Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act of 2013

Mr. President, today, Senator Brown and I are introducing important legislation to extend tax relief to working families: The Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2013.

This legislation will ensure that taxes do not increase on working families in the coming years, and will expand an effective incentive to work.

The Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2013 is pro-family, pro-work legislation that would permanently extend critical refundable tax credit provisions that have helped lift millions of working families out of poverty.

These provisions were only extended for 5 years in the American Taxpayer Relief Act, the same bill that permanently lowered the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans.

The Child Tax Credit, CTC, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, EITC, are refundable tax credits that encourage work, help families make ends meet, and lead to healthier and better educated children.

Both the Senate-passed budget and the President's FY 2014 budget request call for making these provisions permanent.

Consistent with the original goals for the EITC, the Working Families Tax Relief Act would help the only group that our Tax Code pushes into poverty: childless workers.

The EITC was designed to help childless workers offset their payroll tax liability. In reality, employees bear the burden of both the employee and employer portion of the payroll tax.

As a result, a typical single childless adult will begin to owe Federal income taxes in addition to payroll taxes when his or her income is still significantly below the poverty line. These changes will result in a full-time worker receiving the minimum wage to be eligible for the maximum earned income credit amount.

This may sound complicated, but these CTC and EITC provisions have real-world impacts.

An analysis of Census data showed that these CTC provisions lifted 900,000 people above the poverty line in 2011, using a poverty measure that counts not only cash income but also taxes and government benefits.

According to recent estimates, letting the expanded CTC expire will increase taxes on 12 million families who will see the size of their CTC credit shrink, and 5 million families will no longer be eligible for the credit at all.

The EITC has long been one of the most effective anti-poverty measures in our toolkit. In 2011, according to the Internal Revenue Service, the EITC lifted 6.6 million Americans out of poverty, 3.3 million of whom were children.

In Illinois last year, 1 million taxpayers claimed the EITC and received an average credit of about $2,300. That money isn't a hand- out, it is food on the table, school clothes for children and maybe a little bit leftover to buy Christmas presents.

When Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Tax Reform package, he had this to say about its provisions that expanded the EITC:

The Earned Income Tax Credit is the best anti-poverty, the

best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of

Congress.

I could not have said it better myself.

I thank Senator Brown for his leadership on this, as a new member of the Finance Committee.

I look forward to working with him and many of my colleagues to ensure that these provisions are included in tax reform.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act. This bill, which I have also introduced in the previous two Congresses, would extend the important protections of the Family and Medical Leave Act to grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, adult children, and same-sex spouses and domestic partners throughout America.

I am pleased to introduce this bill with a coalition of Senators who are committed to ensuring justice and equality for all Americans. I would like to thank Senators Leahy, Whitehouse, Sanders, Murray, Coons, Gillibrand, Lautenberg, and Blumenthal for standing with me in support of the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act.

In 1993, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act to, among other things, protect American workers facing either a personal health crisis, or that of a close family member.

People in the workforce who suffer a serious illness or significant injury should be able to take time to heal, recover, and follow their doctors' orders, without the added stress of worrying about their job status. They should be able to return to their workplaces strong, healthy, and ready to be productive again. Thanks to the FMLA, they can take the needed time knowing that their jobs will be there when they recover.

Most employees, however, are not solely concerned about their own health and wellbeing. They are also concerned about the health and wellbeing of those they love. The FMLA gave workers with a child, parent, or spouse that was sick or injured, an opportunity to provide the needed care and support, knowing that their jobs would still be there when they returned.

When it was passed, the FMLA was an important and historic expansion of our nation's laws. Unfortunately, as families have evolved and expanded, we've learned that the FMLA does not adequately nor equally protect all American families. Under current law, it is impossible for many employees to be with their loved ones during times of medical need.

As I stated when I first introduced this bill, Congress followed the lead of many large and small businesses when it enacted the FMLA. Twenty years ago, many of these businesses had already recognized and addressed the need for employees to take time off to care for themselves or a loved one that was battling a serious health condition. These companies had put in place systems that gave their employees time to heal themselves or their family members, and ensured that those employees would return to work as soon as they could.

The FMLA took the model these companies provided and brought the majority of the American workforce under the same protections.

