Floor Statements

Mr. President, as we are about to begin the Fourth of July district work period in my State and throughout this country, many people are going to be getting into their automobiles and they are going to be traveling. In general, people who live in rural States such as Vermont don't have the option of getting on a subway. They don't have the option of getting on a bus to get to work. They use their automobile. In Vermont and all across this country, people who are driving have noticed that the price of gasoline at the pump has soared and is today much higher than it used to be.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the national average retail price for regular unleaded gasoline is $3.70 a gallon-- the highest price for this time of year since 2008. According to the AAA, drivers in three States have paid over $4 a gallon at the pump for more than a month, and those States are Hawaii, California, and Alaska. In my home State of Vermont, the current average for a gallon of gas is about $3.73.

When the price of gasoline goes up, a lot of people get hurt and the economy gets impacted. But mostly it affects working people who have no other option but traveling by car, and many of

these workers are making $10, $12, $15 an hour; and many of these workers have seen declines in their wages in recent years. Yet, in order to get to work to make a living, they have to get in the car and they have no choice but to pay soaring gas prices.

While gas prices are soaring, people should not be shocked or will not be shocked to know that the big oil companies, which have racked up $1.2 trillion in profits since 2001, are now telling us that the reason gas prices are going up is because of the volatile situation in Iraq. That is why suddenly gas prices have gone up--because of the conflict in Iraq.

The American people are sick and tired of hearing from the big oil companies using every excuse they possibly can. If it is snowing, the price of gas goes up. If there is conflict in the Middle East, the price of gas goes up. If it is raining, if it is sunny, if it is somebody's birthday, the price of gas goes up. Interestingly enough, we don't see that same logic when the price of gas should be going down, but it always seems to be going up. Meanwhile, the five biggest oil companies in America--again, not too surprisingly--continue to make huge profits. During the first quarter of this year, ExxonMobil made a profit of $9.1 billion--the first quarter; Shell made $7.3 billion, Chevron made $4.5 billion, and ConocoPhillips made $2.1 billion. The price of gas at the pump soars and the major oil companies make huge profits.

Last year, these five major oil companies--ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips--made $93 billion in profits. ExxonMobil alone made nearly $33 billion in profits in 2013.

So in the State of Vermont and all over this country, working people are seeing, in many cases, declines in their wages. Yet they have to get to work. Meanwhile, the price of oil, the price of gas soars, and the oil companies make out like bandits.

Here is the interesting point: When I was in high school--and I suspect kids all over the country are still being taught this--we learned about a theory called supply and demand. What supply and demand is about is when there is a lot of supply and limited demand, prices go down. When there is limited supply and a lot of demand, prices go up.

Well, guess what. To nobody's surprise, that is not the way it works in the oil industry. Today, there is more supply and less demand for gasoline than there was 5 years ago when the average price of a gallon of gas was just $2.69 a gallon. So let me repeat that. More supply, less demand, and today the price of a gallon of gas is $3.70 a gallon, but 5 years ago it was $2.69 a gallon. Where is the logic of supply and demand? Where is that process?

According to the EIA, there has been a 9 million barrel increase in the supply of gasoline over the past 5 years--a 9 million barrel increase. Since 2009, the United States has increased gasoline supplies by 4.3 percent. Supply has gone up. What about demand? According to the EIA, the United States is consuming 96,000 fewer barrels of gasoline than it did in 2009--a 1-percent drop in demand compared to 5 years ago. If the supply and demand theory were true, gasoline prices would be a bit lower--a bit lower--than they were 5 years ago--somewhere perhaps in the neighborhood of $2.69 a gallon. Instead, despite the increase in supply, despite the lowering of demand, the average price for a gallon of gas in the United States has gone up by nearly 38 percent over the last 5 years, from $2.69 a gallon to $3.70 a gallon. Let me repeat. Since 2009 the supply of gasoline has gone up by more than 4 percent and demand for gasoline has gone down by 1 percent. Yet prices at the pump are up by nearly 38 percent.

People say: We need more oil, we need more gas. It doesn't matter-- supply up, demand down, prices of gas at the pump soaring.

The truth is the high gasoline prices have less to do with supply and demand and more to do with Wall Street speculators driving prices up in the energy futures market. Over a decade ago, speculators only controlled about 30 to 40 percent of the oil futures market. Today, Wall Street speculators control about 80 percent of this market. Let me repeat. Wall Street speculators control about 80 percent of the oil futures market, even though many of them will never use a drop of the oil. People think that when people own oil on the oil futures market, they actually own it because they are going to use it. Maybe it is the airline industry; maybe it is the trucking industry; maybe it is oil fuel dealers. Wrong. The oil futures market is controlled by speculators who never use the end product and whose only goal in life is to drive prices up to make a huge profit, and that is exactly what they do.

We, as the elected officials of this country, who are presumably representing working families around America, have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure the price of gasoline at the pump is based on the fundamentals of supply and demand and not Wall Street greed. That is why I am introducing legislation today to require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all of its authority, including its emergency powers, to eliminate excessive oil speculation.

This bill is cosponsored by Senators Levin, Nelson, Blumenthal, McCaskill, Franken, Brown, Cardin, Baldwin, Whitehouse, Markey, Klobuchar, Shaheen, Merkley, and Hirono. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is introducing the companion bill in the House. I thank all of these Members for their support.

Our legislation, the Energy Markets Emergency Act, is identical to bipartisan legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 402 to 19 during a similar crisis in June of 2008.

Specifically, our bill directs the CFTC to do the following within 14 days of enactment:

No. 1: Immediately curb the role of excessive speculation in any contract market within the jurisdiction and control of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, on or through which energy futures or swaps are traded.

No. 2: Eliminate excessive speculation, price distortion, sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in prices or other unlawful activity that is causing major market disturbances that prevent gasoline and oil prices from accurately reflecting the forces of supply and demand.

There is now a growing consensus--this is not just the opinion of Bernie Sanders--there is a growing consensus that excessive speculation on the oil futures market is significantly contributing to the high prices the American people are seeing at the pump.

ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the American Trucking Association, Delta Airlines, the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, the New England Fuel Institute, the Consumer Federation of America, and many other organizations have all agreed that excessive oil speculation has significantly increased oil and gas prices.

