip all the process to do that, then spending will reach all-time highs and we will get less for our money. That has to change.

These are some ideas on how we can solve those problems. This won't change unless those who are here exercise our rights. That may not happen until those outside Washington demand that these and other ideas get considered. Demand your Senators be allowed to represent you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 88, S. 394, the Metal Theft Prevention Act; that the bill be read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I appreciate hearing Senator Lee's objection. I do believe this is an issue that has been delayed for too long. The bill passed the Judiciary Committee by voice vote last June. Yet businesses, communities, and individuals continue to be victimized.

This is a bipartisan bill. This is legislation that has been introduced with Senator Graham of South Carolina, with Senator Hoeven of North Dakota--two Republicans--as well as Senator Schumer and Senator Coons. As I noted, it passed the Judiciary Committee. Yet we still have objections from the other side--people who are holding up this bill. At the same time, metal theft continues to rise across the country.

This bill does not create the kind of burdens my friend mentioned. This bill is very narrow. The only crime it creates for a Federal crime is a crime of theft of critical infrastructure--critical infrastructure, something that could threaten the national security-- and this is not a far reach, given we have seen people stealing copper pipes, given we have seen houses blow up. So it is not a far reach at all.

Secondly, what does this bill do? It leaves it to States to decide what metal theft laws they want. In the end, it does not preempt those laws. If States have laws that are on point, if they have laws relating to metal theft that create some kind of a requirement that not everything can be paid for by cash so law enforcement can actually track this, then we have a situation where that State law would govern.

It is not an overly burdensome law. In fact, many States are adopting these kinds of laws. Our problem is there are some States that refuse to adopt these kinds of laws. So people are stealing

metal from places such as Minnesota and bringing it to those States--to scrap metal dealerships that are accepting that metal and that don't have to report any kind of information to the police and don't have to have any recordkeeping.

We have a national problem. If you don't believe me, listen to this story. Just last week, in my home State, metal thieves robbed dozens of veterans' graves--veterans' graves as we are approaching Memorial Day. What did they do? They took the brass rods that hold their symbol of service.

People want to tell me this isn't a problem? People are stealing stars on veterans' graves and they are stealing the brass rods that hold their symbols of service. Just when families are gathered for Memorial Day, we have metal thieves wreaking havoc because they can go to some scrap metal dealer that isn't following the law and sell it and no one is going to keep track of who they are.

This is a crime. This is a crime, and it is not the first time. On Memorial Day in 2012, thieves stole more than 200 Bronze Star markers from veterans' graves in Isanti County, MN.

So I ask my colleagues who are holding up the bill how they explain defending this kind of practice and allowing it to continue, when this metal is being taken because it is valuable and it can be brought to scrap metal dealers that aren't following the law.

Metal thieves have become infamous for shameless acts such as this. These thieves will stop at nothing to get this high-priced metal and make a quick buck. Last month thieves stole the aluminum wheelchair ramp from the front steps of a man's house in Washington, stranding the man inside.

Enough is enough. Are our friends going to be listening to some scrap metal dealers when most of them follow the law, but clearly some don't want to follow the law; is that what we are listening to in this Chamber? Are we going to listen to the veterans of this country? Are we going to listen to the police groups?

By the way, this bill has been endorsed by the Major Cities Chiefs of Police, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the Major County Sheriffs' Association. So I ask, are we going to listen to those groups or are we going to listen to the scrap metal lobby?

In Minneapolis, thieves have targeted the city's oldest continuously used church. First, they stole the copper downspouts. Then they came back to steal two air-conditioners and gut the copper supply lines to the kitchen freezers. Before the church even had time to replace the stolen air-conditioners, the thieves came back a third time to steal a third air-conditioner and gut the newly replaced copper lines. Replacing the stolen items and installing security fixtures has cost the parish thousands of dollars that could have otherwise been spent on the good work of the church.

These thefts have cost the parish more than money, it has also cost a tradition. This church has been serving French meat pies since the late 1800s, but this year they had to cancel it because of the thieves.