We once again have an opportunity to learn from the best practices of American businesses who have adjusted their personnel policies and benefit packages to better meet the needs of American families, as we find them today. These businesses have assessed the composition of their workforces and realized that, in order to meet the evolving needs of their employees and enhance productivity, they needed to go one step further than the protections provided by the FMLA.

It's time that we do the same here in Congress, and recognize in law that a healthy workforce, regardless of sexual orientation, is a critical component of a healthy, modern, and efficient national economy. The Human Rights Campaign, a leading civil rights organization that strongly supports the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act, reports that at least 580 major American corporations, 17 States, and the District of Columbia now extend FMLA benefits to include leave on behalf' of a same-sex partners and spouses. Moreover, as of January 1st of this year, 47% of Fortune 500 companies provided health benefits to same-sex partners.

When the FMLA was signed into law, it was narrowly tailored to cover individuals caring for a very close family member. The law sought to cover that inner circle of people, where the family member assuming the caretaker role would be one of very few, if not the only person, who could do so. That idea has not changed.

What has changed are the people who might be in that inner circle. The nuclear American family has grown,

sometimes by design, and sometimes by necessity. More and more, that inner circle of close family might include a grandparent or grandchild, siblings, or same-sex domestic partners in loving and committed relationships.

As the law stands right now, too many of these people are excluded from the protections of the FMLA.

In these tough economic times, when unemployment is high and those with jobs are doing everything they can to keep them, we all know the value of job security. Hardworking Americans should not have to make the impossible choice between keeping their jobs and providing care and support for loved ones in their time of need. Twenty years ago, the FMLA ensured that millions of Americans did not have to make that choice. Now, the time has come to bring this protection into the 21st century and ensure that the security afforded by the FMLA is available to a broader range of American workers.

There are many who would understandably question what this kind of change in the law would cost the business community. Ensuring that workers can take the time they need to recover from a health emergency not only benefits an individual family, it benefits the community where the family lives and the businesses for which the family members work.

As I have stated in the past, the FMLA is already a very good law; it is already in place and it is working. It provides for unpaid leave when the need arises, and it only applies to businesses that have enough employees on hand to handle the absence of a single worker without too great a burden.

Ninety percent of the leave time that has been taken under the FMLA has been so that employees can care for themselves or for a child in their care, and those situations are already covered under the law as it stands. What the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act would do is provide a little more flexibility, and recognize that there are a few more people in that inner circle of family who we might call upon, or who might call upon us.

We can all agree that family is the first and best safety net in times of personal crisis. Families need to be given the realistic ability to provide that assistance. What the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act does is give those family members the ability to help their loved ones in ways that only they can, without fear of losing their jobs in the process.

The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act enhances the FMLA. Like the FMLA when it was passed two decades ago, the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act is long overdue. Our legislation contains reasonable changes that reflect what many of our nation's most successful businesses have already done and it accurately represents the modem American family.

The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act is supported by over 80 organizations from the business, civil rights, LGBT, and labor communities, including: the National Association of Working Women; AFSCME; American Academy of Pediatrics ACLU; Families USA; Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, GLAD; Human Rights Campaign; People for the American Way; SEIU and; The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act is the right thing to do, and I hope we can join together and pass it on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise to introduce the Homeless Veterans Prevention Act of 2013. I would like to thank Ranking Member Burr for joining me to introduce this bill. At a time when too many veterans are sleeping in the streets, in cars, and on couches, the Department of Veterans Affairs has taken on an aggressive initiative to end homelessness among veterans by 2015.

This high level commitment has led to a 17 percent decrease in the homeless veteran population between 2009 and 2012. These declining numbers are a reflection of the combined efforts of VA and its Federal, State, Local, Tribal, and community partners as they work to eliminate veteran homelessness by 2015. However on one night in January 2012, an estimated 62,000 veterans were still without a place to call home. We must continue to work toward removing any remaining barriers to housing for veterans.

The legislation we are introducing today would reaffirm this commitment by improving upon VA's programs to prevent and end homelessness among veterans. VA's transitional housing programs for homeless veterans must modernize to ensure that they are meeting the needs of the homeless veterans they are serving. With increasing numbers of women joining the military and eventually becoming veterans, VA is facing a growing homeless women veteran population. Many of these women are single mothers or have experienced military sexual trauma, making their housing needs even more complex.