Just a few years ago, Goldman Sachs--perhaps the largest speculator on Wall Street--came out with a report indicating that excessive oil speculation is costing Americans 56 cents a gallon at the pump--56 cents a gallon. I personally think that is a conservative estimate, but it is interesting that it comes from Goldman Sachs itself.

The CEO--and what can we say--the CEO of ExxonMobil has testified in the past that he believes excessive speculation has contributed as much as 40 percent to the price of a barrel of oil.

So what you are hearing is some of the Wall Street people--in a rare moment of honesty--acknowledging the impact of speculation. You are hearing the head of the largest oil company in America acknowledging the impact of speculation on gas prices. I think we do not need a whole lot of evidence to suggest this is a serious problem.

Three years ago my office obtained confidential information about how much Wall Street speculators were trading in the oil futures market on just one day--and that day was June 30, 2008--when the price of oil was over $140 a barrel and gas prices were over $4 a gallon. Here is what some of the biggest oil speculators were doing back then, on just one day of trading: June 30, 2008. This goes on every day. One day: Goldman Sachs bought and sold over 863 million barrels of oil, Morgan Stanley bought and sold over 632 million barrels of oil, Bank of America bought and sold over 112 million barrels of oil, Lehman Brothers--obviously now bankrupt--bought and sold over 300 million barrels of oil, Merrill

Lynch--bought by Bank of America--bought and sold over 240 million barrels of oil.

The only reason these firms were betting on the price of oil was to speculate and to make money. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, they do not use oil. Their only function in this process is speculation, driving up prices and making huge profits.

The rise in oil and gasoline prices was entirely avoidable. The Dodd- Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act required the CFTC to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that Wall Street speculators could trade in the energy futures market by January 17, 2011--over 3\1/2\ years ago.

Unfortunately, the CFTC has been unable to implement position limits due to opposition from Wall Street and a ruling by the DC Circuit Court. This is simply unacceptable. Millions and millions of Americans who are filling up their gas tanks today are disgusted. They know they are being ripped off, and they want us to protect their needs. The time is now to provide the American people relief at the gas pump before the situation gets even worse.

I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation.

Mr. President, as we are about to begin the Fourth of July district work period in my State and throughout this country, many people are going to be getting into their automobiles and they are going to be traveling. In general, people who live in rural States such as Vermont don't have the option of getting on a subway. They don't have the option of getting on a bus to get to work. They use their automobile. In Vermont and all across this country, people who are driving have noticed that the price of gasoline at the pump has soared and is today much higher than it used to be.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the national average retail price for regular unleaded gasoline is $3.70 a gallon-- the highest price for this time of year since 2008. According to the AAA, drivers in three States have paid over $4 a gallon at the pump for more than a month, and those States are Hawaii, California, and Alaska. In my home State of Vermont, the current average for a gallon of gas is about $3.73.

When the price of gasoline goes up, a lot of people get hurt and the economy gets impacted. But mostly it affects working people who have no other option but traveling by car, and many of

these workers are making $10, $12, $15 an hour; and many of these workers have seen declines in their wages in recent years. Yet, in order to get to work to make a living, they have to get in the car and they have no choice but to pay soaring gas prices.

While gas prices are soaring, people should not be shocked or will not be shocked to know that the big oil companies, which have racked up $1.2 trillion in profits since 2001, are now telling us that the reason gas prices are going up is because of the volatile situation in Iraq. That is why suddenly gas prices have gone up--because of the conflict in Iraq.

The American people are sick and tired of hearing from the big oil companies using every excuse they possibly can. If it is snowing, the price of gas goes up. If there is conflict in the Middle East, the price of gas goes up. If it is raining, if it is sunny, if it is somebody's birthday, the price of gas goes up. Interestingly enough, we don't see that same logic when the price of gas should be going down, but it always seems to be going up. Meanwhile, the five biggest oil companies in America--again, not too surprisingly--continue to make huge profits. During the first quarter of this year, ExxonMobil made a profit of $9.1 billion--the first quarter; Shell made $7.3 billion, Chevron made $4.5 billion, and ConocoPhillips made $2.1 billion. The price of gas at the pump soars and the major oil companies make huge profits.

Last year, these five major oil companies--ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips--made $93 billion in profits. ExxonMobil alone made nearly $33 billion in profits in 2013.

So in the State of Vermont and all over this country, working people are seeing, in many cases, declines in their wages. Yet they have to get to work. Meanwhile, the price of oil, the price of gas soars, and the oil companies make out like bandits.

Here is the interesting point: When I was in high school--and I suspect kids all over the country are still being taught this--we learned about a theory called supply and demand. What supply and demand is about is when there is a lot of supply and limited demand, prices go down. When there is limited supply and a lot of demand, prices go up.

Well, guess what. To nobody's surprise, that is not the way it works in the oil industry. Today, there is more supply and less demand for gasoline than there was 5 years ago when the average price of a gallon of gas was just $2.69 a gallon. So let me repeat that. More supply, less demand, and today the price of a gallon of gas is $3.70 a gallon, but 5 years ago it was $2.69 a gallon. Where is the logic of supply and demand? Where is that process?

According to the EIA, there has been a 9 million barrel increase in the supply of gasoline over the past 5 years--a 9 million barrel increase. Since 2009, the United States has increased gasoline supplies by 4.3 percent. Supply has gone up. What about demand? According to the EIA, the United States is consuming 96,000 fewer barrels of gasoline than it did in 2009--a 1-percent drop in demand compared to 5 years ago. If the supply and demand theory were true, gasoline prices would be a bit lower--a bit lower--than they were 5 years ago--somewhere perhaps in the neighborhood of $2.69 a gallon. Instead, despite the increase in supply, despite the lowering of demand, the average price for a gallon of gas in the United States has gone up by nearly 38 percent over the last 5 years, from $2.69 a gallon to $3.70 a gallon. Let me repeat. Since 2009 the supply of gasoline has gone up by more than 4 percent and demand for gasoline has gone down by 1 percent. Yet prices at the pump are up by nearly 38 percent.