Last winter at a recreation center in St. Paul, MN, thieves stole $20,000 worth of pipe from the outdoor ice rink, causing the center to close until local businesses donated labor and materials to make the repairs--$20,000 worth of pipe. The problem is the replacement is much more than $20,000. It was hundreds of thousands of dollars because they have to repair the whole ice rink.

In Rochester, MN, I met with local businesses that have been robbed by metal thieves--one local business 12 times in just the past 2 years and has suffered more than $150,000 in losses, similar to the story Senator Hoeven and I heard when we met with electric companies in Fargo and in Moorhead. During one of the robberies in Rochester, thieves even stole a truck with the company logo on it and then used the truck to rob other construction sites without raising suspicion.

Across the country, copper thieves have targeted construction sites, power and phone lines, retail stores and vacant houses. They have caused explosions in vacant buildings by stealing metal from gas lines, and they have caused blackouts by stealing copper wiring from street lights and electrical substations. Do you know why? Because they have a willing buyer. They have people who are willing to buy their stuff and will not even take the care of keeping records and taking checks so law enforcement can later investigate who they are.

These next examples show how dangerous metal thefts can be. Last October four people were injured in an explosion at a University of California-Berkeley electrical station. Officials blamed it on copper theft that occurred 2 hours before the explosion. The copper is stolen, the pipes don't work, the workers turn it on, and there is an explosion and four people injured.

Georgia Power was having a huge problem with thieves targeting a substation that feeds the entire Atlanta airport--one of the busiest airports in the world, the Delta hub. The airport was getting hit two to three times a week and surveillance didn't lead to any arrests.

This is a crime that knows no borders, no boundaries. It happens in cities, it happens in suburbs, and it happens certainly in rural areas. Depending on the case, it threatens public safety, weakens our infrastructure, and undermines our businesses.

The impact is staggering. In one study, the U.S. Department of Energy found the total cost to industries affected by copper theft would exceed over $900 million every single year--$900 million every single year. Between 2010 and 2012 the National Insurance Crime Bureau identified nearly 34,000 insurance claims related to metal theft. To put that number in perspective, it marked a 36-percent increase from the 25,000 claims reported between 2009 to 2011. That 25,000 number was more than an 80-percent increase from the previous reporting period.

Listen to who is supporting this bill, and then I ask my colleague: Are you going to listen to these businesses or are you going to listen to the scrap metal dealers?

Air Conditioning Contractors of America, supporting the bill, American Public Power Association, supporting the bill, American Supply Association, Associated Builders and Contractors, CenturyLink, Edison Electric Institute, Heating, Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors, the Home Depot, International Council of Shopping Centers, Independent Electrical Contractors, Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Lowe's Companies, Inc., National Association of Electrical Distributors, National Association of Home Builders, National Electrical Contractors Association, National Retail Federation, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Retail Industry Leaders Association, Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association, Inc., United States Telecom Association, Windstream Corporation, XO Communications.

I could go on and on. These are mainstream businesses on Main Street that support this bill because they are getting ripped off.

So what can we do about it? We know why it is happening; that is, because there is a global demand for copper, especially from China and India, and higher prices encourage thieves to steal copper and other metals. We all know the vast majority of scrap metal dealers are legitimate and law-abiding. They do not want to buy stolen property. I have worked extensively with the scrap metal industry in my legislation. We have made some changes they suggested in order to improve the effectiveness of the bill and lessen the burden on scrap metal dealers wherever possible.

Given the scale of the problem, I believe we have to take strong steps to fight these crimes and give law enforcement the tools they need. I worry that at some point we are going to have a major break in our Federal infrastructure and everyone will look back and wonder why they listened to some lobbyist representing the scrap metal dealers instead of all these businesses I mentioned and instead of the police. They will look back to this moment.

Maybe they could at least listen to the beer dealers. They support this bill because their kegs are getting stolen all over the country.

What does our bill do? First of all, it puts modest recordkeeping requirements on the recyclers that buy scrap metal, limiting the value of cash transactions, and requiring sellers in certain

States to prove they actually own the metal.

The bill also makes it a Federal crime to steal metals from critical infrastructure and directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review relevant penalties.

Our intention is not to preempt State laws, so if a State already has laws on the books regarding metal theft, they would still apply and the Federal law would not.