The Government Accountability Office and VA's Office of the Inspector General both found that homeless women veterans were not able to safely access services through VA's transitional housing programs. The Homeless Veterans Prevention Act of 2013 would remove these barriers by requiring grantees to ensure that facilities can safely serve the needs of the populations that will be living there. It also would allow VA to reimburse grantees for housing the children of homeless veterans, keeping families together and encouraging parents to come forth and be housed without having to worry about splitting their families up.

As VA focuses on resolving homelessness, instead of just managing it, housing stability is increasingly a focus. This bill also modifies the transitional housing program to allow VA to incentivize grantees to avoid the challenges that veterans completing time-limited transitional housing programs can face as they search for permanent housing. More specifically, this bill allows VA to focus on housing stability by allowing certain transitional housing grantees to turn a portion of their transitional housing units into permanent housing units as veterans are stabilized and linked to support services.

Access to stable and safe housing is a priority, but it is also critical to find ways to prevent homelessness among veterans who are at-risk of becoming homeless. This bill would also increase access to legal services and dental care for our veterans, two things that homeless veterans themselves have identified as unmet needs. Access to these services would greatly increase their chances of finding gainful employment, avoid foreclosure or eviction, obtain identification, and deal with legal issues that have resulted from the criminalization of homelessness, among other things.

Veterans have a number of services and resources available to meet their needs. At its very simplest, homelessness among veterans is preventable when all of these programs work together to lift a veteran up. Conversely, homelessness occurs when a veteran slips through the cracks. We cannot sit by idly and allow another veteran to slip through the cracks. We must reach out and let them know when, where and how to get the help that they need and that they have earned.

This is not a full summary of all the provisions within this legislation. However, I hope that I have provided an appropriate overview of the major benefits this legislation would provide.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I am proud to introduce the Caregivers Expansion and Improvement Act of 2013, which will address the important needs of veterans' caregivers.

For generations, as the men and women of our armed forces returned home with serious injuries sustained overseas, their wives, husbands, parents and other family members stepped in to care for them. These family members have often provided this care at significant personal sacrifice. These caregivers' dedication to caring for the needs of their injured veterans has often resulted in lost professional opportunities and reduction in income.

Under the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010, important services and benefits were made available to seriously injured post-9/11 veterans and their families. These changes improved the lives of caregivers by giving them the support they need which, in turn, improved the lives of veterans. These services and benefits for caregivers include a tax-free monthly stipend, travel expenses, health insurance, mental health services and counseling, caregiver training and respite care for caregivers of seriously injured post-9/11 veterans. However, these services were not made available to pre-9/11 veterans with equally serious injuries and whose caregivers were in equal need of support.

Many caregivers of pre-9/11 veterans have been caring for injured veterans for years with no support from the federal government. It is time to provide equal benefits to veterans and their family members from all eras. My legislation does just that.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting equal treatment of the caregivers of our Nation's veterans and cosponsor my legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I am proud to introduce the Veterans Health Promotion Act of 2013, which will address veterans' health and wellness.

The most recent statistics show that VA is providing health care to over 6.5 million individual veterans each year, including over 674,000 veterans from the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These veterans are enrolling in VA at a rate of 56 percent, higher than any other group of veterans from previous conflicts. These veterans are receiving some of the best health care this nation has to offer. They can access this care at medical centers, outpatient clinics, vet centers, mobile clinics and through telemedicine.

Despite this access to care, many veterans still struggle with their overall wellbeing. Therefore, it is not enough to treat veterans who are very sick. When we focus solely on disease and illness, we miss the broader goal of wellness. We must expand our understanding of the care options necessary to improve veterans' lives. Therefore, I am introducing legislation which would do just that--expand veterans' access a full spectrum of care including wellness and Complementary and Alternative Medicine--known as CAM.

VA has made significant strides in providing CAM at VA medical centers. As the name describes, CAM therapies can serve as a complement to traditional care or, for some veterans, as an alternative. There is a growing body of evidence to support the value of these therapies but greater understanding can be achieved through the expansion of these services to more veterans. The legislation I am introducing today would do just that.