People say: We need more oil, we need more gas. It doesn't matter-- supply up, demand down, prices of gas at the pump soaring.

The truth is the high gasoline prices have less to do with supply and demand and more to do with Wall Street speculators driving prices up in the energy futures market. Over a decade ago, speculators only controlled about 30 to 40 percent of the oil futures market. Today, Wall Street speculators control about 80 percent of this market. Let me repeat. Wall Street speculators control about 80 percent of the oil futures market, even though many of them will never use a drop of the oil. People think that when people own oil on the oil futures market, they actually own it because they are going to use it. Maybe it is the airline industry; maybe it is the trucking industry; maybe it is oil fuel dealers. Wrong. The oil futures market is controlled by speculators who never use the end product and whose only goal in life is to drive prices up to make a huge profit, and that is exactly what they do.

We, as the elected officials of this country, who are presumably representing working families around America, have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure the price of gasoline at the pump is based on the fundamentals of supply and demand and not Wall Street greed. That is why I am introducing legislation today to require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all of its authority, including its emergency powers, to eliminate excessive oil speculation.

This bill is cosponsored by Senators Levin, Nelson, Blumenthal, McCaskill, Franken, Brown, Cardin, Baldwin, Whitehouse, Markey, Klobuchar, Shaheen, Merkley, and Hirono. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is introducing the companion bill in the House. I thank all of these Members for their support.

Our legislation, the Energy Markets Emergency Act, is identical to bipartisan legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 402 to 19 during a similar crisis in June of 2008.

Specifically, our bill directs the CFTC to do the following within 14 days of enactment:

No. 1: Immediately curb the role of excessive speculation in any contract market within the jurisdiction and control of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, on or through which energy futures or swaps are traded.

No. 2: Eliminate excessive speculation, price distortion, sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in prices or other unlawful activity that is causing major market disturbances that prevent gasoline and oil prices from accurately reflecting the forces of supply and demand.

There is now a growing consensus--this is not just the opinion of Bernie Sanders--there is a growing consensus that excessive speculation on the oil futures market is significantly contributing to the high prices the American people are seeing at the pump.

ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the American Trucking Association, Delta Airlines, the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, the New England Fuel Institute, the Consumer Federation of America, and many other organizations have all agreed that excessive oil speculation has significantly increased oil and gas prices.

Just a few years ago, Goldman Sachs--perhaps the largest speculator on Wall Street--came out with a report indicating that excessive oil speculation is costing Americans 56 cents a gallon at the pump--56 cents a gallon. I personally think that is a conservative estimate, but it is interesting that it comes from Goldman Sachs itself.

The CEO--and what can we say--the CEO of ExxonMobil has testified in the past that he believes excessive speculation has contributed as much as 40 percent to the price of a barrel of oil.

So what you are hearing is some of the Wall Street people--in a rare moment of honesty--acknowledging the impact of speculation. You are hearing the head of the largest oil company in America acknowledging the impact of speculation on gas prices. I think we do not need a whole lot of evidence to suggest this is a serious problem.

Three years ago my office obtained confidential information about how much Wall Street speculators were trading in the oil futures market on just one day--and that day was June 30, 2008--when the price of oil was over $140 a barrel and gas prices were over $4 a gallon. Here is what some of the biggest oil speculators were doing back then, on just one day of trading: June 30, 2008. This goes on every day. One day: Goldman Sachs bought and sold over 863 million barrels of oil, Morgan Stanley bought and sold over 632 million barrels of oil, Bank of America bought and sold over 112 million barrels of oil, Lehman Brothers--obviously now bankrupt--bought and sold over 300 million barrels of oil, Merrill

Lynch--bought by Bank of America--bought and sold over 240 million barrels of oil.

The only reason these firms were betting on the price of oil was to speculate and to make money. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, they do not use oil. Their only function in this process is speculation, driving up prices and making huge profits.

The rise in oil and gasoline prices was entirely avoidable. The Dodd- Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act required the CFTC to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that Wall Street speculators could trade in the energy futures market by January 17, 2011--over 3\1/2\ years ago.

Unfortunately, the CFTC has been unable to implement position limits due to opposition from Wall Street and a ruling by the DC Circuit Court. This is simply unacceptable. Millions and millions of Americans who are filling up their gas tanks today are disgusted. They know they are being ripped off, and they want us to protect their needs. The time is now to provide the American people relief at the gas pump before the situation gets even worse.

I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation.

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

Madam President, what the recent crisis at the Veterans' Administration has taught us is that the cost of war does not end when the last shots are fired and the last missiles are launched. The cost of war continues until the last veteran receives the care and benefits that he or she has earned on the battlefield. In other words, the cost of war is very expensive. It is expensive in terms of human life, in terms of human suffering, and in terms of financial commitment.

The cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan alone is almost 7,000 dead. The cost of war is some 200,000 men and women coming home from those wars with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. The cost of war from Iraq and Afghanistan is that many of our veterans have come home without arms or legs or eyesight or without their hearing. The cost of war is tragic suicides taking place all over this country from people who have returned from war.

The cost of war is veterans coming home unable to find jobs and get their feet back on the ground financially. The cost of war is high divorce rates and the impact that family stress has on kids. The cost of war is widows suddenly having to start their life anew without the person they married at their side.

Two weeks ago Senator McCain and I hammered together a proposal to deal with the current crisis at the VA, and I thank him very much for understanding the need to move forward expeditiously.

Last Wednesday this legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 93 to 3, and I thank all of the Members in both political parties for voting for this bill. I thank them for understanding that we need to continue moving forward on this legislation as quickly as possible and in a nonpartisan way.

A recent VA audit revealed that more than 57,000 veterans are waiting to be scheduled for medical appointments. They are in facilities where the waiting lists are much too long. That, to my mind, is clearly an emergency situation.

I thank all of those Senators who not only voted to pass this bill but, perhaps more importantly, voted to pay for this bill through emergency funding. I could not agree more with Senator McCain when he said:

If there is a definition of emergency, I would say that

this legislation fits that. It is an emergency. It is an

emergency what is happening to our veterans and the men and

women who have served this country. And we need to pass this

legislation and get it in conference with the House as soon

as possible.