These criminals work across State lines--we know that--and they take advantage of States without this type of law. This bill is intended to fill the gap in States that don't have these protections. My people are getting ripped off in Minnesota because some States don't have laws. This is a Federal crime, and it is a Federal problem.

The shameless--shameless--robberies of veterans' graves make clear we can't just let this go anymore. It is time to pass this bill.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, as the ranking member of the Rules Committee, I take no pleasure in making these remarks, but the circumstances have given me absolutely no choice.

Our distinguished majority leader recently came to this floor and declared that his minority colleagues--that would be us on this side of the aisle, Republicans--were ``addicted to Koch.''

To those who regularly watch our proceedings, however, it is clear who is suffering from this addiction.

Practically every morning our leader starts our session by giving a speech personally attacking David and Charles Koch and their families. The only thing he seems to do more often than block Republican amendments is attack the Kochs.

As distasteful as that is, it is apparently no longer sufficient. The problem with addiction, of course, is that as a tolerance develops, more and more of the drug is needed to satisfy the craving.

So now we have learned that not only does the majority leader spend his mornings attacking the Kochs, but he spends his evenings doing so as well.

Last night, the majority leader attended an event in the Capitol Visitor Center--the CVC in the Capitol building--to promote a movie attacking the Kochs. Never mind that the regulations prohibit-- prohibit--the use of the CVC space for any ``campaign, commercial, promotional or profit-making purpose.''

As House Administration Committee Chairman Candice Miller said:

We cannot hold partisan political rallies or fundraisers on

the grounds of the Capitol, or within its walls. Our work in

this hallowed building must solely be in the interests of the

American people and not in the interest of any political

cause.

This event is just the latest demonstration of an apparent belief that the rules do not apply to the Democratic leadership. We now have another new precedent: a majority leader appearing in and then promoting a movie in the Capitol.

It also further demonstrates the hypocrisy of the majority's quest to stifle dissent. They celebrate and promote films that attack their opponents but want to outlaw films that criticize the majority Members and their agenda.

The irony of promoting a film to advance their campaign to restrict speech is apparently lost on the majority. So it is worth reminding them what the Citizens United case was really all about. It was about a movie--``Hillary: The Movie,'' to be precise. ``Hillary: The Movie'' was made in the wake of ``Fahrenheit 9/11.'' Anyone who saw ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' knows that the purpose of the film was to convince people that George W. Bush was not worthy of the Presidency and should not be given a second term.

Anyone who saw ``Hillary: The Movie'' knows the purpose was to convince people that Hillary Clinton should not be elected President of the United States. I suspect that many of the people who went to see the movie in the CVC last night thought that ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' was great and ``Hillary: The Movie'' was terrible.

The point of the Citizens United case was that it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter which film a majority in Congress might prefer. The producers have the right to make and distribute either one, and they can raise the money necessary to do so as they see fit, not subject to any restrictions or limitations imposed by the Congress. They are guaranteed that right by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This Congress cannot take that away.

Is that too difficult a concept to grasp? Isn't it obvious? Of course it is.

Yet the majority has spent the last 4 years misrepresenting it, and now it even wants to amend the Constitution to reverse it. That is just incredible.

In a press release announcing an upcoming hearing on the majority's amendment to the First Amendment, it was declared that it was necessary to ``build support for amending the Constitution to ensure that all Americans can exercise their First Amendment rights.''

It is not necessary to amend the First Amendment to ensure that all Americans can exercise their First Amendment rights. Those rights are already guaranteed by the First Amendment as written. The amendment the majority wants to impose would allow them to once again curtail those rights. Why can't we just be honest about this. Because of the Citizens United decision, people of all points of view now have the opportunity to make their views widely known. Even people who disagree with the majority in the Senate have that right, and we should all be very grateful.

I know the majority preferred a system where those who wished to criticize them were restrained in their ability to do so. They want to reimpose those restraints. I do not think they will succeed, but we should make clear what they want to do.

In their view, a corporation that happens to own a network, such as NBC or CNN, should be able to broadcast the movie they promoted last night as much as they want. If the networks wanted to show the movie every night of the week for 2 hours, that would be just fine with the majority.