This expansion would occur through the Veterans Health Administration's Center of Innovation, which is developing, demonstrating and evaluating veteran-centered health care policies. To date, VA has established five such centers. My legislation would increase the number of these Centers of Innovation, establishing at least one in each of VA's 23 Veterans Integrated Service Networks. My legislation would create a total of fifteen pilot sites to provide CAM therapies to veterans throughout the nation. Five of the pilot sites would be located at VA's Polytrauma Centers, which care for veterans with the most complex injuries. The remaining ten would provide CAM therapies within primary care settings.

Additionally, my legislation would require VA to study barriers to providing and promoting preventive and holistic approaches to health care, including CAM and wellness, in the primary care setting. When we understand these barriers we can find a way to break them down, furthering opportunities to enhance the overall health and sense of wellbeing among veterans.

The legislation would also authorize grants to state and city agencies, and community-based nonprofit organizations to provide combat veterans and their family members access to wellness programs. By leveraging these outside organizations while improving their collaboration with VA, we can improve access to wellness programs without sacrificing VA's valuable model of care coordination.

An important component for maintaining a healthy lifestyle is physical activity. One of the best ways to improve the health of a population is to increase access to opportunities for physical activity. When coupled with a healthy diet, physical fitness can help promote weight loss and lower the risk of diabetes, heart attack and stroke. Therefore, my legislation would create a pilot program to provide fitness center memberships for overweight and obese veterans, in consultation with their VA health care provider. The pilot program would be over a 2-year period at 10 pilot sites. Additionally, the legislation would require VA to partner with fitness centers to improve access for veterans.

Finally, we must ensure CAM, wellness and fitness options are not only available to veterans, but are also utilized by veterans. Therefore, my legislation would require VA to study the barriers that exist across VHA in providing and promoting preventative and holistic approaches to health care, to include Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Wellness, in the primary care setting in order to enhance their overall health and sense of wellbeing among veterans.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and I look forward to working with them to continue to improve health care access for our veterans.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today, I am proud to introduce the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2013. The Justice for All Act, originally enacted in 2004, was an unprecedented bipartisan piece of criminal justice legislation. It was the most significant step Congress had taken in many years to improve the quality of justice in this country. I am pleased to be joined this year by Senator Cornyn as an original cosponsor of this legislation. I know that Senator Cornyn shares my commitment to ensuring public confidence in the integrity of the American justice system.

It is fitting that we introduce this bill now, during Crime Victims' Rights week, as we honor the victims of crime across the country, and reaffirm our commitment to seeking justice on their behalf. That commitment feels particularly important now, in light of this year's horrific events in Boston and Newtown. Nothing can eliminate the pain inflicted by those tragedies, but we can work together to ensure that the needs of those families are met so that they can find healing and begin to rebuild their lives.

This legislation takes important steps to strengthen rights for victims of crime. For example, it establishes an affirmative right to be informed of their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act and other key laws, and it takes several steps to make it easier for crime victims to assert those rights in court.

In addition to being Crime Victims' Rights Week, today is National DNA Day and it is appropriate to acknowledge the power DNA testing has had in improving our criminal justice system. One example of that impact has been in the testing of rape kits. This legislation reauthorizes the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Reduction Act, which has provided significant funding to reduce the backlog of untested rape kits so that victims need not live in fear while kits languish in storage. That program is named after Debbie Smith who waited years after being attacked before her rape kit was tested and the perpetrator was caught. She and her husband Rob have worked tirelessly to ensure that others will not experience the ordeal she went through. I thank Debbie and Rob for their continuing help on this extremely important cause.

The legislation also includes significant measures to improve the administration of justice in our courts, including the use of post- conviction DNA testing. The bill is built on the work I began in 2000, when I introduced the Innocence Protection Act, which sought to ensure that defendants in the most serious cases receive competent representation and, where appropriate, access to post-conviction DNA testing

necessary to prove their innocence in those cases where the system got it grievously wrong.

The Innocence Protection Act became a key component of the Justice for All Act. The act also included vital provisions to ensure that crime victims would have the rights and protections they need and deserve and that States and communities would take major steps to reduce the backlog of untested rape kits and ensure prompt justice for victims of sexual assault. These and other important criminal justice provisions made the Justice for All Act a groundbreaking achievement in criminal justice reform.