I fully agree with Senator McCain's sentiment. Madam President, 93 Senators--in a strong bipartisan showing--agreed with Senator McCain and me that this is an emergency, that veterans must get the quality health care they need, and they must get it in a timely manner. We need to provide the funding the VA needs and do it in an expeditious way.

Needless to say, the bill we passed in the Senate is a compromise. It is not the bill I know Senator McCain would have written alone, and it is surely not the bill I would have written if I could have had the power to write it alone. It is a compromise that was hammered out in good faith, which is something we need to see more of in this body.

What this bill does is address the immediate crisis facing the VA of long waiting periods and makes certain that as soon as possible, the veterans of our country get the high-quality care they need and they get it in a timely fashion. That is what our veterans deserve.

I will briefly touch on some of the major provisions in the bill. This bill allows for 26 major medical facility leases, which means improved and expanded care for veterans in 17 States and Puerto Rico. There has been some disagreement about a 27th facility located in Oklahoma. That facility was in the original bill I introduced, and I supported its inclusion in final passage.

This bill also provides for the expedited hiring of VA doctors and nurses and $500 million targeted to hire those providers with unobligated funds. No medical program can provide quality care in a timely manner if those programs do not have an adequate number of doctors, nurses, and other medical providers.

This bill will provide an opportunity for the VA to immediately increase capacity within their system. It will provide an expedited hiring authority to allow VA to quickly hire doctors and nurses, which is not the case right now. One of the problems with the VA is they have a very complicated process. It takes a whole lot of time, and they often lose their applicants because it takes such a long period of time. We need to change that, and this bill does that.

Right now there are 741 vacancy announcements for physician positions at VA on USAJOBS. My understanding is that is a flaw. In fact, the real number of physicians needed is significantly greater than that. In Phoenix alone there have been estimates that up to 500 new providers in that one facility alone--and those are doctors, nurses, and other health care providers--are needed if the veterans in Phoenix are going to have timely care.

Further, what our legislation also does is say to veterans around the country that if they cannot get into a VA facility in a timely manner, they will be able to get the care they need outside of the VA. In my view, what we need to do is hire those doctors, nurses, and supporting staff so veterans who come to the VA can get timely care there, but if they cannot get to a VA facility, this legislation is very clear in stating that they can go to private doctors, community health centers, Department of Defense bases or Indian health care facilities.

The goal is to give veterans a wide option to access care in a timely manner through providers in their communities. If the VA is unable to accommodate those veterans, they are going to go outside of the VA and get timely health care, and that is a very important provision in this bill.

This bill also says veterans who live 40 miles or more from a VA facility--if they choose--also have the option of seeking care outside of the VA. For those veterans living in very rural areas--and I have talked to one Senator who indicated that in some cases a veteran has to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles to get VA health care--this provision will also be very important.

The bill also addresses a major crisis we have seen in the military; that is, the tragedy and the outrage of sexual assault. Our bill will significantly increase VA services for those veterans who experienced sexual assault in the military.

This bill also deals with an issue--where there is widespread support across partisan lines--instate tuition for all veterans at public colleges and universities. This bill also importantly provides that surviving spouses--mostly wives who have lost their husbands in battle--will also be eligible for the post-9/11 GI bill, and that is exactly the right thing to do.

This bill also establishes commissions to provide help to give the VA in terms of improving schedule capabilities and capital planning. These are areas, frankly, where the VA has not been strong. They can use private sector and expert help so they can improve their scheduling capabilities and their ability to do capital planning.

Finally, and importantly, this bill gives the Secretary the authority to immediately fire incompetent employees or those who have falsified or manipulated data in terms of waiting periods. All of us have been outraged that people have intentionally manipulated data to make it appear that veterans

have been getting timely care when that was not the case.

Our bill gives the Secretary the ability to fire those employees and other incompetent employees and it also provides due process. I think that is important because I do not want to see the VA politicized. I don't want to see a President coming into office with a new Secretary firing 300 or 400 top-level supervisors. We do not want to see the VA politicized. We want the best people regardless of their political views.

The House of Representatives passed legislation last week which covers a lot of the same ground the Sanders-McCain bill covers, and I am very confident that in working with chairman Jeff Miller and ranking member Mike Michaud, we can bridge the differences and send the President a bill he can sign in the very near future. I think that is what the American people want. That is what Members of Congress want. We do not want this to drag on and on and on. We want to get this bill done quickly.

Finally, I did want to say a word to the 300,000 employees who work at the VA. These last several months have been a tough time for many of them. The truth is the overwhelming majority of the people who work at the VA are hard-working, honest, and serious people. In fact, many of them are veterans themselves. I know many others who work at the VA look at what they do not as a job--a 9-to-5 job--but they look at it as a mission. They feel very seriously that our veterans have to get the best health care possible, and they are doing their best to make that happen. I thank them very much for that.

Over and over, I hear from my State of Vermont and from across the country that once veterans get into the VA health care system, the care is good. That is not just my view; it is the view of virtually all of the major veterans organizations and independent studies that compare VA health care with care in the private sector.

In the State of Vermont some 98 percent of veterans get appointments into the system within 30 days. That is good, but it needs to be better in Vermont and throughout this country. The goal must be the highest quality care possible and getting people their appointments in a timely manner.

Let me read, interestingly enough, a poll that just came out from Gallup today. It was published today, and it was commissioned by MarketWatch from the Wall Street Journal. The interesting paragraph here--they polled some 42,000-plus Americans regarding their satisfaction with health care in America. Let me quote what the article says:

Despite recent troubles with veterans not having access to

prompt medical appointments, current and former military

personnel are the most satisfied with their health care, as

77% expressed contentment. That was the highest satisfaction

rate among those broken out by method of coverage.

Veterans, obviously, get their health care in other ways--not just through the VA--but it is important to recognize that for many, many veterans the health care they are getting is good, and they appreciate that.

Let me conclude by saying our job right now--and I think the American people are with us on this virtually 100 percent--is to make sure those men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend us--they are now asking us to defend them, to make sure they get the health care and the benefits to which they are entitled. My goal is to see that we move this legislation as quickly as possible. I hope by tomorrow we will have named conferees to the conference committee. My hope is we can get this legislation on to the President's desk as soon as we possibly can.