But if somebody wanted to buy a 30-second ad during the airing of the movie to present an alternative point of view, that would be unacceptable. A 2-hour movie? No problem. A 30-second ad? Terrible. It can't be allowed.

That is simply absurd, but that was the reality before the Citizens United decision. Media corporations could do or say whatever they wanted. Other corporations, however, could not. Citizens United ended that ridiculous distinction and the majority has been trying to reinstate it ever since.

The majority claims they are concerned about wealthy donors. No, they are not. They are concerned about wealthy conservative donors.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the very film they promoted last night received financing from foundations and large individual donations. But those donations were OK, I suppose, because they went to promote a cause the majority supports--attacking the Koch family.

Likewise, billionaires who support the causes of the majority are not targeted. Billionaire former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer has indicated he intends to spend over $100 million to influence the midterm elections.

Does the majority have any problem with that? Of course not.

Spending huge amounts of money in politics only concerns them if it is spent against them or on behalf of their opponents, but if it is spent to promote the majority and their agenda--no problem.

The majority leader has convinced himself, however, and seeks to convince the rest of us, that the Kochs are somehow unique, that the Koch brothers present some kind of evil threat, if you will, that other billionaires with different points of view do not pose. He seems to think that for everything bad that happens the Kochs are to blame.

Recently he claimed that they were one of the main causes of climate change. He said: ``Not a cause, one of the main causes.''

What do we make of such a statement? Could anything be more absurd? There are over 7 billion people on Earth, but our majority leader believes two men, Charles and David Koch, are a main cause of climate change.

What is that all about?

Just yesterday, the majority leader blamed the Kochs for the wildfires in California. What is next? Maybe the Kochs are to blame for the planes lost in the Bermuda Triangle? How about the volcanic eruption at Pompeii years ago or even the futility of the Chicago Cubs? That has to be the Koch family.

The majority leader convinces himself that his Koch obsession is justified because he believes their political involvement is motivated only by their own financial interest.

It is inconceivable to him that people might exist who simply disagree with him and his agenda and want to see the country take a different path. The reality is that there are millions of Americans who want to see this country take a different path, and the Koch family proudly supports that goal and has made donations to help achieve just that.

You will never hear it from the majority leader, but it is time someone presented the rest of the story about the Koch family. This family has pledged or contributed more than $1 billion to cancer research, medical centers, education, the arts, and to assist public policy organizations--$1 billion. Is that the act of a family motivated solely by financial interests? I don't think so. Of course not.

Consider a few of these gifts: $100 million as a prime contributor for cancer research at MIT; $100 million to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital to build a new ambulatory care center, plus $28 million to other research causes; $20 million to Johns Hopkins University for a cancer research center; $30 million to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York; $26 million to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston; $26 million to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City for the Building on Success campaign and other causes; and $35 million to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History to renovate what is called dinosaur hall, which will include one of the largest and most complete T. rex specimens in the world; $20 million to the Museum of Natural History; and $65 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Likewise, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation gave $100 million for the preservation and renovation of Lincoln Center, home to the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera.

All these acts of extraordinary generosity are completely ignored by the majority leader. They are ignored because the Koch family has committed one unforgivable sin: They have opposed him and the Democratic majority and President Obama. They present a threat to the Democrats' hold on power. That is why they are being demonized. That is why they are being attacked. That is why they are being vilified. That is why they have become his obsession.

They have had the temerity to challenge the agenda of this majority and its leader, and the leader is not happy about it and he wants it to stop. And it looks as if he will do anything he can to make it stop, up to and including amending the Constitution of the United States. I think that is a disgrace. It has demeaned this institution. It should stop. The first amendment doesn't exist to protect those of us in this body. It exists to protect the people. It is there to prevent us from silencing our critics. And thank God for that.

I wish the majority would recognize that they do not have the power to silence their critics. The first amendment denies them that power. I wish the majority leader would stop engaging in character assassination against citizens who choose to exercise their first amendment rights. And I wish he would stop acting as though he is the only person on Earth who can say whatever he wants. He isn't. We all have the right to express ourselves--all of us--from Michael Moore to Citizens United, from Tom Steyer to the Koch family. All of us have that right. All of us. Let's stop trying to deny it. Let's stop trying to change it. It is beneath us. It demeans this body, and it is wrong.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I would be happy to yield.