The programs created by the Justice for All Act have had an enormous impact, and it is crucial that we reauthorize them. Unfortunately, it is clear that simply reauthorizing the existing law is not enough. Significant problems remain, and we must work together to address them.

In the years since the Justice for All Act passed, we have seen too many cases of people found to be innocent after spending years in jail. A California man, Brian Banks, was exonerated after spending five years in prison for a rape he did not commit. He recently signed with the Atlanta Falcons and will realize his dream of playing professional football. Brian's story had a happy ending, but too many wrongly convicted people are not as lucky. It is an outrage when an innocent person is punished, and this injustice is compounded when the true perpetrator remains on the streets, able to commit more crimes. We are all less safe when the system gets it wrong.

To that end, this legislation strengthens the Kirk Bloodsworth Post Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program, one of the key programs created in the Innocence Protection Act. Kirk Bloodsworth was a young man just out of the Marines when he was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for a heinous crime that he did not commit. He was the first person in the United States to be exonerated from a death row crime through the use of DNA evidence.

This program provides grants to States for testing in cases like Kirk's where someone has been convicted, but where significant DNA evidence was not tested. The last administration resisted implementing the program for several years, but we worked hard to see the program put into place. Now, money has gone out to a number of States, and is having an impact. The legislation we introduce today clarifies the conditions set for this program so that participating States are required to preserve key evidence, which is crucial, but are given further guidance about how to do so in a way that is attainable and will allow more states to participate.

This legislation takes important steps to ensure that all criminal defendants, including those who cannot afford a lawyer, receive effective representation. It requires the Department of Justice to assist States in developing an effective and efficient system of indigent defense. I know as a former prosecutor, that the system only works as it should when each side is well represented by competent and well-trained counsel. Fifty years after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, it is past time to ensure that all criminal defendants have effective representation before government authority takes away their liberty.

The bill also asks States to produce comprehensive plans for their criminal justice systems, which will help to ensure that criminal justice systems operate effectively as a whole and that all parts of the system work together and receive the resources they need.

The bill reauthorizes and improves key grant programs in a variety of areas throughout the criminal justice system. Importantly, it increases authorized funding for the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant program, which is a vital program to assist forensic laboratories in performing the many forensic tests that are essential to solving crimes and prosecuting perpetrators.

In these times of tight budgets, it is important to note that this bill would make all of these improvements while responsibly reducing the total authorized funding under the Justice For All Act and that many of these changes will help States, communities, and the Federal Government save money in the long term.

I thank the many law enforcement and criminal justice organizations that have helped to pinpoint the needed improvements that this law attempts to solve and I appreciate their ongoing support in seeing it passed.

Today, we rededicate ourselves to building a criminal justice system in which the innocent remain free, the guilty are punished, and all sides have the tools, resources, and knowledge they need to advance the cause of justice. Americans need and deserve a criminal justice system which keeps us safe, ensures fairness and accuracy, and fulfills the promise of our constitution. This bill will take important steps to bring us closer to that goal.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I wish to take time to speak about an important issue that needs immediate attention, suicide among our servicemembers and veterans. Last year, we lost more servicemen and women to suicide than we lost in combat in Afghanistan.

In 2012, approximately 349 members of the U.S. military, including Active-Duty, Guard, and Reserve, committed suicide--more than the total number of servicemembers who died in combat operations. This number does not even include the more than 6,000 veterans we lost last year to suicide. This is unacceptable. This has to end.

Today, I am introducing my first bill as a Senator, the Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act of 2013. We are doing this to address this pervasive issue. This bill seeks to better identify servicemembers struggling with mental health issues and to ensure they receive the assistance they need before resorting to this tragic act.

I named this bill after a member of the Indiana National Guard, Jacob Sexton, a native of farmland Indiana, who tragically took his life in 2009 while home on a 15-day leave from Afghanistan. His death came as a shock to his family and his friends as well as his fellow Guard members.

This is a picture of Jacob while on duty. He is an American hero. He did everything he could to serve his country and to help people from another country, to help people around the world live a better life.

A couple months ago, I heard from Jacob's dad Jeff, and I have since learned about his childhood in Indiana, Jacob's service to our Nation, and the big heart he always showed through his dedication to bringing winter coats to all the kids he met in Afghanistan during his deployment.