It is one thing to give heartfelt speeches about how much we love and respect veterans; it is another to act, and now is the time for action. The Senate and House committee staffs have already begun preliminary discussions. My understanding is the House conferees will be named tomorrow. I believe we will do the same here in the Senate. My job and what I intend to work on as hard as I can is to make sure we pass strong legislation as soon as we possibly can and have the President sign that legislation.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank my colleagues and friends from Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Senator Heller, a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, has been a very active member and a very constructive member. Senator Casey from Pennsylvania has done an extraordinary job in representing the veterans from his State and on overall veterans policy. I thank them both for working in a bipartisan way in addressing one of the significant challenges confronting the VA; that is, the claims backlog.

I thank them for their support in working to advance not only solutions to the claims problems, but comprehensive legislation that would improve the lives of our Nation's veterans and their families. Both of these Senators supported the two major pieces of legislation for veterans that have come to the floor.

Yesterday, the Senate took a step forward in addressing a very significant crisis, and that is making sure that we provide health care to all of our veterans in a high quality and timely way.

However, as I indicated on the floor yesterday, what we did yesterday is only the beginning. We have a lot more work to do if we are going to represent the interests of the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend us.

I welcome my colleagues' continued support and look forward to working together with them to pass legislation that would address the challenges of the backlog, as well as the many, many other concerns that have been presented to the committee by the veterans service organizations.

We take their concerns seriously. I applaud them both very much for coming up with some concrete ideas as to how we address the backlog problem, and I pledge to them that we are going to work as aggressively as we can to address the issue.

I thank them both very much for helping us on this issue.

Madam President, yesterday we debated and voted on the need to lower interest rates for students with college debt.

I consider the issue of the high cost of college and student indebtedness to be one of the very serious problems facing our country, impacting millions and millions of young people and their families.

What I did through my Web site is just ask people from Vermont and around the country to briefly write stories about the impact of college debt on their lives.

What I would like to do very briefly is to read some of the very poignant stories we have received. I believe we have received now over 700 stories from people all over America who are talking about what the student debt they have incurred is meaning to their lives.

Let me very briefly read some of the responses we have received.

Shannon Lucy, 29, is from Essex Junction, VT. She is $90,000 in debt. She wrote:

I currently live in my boyfriend's parents' basement

because I cannot afford to pay both rent and my nearly $900

per month student loan payments. Despite working two jobs and

living rent-free I am barely making ends meet. I can't even

dream of buying a house or supporting a child--I can't even

support myself. Getting married would mean burdening someone

else with my debt so that's not financially possible either.

I thought I did everything right. I thought getting an

education was an investment in my future. But now there's not

a single day when I don't feel like I'm drowning under this

massive load of debt. And the worst part is that even though

the president is introducing student loan relief measures

because my loans are mostly privately funded there's still no

relief for me.

I wish to read a statement that I received from Brittany Holman, 29, who is from Portland, OR, and is $200,000 in debt. She writes:

I'm scared and am desperately in need of help. I'm nearly

$200,000 in debt from student loans all because I wanted to

get an education. Was that not what I was supposed to do? I

graduated from Syracuse University in 2006 went to Japan for

two years to teach English and then came back home to a

crashed economy and a bleak job market.

Despite my two B.A. degrees from a great university, I have

to settle for underemployment in a minimum wage retail job.

Andrew Englebrecht, 22 years of age from New Lenox, IL, $80,000 in debt, writes:

It makes me depressed. I have no hope. Nothing will ever

get better. I'm scared. I can't go get my masters because my

life has already been ruined. I ruined my parents' life. The

bank finally was willing to work with us and not take our

house; that doesn't mean we can pay the loans back either. I

can't move out of the house. I can't propose to the girl I

love. I can't live because I can't dream. I'm afraid to have

kids because I'm scared they wouldn't have a chance.

This is one from Eric Anders, 29, of Chicago, IL, $125,000 in debt. He writes:

My law school debt is astronomical. It will keep me from

being a homeowner for a long time. I believe serious efforts

need to be made to reduce the costs of attending both college

and graduate school.

Kelly Weiner, 27, from Brooklyn, NY, is $134,000 in debt, and says:

I went to law school because I wanted to help people and

communities who are underserved by the law. . . . I am

currently paying back my loans on an income-based repayment

plan with a 7.3% interest rate which means I am not even

making a dent in my debt. . . . According to my repayment

plan I will be in my fifties before I get out of debt.

Saul Barraza, 23, of Littleton, CO, $35,000 in debt, writes:

I feel like I'm sinking further and further into debt. The

interest rate on my loans is eating me alive. I don't believe

that I've ever touched the principal on my loans. I simply

pay interest and avoid default. . . . I feel that my debt is

holding me back from being able to contribute to society. It

is a ball and chain that follows me everywhere I go

preventing me from starting the rest of my life.

Lastly, let me read from Dustin Green, 28, of Yukon, OK--$50,000 in debt between him and his wife:

Between my wife and myself we pay over $600 a month for our

student loans. I have a good job and can barely afford these

payments along with normal bills. After graduation dealing

with each loan company was a task of its own. They do not

care if you have enough money to eat but simply to pay them

back. My wife and I are wanting to buy our first home but

with so much of our salaries going to monthly student loan

payments we can't make that step yet. We have both wondered

if the yearly income difference with a college education is

worth the extra debt.

So those are just some of the 700-plus stories that we have heard from young people and their families all over this country about the crushing impact that student debt is having on their lives.

We have to address this issue. We have to make college affordable for all Americans regardless of income.

I hope that we can do that sooner rather than later.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Casey Scott, a detailee, and Douglas Wiitala, Grant Loftesnes, Betsy Silverstein, and Julia Sferlazzo, interns for the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, be granted privileges of the floor for the session today, June 12, 2014.

Madam President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I wish to say a few words as to where we are right now and my strong hope that we can move forward as rapidly as we can-- hopefully today--in addressing some of the very serious problems that exist within the Veterans' Administration.