Madam President, I am honored to represent the 12.5 million people living in the State of Illinois, and it is a special honor to represent 745,000 veterans who live in my State. These men and women have served their country honorably. Many of them are leading great lives and making great contributions to our State. Some are struggling, returning from war with wounds--visible and invisible.

I came to speak to the issue involving the so-called VA scandal at the Arizona Hospital. What I have been told is troubling. What I have been told is that there were secret waiting lists of veterans who were being unnecessarily delayed when they needed critical medical care. The allegations suggest that some of them may have died while on the waiting list. That is as cruel an allegation as anyone could make about anybody and particularly cruel when it applies to our veterans.

We are trying to investigate this, as we should. The President sent his Deputy Chief Rob Nabors, a person I know, to Arizona today, but we are not going to stop with that. We are going to do everything we can to make sure every veterans facility across America is serving our veterans in a timely and professional way. That includes, of course, those in the State of Illinois.

Tomorrow I will be meeting with General Shinseki in my office. He is the head of the Veterans' Administration. We are going to focus on Illinois, because in Illinois we have five VA medical centers, 30 outpatient clinics, and 11 veterans centers. I want to make certain there are no secret waiting lists at any of those facilities, and I want to make certain we are doing everything in our power to serve our veterans in a timely professional way.

We know the stories--the stories that have come out of these wars we are concluding now. The war in Afghanistan is winding down to a close. Iraq was over just a few months, maybe 1 year ago, but despite the end of these wars, it is not the end of the war for many veterans. They come home with needs--serious needs: post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, amputations, serious problems that will haunt them for some time.

We promised these men and women, if they would volunteer to serve our Nation, if they were willing to serve and even die for our Nation, we would never quit on them; that when they came home, we would stand by them.

We passed a GI bill on the floor of the Senate several years ago. Jim Webb was the Senator from Virginia, a Marine Corps veteran himself of the Vietnam war. He brought in a modern GI bill for those men and women currently serving, and it passed overwhelmingly with both political parties supporting it, as they should. In a place where we don't agree on much, we sure agreed on that. When it comes to veterans and the GI bill, we stood together. We have to do it again on a bipartisan basis.

I read the comments from President Obama this morning. I thought they were unsparing in terms of his personal concern over what has been reported.

I know we all honor the contribution made to America by General Shinseki, a disabled veteran himself from the Vietnam war. He is an extraordinarily good man. The question is whether he can fix this problem if one exists.

I don't know about the Arizona situation. We will wait until those facts come together. But this much I do know: Our Veterans' Administration has been overwhelmed by disability claims coming in at rates that surpass this country's experience in any previous war. Almost half, almost 50 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are filing for disability benefits when they come home.

The backlog at the VA is 300,000 cases--applications for disability. They have been pending for more than 125 days--4 months. Some have been in the process for more than 1 year. It is an improvement--300,000 from 611,000, which was the case last year--but not good enough.

Illinois has cut its backlog in half as well. But when I read some of the delay times in making a decision at the VA, we will understand why we find this still unacceptable.

Seven years ago the average processing time for an Illinois veteran claim was 1 year, maybe 18 months. Appeals sometimes took 2 years. Today veterans tell us the claim will easily take 2 years to process, maybe longer, and an appeal may take 3 or 4 years. Compared to the numbers of 7 years ago, the numbers are much worse today. I understand there are more veterans who are applying, but it just means we need to put the resources in place to serve this surge of veterans looking for help.

The veterans who call my office are just asking for updates and accurate information about the claims and medical care. They want to know if somebody--anybody--at the VA is taking a look at their application. They get conflicting information from the VA.

Sometimes the VA calls them back and says: You have to send such and such a document.

The veteran says: I have already sent it.

That kind of frustration for someone who is coping with illness or problems is unacceptable, and it is certainly unacceptable when it comes to our veterans.