Jeff, along with his wife and Jacob's mom Barbara, has since become an advocate for suicide prevention. They want to make sure what happened to Jacob doesn't happen to anyone else. They helped inspire this bill, and I thank them for their dedication to preventing these tragedies for other parents and loved ones of men and women in uniform.

This is a collage made in honor of Jacob by his mom Barbara, and it is a reflection of who he was, the things he did, the people he served, and the wonderful spirit of ``can do'' and ``how can I help my country'' that permeated who he was. My hope is we can help men and women similar to Jacob who are struggling with mental health issues to get the help they need before they resort to taking their own life.

The facts on military suicides are stark. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Centers for Disease Control, at least 30,000 veterans and military members have committed suicide since the Department of Defense began closely tracking these numbers in 2009. It is important to note suicide is not necessarily linked to deployments abroad. Since the Defense Department Suicide Prevention Office began keeping detailed records in 2008, less than half of suicide victims had deployed and few were involved in combat.

Most of DOD's existing suicide prevention programs work within the context of deployments. As we draw down in Afghanistan and away from the strain of multiple deployments, it is time to find a more integrated solution that does not rely on the deployment cycle to the servicemember's mental health. Instead, research has shown that other risk factors, such as relationship issues, legal or financial issues or substance abuse play a larger role in suicides than a servicemember's deployment history.

We have heard this firsthand from crisis intervention officers right in my home State of Indiana. Further, many of these suicide victims did not communicate their intent to take their own life nor did they have known behavioral health issues. Given the facts before us, what does the current mental health system look like? The current mental health systems for both Active and Retired military rely on a servicemember's or a veteran's willingness to self-report suicidal thoughts and to seek out assistance. The backup to this system is if family members, peers or coworkers identify changes in behavior and then recommend their loved one or friend seek assistance.

How do we improve this system? The Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act of 2013 would establish a pilot program in each of the military services and also the Reserve components to integrate annual mental health assessments into a servicemember's periodic health assessment--or PHA. That is an annual review designed to track whether a servicemember is fit to serve. The pilot program would expand that review to include a more detailed mental health review and to identify those risk factors for mental illness so servicemembers can receive preventive care and help.

By building on the system that monitors the member from induction to transition into veteran status, an expanded review, including a mental health assessment, would create a holistic picture of a servicemember's readiness to serve. The servicemember can carry this record with them as they leave the service, and it could help inform any future claims for veterans' benefits.

The Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act would also integrate a first-line supervisor's input. The first-line supervisor plays an important role in a servicemember's life and may be aware of relationships or financial problems but not be able to address them unless the servicemember speaks up. Sometimes these problems affect performance. The supervisor's input would help identify potential triggers for stress and suicidal tendencies or problems in work performance.

The results of the whole questionnaire would be reviewed by mental health specialists. If problems or risk factors are identified, servicemembers would be referred to behavioral health specialists for further evaluation and medical care.

I included in this legislation--and this is critical--privacy protections to ensure information collected through the survey is used only for medical purposes. It cannot be used for promotion, retention or disciplinary purposes. I strongly believe a servicemember should not bear any consequence for reporting on their mental health or trying to seek out mental health assistance.

Finally, as I think we should expect of all government programs and proposals, my bill would require an assessment as to whether it is actually working. To determine the effectiveness of the program and the ways to move forward, this bill would require a report from the Department of Defense to Congress on the impact of the program in identifying behavioral health concerns and interventions in suicides.

We have lost far too many men and women such as Jacob. Let us come together in a bipartisan fashion to honor the memories of Jacob and all those Americans we have lost by working to improve our ability to spot warning signs before it is too late. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation on behalf of those who sacrifice so much for our Nation every day.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the PCAOB Enforcement Transparency Act of 2013 along with my colleague Senator Grassley. This bill will allow the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, PCAOB, to make public disciplinary proceedings it has brought against auditors and audit firms earlier in the process.

Slightly over 10 years ago, our markets fell victim to a series of massive financial reporting frauds, including those involving Enron and WorldCom. Public companies had produced fraudulent and materially misleading financial statements, which artificially drove their stock prices up and misrepresented their overall profitability. Once the fraud was discovered, investor confidence plummeted, as did the markets themselves. We all took a step back after this crisis and asked ourselves how such massive financial fraud in public reporting companies could have gone undetected for so long.