What I have learned since I have been chair of the Veterans' Affairs Committee for the last year and a half is that the cost of war does not end when the last shots are fired and the last missiles are launched. The cost of war continues until the last veteran receives the care and the benefits he or she is entitled to and has earned on the battlefield. The cost of war is in fact extremely expensive in terms of human life and financially. That is something every American should know.

It is very easy to vote to send people to war, but we have to understand what the costs of those wars are in terms of

what happens to people who come home from them and in some cases do not come home. The cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is almost 7,000 dead. The cost of war from Iraq and Afghanistan alone is some 200,000 men and women coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The cost of war is too many young men and women coming home without their legs or their arms or their hearing or their eyesight. The cost of war is manifested by tragic suicides that are taking place all across this country. The cost of war is veterans coming home and finding it difficult to get reintegrated into their communities and get jobs and get their feet on the ground financially. The cost of war is high divorce rates and the impact that has on children. The cost of war is widows suddenly having to begin their lives anew. Those are some of the real costs of war.

Last week Senator McCain and I hammered together a proposal to deal with the immediate crisis facing the VA. I thank him very much for coming forward, for working with me, and for understanding the need for us to move forward expeditiously. There are serious problems at the VA now and they must be addressed now--not next week, not next month but now.

I thank the 27 bipartisan cosponsors who have agreed to sign on to this bill. There are 21 Democrats and 6 Republicans, and I think in fact the support is broader than that. I thank Senators Begich, Blumenthal, Booker, Burr, Casey, Collins, Coons, Hagan, Hirono, Isakson, Johanns, Kaine, Manchin, McCain, Merkley, Murphy, Pryor, Rubio, Schatz, Udall, Walsh, and Whitehouse for cosponsoring this legislation.

Clearly, the bill Senator McCain and I introduced, which now has 27 cosponsors from both parties, is not the bill he would have written alone, and it certainly is not the bill I would have written alone. It is a compromise. What this bill does is address the immediate crisis facing the VA of veterans having to wait too long a period of time-- long waiting lists--in order to get the quality care they need in a timely manner.

What our veterans deserve is to be able to get into the system in a timely manner and get quality care. What this legislation does is move us forward strongly in that direction. Let me very briefly describe some of the major features in this legislation.

There has been on the drawing boards for many years in some cases the need to build or expand VA medical and research facilities. This bill provides for 26 major medical facility leases in 26 States and Puerto Rico. That is something that is supported in a bipartisan way and has already passed the House in virtually a unanimous vote.

This bill provides for the expedited hiring of VA doctors, nurses, and other health care providers and $500 million targeted to hire those providers with unobligated funds. The simple truth is that no medical program--not in the private sector, not in the VA, not anywhere--can provide quality care in a timely manner if that program does not have an adequate number of doctors, nurses, and other medical providers. It is unclear exactly how many more providers are needed, but there is no question there are many needed. I have heard--I will not swear to this, but I have heard estimates that in Phoenix alone there is a need for up to 500 new providers. While the Phoenix situation may be worse than other parts of the country, there is no doubt in my mind that many hundreds, if not thousands, of doctors and nurses are needed, and we need to expedite the hiring process.

Importantly, what our legislation also does is say to veterans around the country that if they cannot get into a VA facility in a timely manner, they will be able to get the care they need outside of the VA from a private provider in their community. They will be able to go to a federally qualified health center in their community, an Indian Health Service or if there is a Department of Defense military base and they can get care there, they will be able to do that. This gives the veteran himself or herself the opportunity if that person cannot get timely care within the VA to go outside of the VA.

What this bill also does is say to veterans who live 40 miles or more away from a VA facility if they choose--and it is clear there are some veterans that live hundreds of miles away in our rural areas from a VA facility--they will also be able to get care outside of the VA. For those veterans in rural areas this is an important provision.

This legislation also addresses a major crisis that we have seen tragically in recent years within the DOD, within the military, and that is the issue of sexual assault. Far too many women and men have been sexually assaulted, and this legislation provides funding for the VA to provide improved care for those suffering from sexual assault.

This bill also deals with an issue where I believe there is widespread support among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, and that is the need to address instate tuition for all veterans at public colleges and universities. This legislation also provides that surviving spouses of those who die in the line of duty will be eligible for the post-9/11 GI bill. This bill also establishes commissions to provide help to the VA in terms of improving scheduling capabilities and also their capital planning, two areas clearly where the VA needs to improve.

Lastly, and it is very important, this bill gives the Secretary of the VA the authority to immediately fire incompetent employees and, even worse, those who have falsified or manipulated data in terms of waiting periods or in other instances. So what we say is if somebody has lied, has manipulated data, they are out tomorrow, after the bill is signed, but we also provide a very expedited appeals process in order to allow some due process.

I worry very much about the politicalization of the VA if a Secretary comes in with a new President and says, I am going to get rid of 400 top people and 4 years later another Secretary comes in and says, I am going to get rid of another 400 people. What we want in the VA, which is the largest integrated health care system in America, taking care of 6.5 million veterans--one shouldn't care if those folks are Republicans, Democrats, progressives or conservatives--what we want are competent, able supervisors. I also want to make sure if people get fired that it has nothing to do with the color of their skin or sexual orientation.

So we have an abbreviated appeals process, but within that appeals process somebody can be removed from their position immediately.

The House of Representatives, as you know, passed legislation yesterday which covers a lot of the same ground the Sanders-McCain bill covers, and I applaud the House for moving forward in a very rapid fashion. I am absolutely confident that working with House Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Michaud, we can in fact bridge the differences that exist in the two bills and send to the President legislation he can sign as soon as possible.

Finally, I wish to say a word to the some 300,000 employees who work at the VA. The overwhelming majority of these people are hardworking, honest, serious employees. In fact, many of them are veterans. My experience is that for many of these employees what they do is less of a job than a mission. They understand the sacrifices veterans have made, and they in the vast majority of cases are doing excellent work to support our veterans. Let us never forget that some 230,000 veterans today and tomorrow and the next day are going into the VA for health care and that the vast majority of those people--and that is 6.5 million people a year--are receiving high-quality care.

I have talked to veterans all over the State of Vermont, and what they tell me is that they get very good care. I obviously cannot speak for every veteran, but in Vermont--and I expect in most areas around this country--veterans feel good about the health care they get.