Even when claims are processed, there are cases of mistaken identity. A bad address leads to canceled benefits and checks, and it takes months to fix it. I am trying to help. As chair of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, I put $3.6 million in the Defense Department to speed up the program that allows servicemembers' records to be transferred to the VA electronically so we can have at least a quicker response from the VA. I directed the DOD inspector general in my bill to work with the VA inspector general to streamline the transfer of records between the Departments.

Another way we tried to step up support for veterans is by creating the Caregiver Program at the Veterans' Administration. I will be the first to tell you this was not my idea. It was the idea of Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. She used to sit back there, and she came up with an idea: If members of a disabled veteran's family will stay home with them and help them get through, we ought to help those members of the family. She called it

the caregivers act. It didn't pass while she was here, but when she left I liked it enough to call her and say to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton: Do you mind if I steal your idea and try to pass it? She invited me to be her guest, and I did. With the support of Senator Danny Akaka, Senator Patty Murray, and others, we made the caregivers act the law of the land, and now across America hundreds of spouses and parents who care for disabled veterans are getting a helping hand. We provide them medical training, nurses training so they can take care of their veteran. We give them respite care of up to 2 weeks a year so they can have some time off, a vacation to recharge their batteries. If they have a financial hardship, we provide a modest amount of money to help them get by. It is the right thing to do. These veterans get to stay home with families who love them. That is where they want to be. From our point of view as a government, just to put it down to dollars and cents, it is a lot cheaper when they stay home. So we do well and the veterans do well. That is a great outcome.

We have to expand the reach of caregivers assistance through the VA so at every veterans center there is a source of information to tell that veteran and the veteran's family: The Caregiver Program is there if you want to stay home. We want to help you stay home and be healthy as you do.

I think that is a good thing to offer the veterans. The ones I have met, there are some amazing stories in Chicago that truly warm your heart to know that those veterans, after what they have been through, can stay home with their families and be there with the people they love and who love them too.

There is another area I wish to mention. Our committee has pushed the Veterans' Administration to focus on the sustainability of orthotics and prosthetics. We are worried about the professional workforce that deals with these important parts of restoring a veteran's life.

Twenty percent of the orthotics and prosthetics workforce, about 7,000 clinicians, will retire over the next 5 years. We have never needed these specialists more than we need them today: 1,715 servicemembers lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have lost multiple limbs. The United States has 5 quadruple amputees and 40 triple amputees from these wars. The VA serves 40,000 people with limb loss every year. That is why I am focused on this--to get the professionals in the orthotics and prosthetics fields of medicine to be trained and ready to help these veterans in the years to come while others are retiring.

There are 745,000 veterans in my State, and not a single one of them should be deceived about what they can receive for their service nor delayed when it comes to seeing a doctor or having their claims processed. Not one of them should wait 2 years before they start getting disability benefits. We have 5 VA Medical Centers, 30 outpatient clinics, and 11 Veterans Centers across Illinois, and we have to be there to serve them in a timely way.

None of these facilities has the right to mislead or lie to the veterans about what doctors they can see or what services they can receive. The Senate just added $5 million to the budget of the inspector general at the Veterans Administration, and the Inspector General is now investigating 26 facilities.

One of the toughest votes that a Member of Congress is called on to cast is whether we should go to war. It has happened a few times in my career. You don't sleep well the night before, wondering how you are going to vote, and knowing that at the end of the day, even if this is a just and necessary war, innocent people will die, including innocent Americans. What I have come to learn over the years is that it is not just a matter of that simple decision to go to war, but it is the cost of war--the cost in human lives. Over 4,000 died in the war in Iraq, and over 2,000 have died in the war in Afghanistan. There are thousands and thousands who come home with injuries, and, of course, there are the expenses and budget costs that come along with each and every one these conflicts.

It really helps when you make these decisions and reflect on them to also be aware and honest about the real cost of war. The real cost of war in human life and human suffering can't be calculated, but we did make a promise that those who would stand for our country in those wars would have our help when they came home.

The scandal that has been reported in Arizona--the problems at the VA centers--is unacceptable in a Nation as great as America, and we owe it to these veterans and their families to stand by them. I promise I will, not just for veterans facilities in Illinois, which is my first priority, but for those across the United States.

I yield the floor.