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs conducted a series of hearings on issues that were raised by the revelations raised by fraud at Enron and other public companies. The hearings produced consensus on a number of underlying causes, including weak corporate governance, a lack of accountability, and inadequate oversight of accountants charged with auditing a public company's financial statements.

In order to address the gaps and structural weaknesses revealed by the investigation and hearings, the Senate passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in a 99 to 0 vote.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act ensured that corporate officers were directly accountable for their financial reporting and for the quality of their financial statements. The law also created a strong, independent board to oversee the conduct of the auditors of public companies, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The PCAOB is responsible for overseeing auditors of public companies in order to protect investors who rely on independent audit reports on the financial statements of public companies. The Board operates under the oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The PCAOB oversees more than 2,400 registered auditing firms, as well as the thousands of audit partners and staff who contribute to a firm's work on each audit. The Board's ability to commence proceedings to determine whether there have been violations of its auditing standards or rules of professional practice is an important component of its oversight.

However, unlike other oversight bodies, such as the SEC, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and others, the Board's disciplinary proceedings are not allowed to be public unless the parties consent. Of course, parties subject to disciplinary proceedings have no incentive to consent to publicizing their alleged wrongdoing and thus these proceedings remain cloaked behind a veil of secrecy. In addition, the Board's decisions in disciplinary proceedings are not allowed to be publicized until after the complete exhaustion of an appeals process, which can often take several years.

The PCAOB's nonpublic disciplinary proceedings create a lack of transparency that invites abuse and undermines the Congressional intent behind the establishment of the PCAOB, which was to shine a bright light on auditing firms and practices, and to bolster the accountability of auditors of public companies to the investing public.

Over the last several years, bad actors have taken advantage of the lack of transparency by using it to shield themselves from public scrutiny and accountability. PCAOB Chairman James Doty has repeatedly stated in testimony provided to both the Senate and House of Representatives over the past two years that the secrecy of the proceedings ``has a variety of unfortunate consequences'' and that such secrecy is harmful to investors, the auditing profession, and the public at large.

In one example, an accounting firm that was subject to a disciplinary proceeding continued to issue no fewer than 29 additional audit reports on public companies without any of those companies knowing about the PCAOB disciplinary proceedings. In other words, investors and the public company clients of that audit firm were deprived of relevant and material information about the proceedings against the firm and the substance of any violations.

There are several reasons why the Board's enforcement proceedings should be open and transparent. First,

as I have already noted, the closed proceedings run counter to the public proceedings of other government oversight bodies. Indeed, nearly all administrative proceedings brought by the SEC against those it regulates public companies, brokers, dealers, investment advisers, and others are open, public proceedings. The PCAOB's secret proceedings are not only shielded from the public, but from Congress as well. How can the public and Congress properly evaluate the Board's oversight of auditors and audit firms, and its enforcement program, when no one is entitled to know any of the details of these administrative proceedings, including whether a proceeding has even been initiated?

Second, the incentive to litigate cases in order to continue to shield conduct from the public as long as possible frustrates the process and requires the expenditure of needless resources by both litigants and the PCAOB.

Third, agencies such as the SEC have observed the benefits of open and transparent disciplinary proceedings, which include the benefit of informing peer audit firms of the type of activity that may give rise to enforcement action by the regulator. In effect, transparency of proceedings can serve as a deterrent to misconduct because of a perceived increase in the likelihood of ``getting caught.'' Accordingly, the audit industry as a whole would also benefit from timely, public, and non-secret enforcement proceedings.

Our bill will make hearings by the PCAOB, and all related notices, orders, and motions, transparent and available to the public unless otherwise ordered by the Board. This would make the PCAOB's procedures similar to those of the SEC for analogous matters.

Increasing the transparency and accountability of audit firms subject to disciplinary proceedings instituted by the PCAOB is a critical component of efforts to bolster and maintain investor confidence in our financial markets, and should better protect companies as well from problematic auditors.

I hope our colleagues will join Senator Grassley and me in taking the legislative steps necessary to enhance transparency in the PCAOB's enforcement process.