A few weeks ago I held a hearing and asked all of the major veterans organizations point blank about their view on VA health care. What they said--this is not what Bernie Sanders said; it is what they said--was that once people get into the system, the care is good. That is not just their view. There are independent studies out there that rate VA health care with private sector care, and oftentimes VA health care comes out better. Right now our job is to address the crisis of long waiting periods and making sure that veterans all

over this country can get the care they need in a timely manner.

In my State of Vermont--according to information that just came out the other day--some 98 percent of veterans get appointments in the system within 30 days. I suspect the numbers are similar in certain other parts of the country, although clearly not in all parts of the country. That is the issue we are addressing right now.

It seems to me that our job now is to defend the veterans of this country who have defended us. It is time to move the Sanders-McCain legislation as quickly as we can--hopefully today. I know the majority leader, Senator Reid, feels strongly about this issue. He wants this legislation moved as quickly as possible, as do I, and I believe Senator McCain does as well.

Once we get that legislation passed, I am confident we can set up a quick conference committee and resolve the differences between the House and Senate bills and get a bill to the President as early as next week.

It is one thing to give great speeches on Memorial Day and Veterans Day about how much we love and respect veterans, but it is another for us to act expeditiously and effectively on behalf of veterans. Now is the time for action, and I hope very much we will have virtually unanimous support to move this important legislation forward.

With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, the Senator from Arizona has been too modest. He deserves a great deal of credit for stepping to the plate when we needed him to step to the plate. He understands that we have an emergency, and it is imperative that the veterans of this country get quality care in a timely manner. He and I were both determined to make sure that something happened.

I thank Senator McCain and his staff for their hard work on this bill. We will discuss this issue more on the floor. He was absolutely right when he said that we have an emergency. We have to pass this legislation today. We have to get it to conference as soon as possible, and we have to get a good bill on the President's desk next week.

Again, I thank Senator McCain.

With that I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am going to yield to Senator McCain in a moment, but before I do that, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions and section 4(g)(3) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the pending bill, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

I am happy, if the Senator from Arizona needs more time at the end of his 4, for him go right ahead.

Let me just thank Senator McCain for his very hard and bold work on this issue. He stood and came forward when we needed someone to do so. I think we have made real progress in a bipartisan way.

As Senator McCain just said, and I agree with him, if this is not an emergency, I am not quite clear what an emergency is.

During the last 4 years some 2 million new veterans have come into the VA system. Many of them have come in with very difficult medical problems, PTSD, TBI. We have an aging veteran population. Taking care of older people is complex and expensive. The simple truth is that in many parts of this country--not all parts I suspect, but in a number of places in this country--we simply do not have the number of doctors, nurses, and other medical staff to accommodate the needs of our veterans. I have been told, unofficially at least, that at the very minimum there is a need for 700 new physicians in the VA. I am told that is the floor, that the reality may be higher than that.

I have been told that in Phoenix alone there is a need for hundreds of new providers in order to address the problems in that one large facility. Further, this legislation says to veterans that if there are long wait times, if they cannot get into a facility in a reasonable time, they can go outside of the VA. That is what this bill says.

You know what. That is going to cost money. That will cost money. This legislation also says that if they live 40 miles or more from a VA facility, they have the option of going to a private provider. That benefit is going to cost money. The bottom line is that if we are going to do what in my view we should do; that is, to make sure every facility in the VA has adequate staffing--doctors, nurses, other medical personnel--and to make sure there is available funding to pay for those veterans who will now get care outside of the VA--right now the VA is spending about $4.8 billion a year in contract fees. There is no question in my mind that number is going to go up, but that is what we are voting on now.

If you want to provide timely care to veterans, if you agree they should go outside of the VA, it is going to cost money. If we are going to do that and the other things in this bill, that legislation needs to be passed as written, and we must waive the point of order brought up by Senator Sessions.

Lastly, I remind my colleagues that when Congress voted to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, it did so with emergency funding. Those wars will, it is estimated, cost between $3 and $6 trillion by the time we take care of the last veteran. If we can spend that kind of money to go to war on an emergency basis, surely we can spend one-tenth of 1 percent of that amount to take care of the men and women who fought those wars.

What we have done, as Senator McCain has indicated, is developed a compromise. I am sure he is not happy

with everything in the bill. I am not happy with everything in the bill as well. I did want to also remind Senators about a few of the other provisions that are in this bill that are important and I think do have bipartisan support.

This bill allows for 26 major medical facility leases, which means improved and expanded care for veterans in 27 States and Puerto Rico. This bill provides for the expedited hiring of VA doctors and nurses and $500 million targeted to hire those providers with unobligated funds. As I mentioned earlier, this bill allows for veterans to go outside of the VA when there are waiting lines and when they live 40 miles from a facility. This bill also deals with an issue where there is widespread support both in the House and the Senate; that is, the need to address instate tuition for all veterans at public colleges and universities.

It also provides that surviving spouses of those who die in the line of duty will be eligible for the post-9/11 GI bill. This bill also importantly establishes commissions to provide help to the VA in terms of improving scheduling capabilities--God knows they certainly need that help--and also for capital planning.

Lastly--and we need to reiterate this point--this bill gives the Secretary of the VA the authority to immediately fire incompetent employees and those who have falsified or manipulated data in terms of waiting periods.

Our legislation differs from the House in that in order to prevent, in my view, the politicization of the VA or eliminate all due process, it provides for a very expedited appeals process.

The House of Representatives passed legislation yesterday which covers a lot of the same ground the Sanders-McCain bill covers, and I am absolutely confident that working with Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Michaud we can bridge the differences and send the President a bill that he can sign in the very near future.

Finally and lastly, I want to say to the 300,000 employees who work at the VA that the overwhelming majority of those people are hard- working, honest, serious people. For many of them, taking care of veterans is not a job; it is a mission. Many of them are, in fact, veterans themselves. These people understand the sacrifices the veterans have made to protect our country, and they are doing the best that they can to support our veterans.

I hope we pass this bill. I hope we pass a waiver for the budget point of order. I hope we get a conference committee moving immediately, and I hope we get a bill to the President as soon as possible.

Furthermore, as Senator McCain has just mentioned, I don't think this is the end of the discussion regarding the needs of veterans. I hope very much that in our committee and on the floor we can begin to address some of the other very serious issues facing the veterans' community.

With that, I yield the floor.

I yield back the remainder of the time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 11, 2014, at 2:30 p.m. in room SR-253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 11, 2014, at 11 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 11, 2014, at 5:15 p.m. to hold a hearing entitled ``CLOSED/TS/SCI: The Situation in Ukraine.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 11, 2014, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 11, 2014, in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized

to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 11, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 11, 2014, at 4 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, the issue we are discussing tonight, frankly, is perhaps the most important issue facing our entire planet. The issue has everything to do with whether we are going to leave a habitable planet for our kids and our grandchildren. I want to thank the Senate Climate Action Task Force, led by Senator Boxer, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Heinrich, and others for helping to bring us down here tonight to discuss this issue.

While it goes without saying that Senator Inhofe and many of us hold very different points of view regarding global warming, I want to congratulate him for having the courage to come down here and defend his point of view. That is what democracy is about. I think he is wrong, but I am glad he is here.

Virtually the entire scientific community agrees that climate change is real, that it is already causing devastating problems in the United States and around the world in terms of floods, droughts, wildfires, forest fires, and extreme weather disturbances. The scientific community is also almost virtually unanimous in agreeing that climate change is caused significantly by human activity.

According to a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in May of last year, more than 97 percent of peer-reviewed scientific literature on climate supports the view that human activity is a primary cause of global warming.

What disturbs me very much about this debate is the rejection of basic science. We can have differences of opinion on health care, on the funding of education, on whether we should have a jobs program, on many other issues. But what the U.S. Senate should not be about is rejecting basic science. It saddens me very much that most of my colleagues in the Republican Party are doing just that.

We do not hear great debates on the floor of the Senate regarding research in terms of cancer, in terms of heart disease, in terms of other scientific issues. But for whatever reason--and I happen to believe those reasons have a lot to do with the power of the coal industry, of the oil industry, of the fossil fuel industry--we are suddenly seeing a great debate on an issue the overwhelming majority of scientists agree on; that is, climate change is real; it is caused by human activity.

2012 was the second worst year on record in the United States for extreme weather. Across the globe, the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998. The global annual average temperature has increased by more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit between 1880 and 2012. Last month the White House released the National Climate Assessment, emphasizing that global warming is already happening, and warning--and people should hear this--that global warming could exceed 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the United States by the end of this century--10 degrees Fahrenheit.

That is extraordinary. If that in fact happens, if we do not summon up the courage to transform our energy system, the damage done by that severity of increase in temperature will be huge.

Also last month scientists reported a large section of the West Antarctica ice sheet is falling apart, and that its continued melting is now unstoppable.

Bloomberg reported on the 1st of June that Australia hit new heat records in May. The 24-month period ending in April 2014 was the hottest on record for any 2-year period, and the 24-month period ending with May of 2014 is expected to exceed that.

But it is not just Australia; it is my home State of Vermont. The Associated Press reported last week that the average temperature in both Vermont and Maine rose by 2.5 degrees over the past 30 years. This is the second highest of any State in the lower 48, after Maine. Maine and Vermont are at the top.

Lake Champlain provides one telling illustration of these changes. It freezes over less often and later in the winter than it used to. Between 1800 and 1900, Lake Champlain froze over 97 out of 100 winters, 97 percent of the time. That number began dropping after 1900. In the past 40 years, Lake Champlain has only frozen over 17 times. These changes impact the ski industry. They weaken our maple industry. They allow pests to survive the winter unharmed and to become more damaging to trees and crops as a result.

These impacts are expected to worsen. According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, temperatures in the northeast could increase an additional 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2080 if emissions continue at their current rate. By the end of the century, summers in Vermont--our beautiful summers--could feel like summers in Georgia right now. I love the State of Georgia. It is a great State. But the State of Vermont would prefer to have our summers the way they have been, not Georgia's.

The thing is these new proposed carbon pollution standards are actually quite modest. It is clear to me that if we listen to the scientific community, what they are telling us is there is a small window of opportunity, and it would be rather extraordinary-- extraordinary--for us to look our kids and our grandchildren in the eye and to say: You know what. We rejected the science and we let this planet become less and less habitable for you and your kids.

We have a moral responsibility not to do that. It seems clear to me what we should be doing--and I think the scientific community is in agreement--first, we need to aggressively expand energy efficiency all over this country in terms of older homes and buildings. We can save an enormous amount of fuel, cut carbon emissions, lower fuel bills, and create jobs if we do that.

Furthermore, we must move aggressively to such sustainable energies as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and other technologies. We must invest in research and development to make those technologies even more efficient. In my view, it is a no-brainer to say we must reject the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline once and for all. We need to end tax breaks and subsidies for oil and coal companies, which amount to well over $10 billion a year. We should not be subsidizing those companies that are helping to destroy our planet.

Finally, we need to price carbon through a carbon tax or some other approach so the real cost of burning carbon is reflected in the price. I am very proud Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairperson of the environmental committee, and I introduced such legislation last year.

The bottom line is we are in a pivotal moment in history. This Congress has got to act. It has to act boldly. When we do that, when we cut greenhouse gas emissions, when we transform our energy system, we can save many people money on their fuel bills, we can cut pollution in general, we can cut

greenhouse gas emissions significantly, and we can create good-paying jobs all over this country.

The bottom line here is we cannot afford to reject basic science. We have to listen to what the scientific community is saying. We have got to act aggressively, and let's do it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I believe every Member of this Senate and every American understands the very deep debt of gratitude we owe to the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country. That should not be a political issue. It should not be a partisan issue. I think all of us have been appalled by what we read about in Phoenix and in other locations about people manipulating data, pretending veterans were getting care in a timely manner when that was not the case.

It is my strong belief, as chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, that every veteran in this country is entitled to high- quality medical care and that they should get that care in a timely manner. I am going to do everything I can to make that happen.

We live, as everybody knows, in a politically divided country and a divided Congress. Reaching agreements is not easy and, quite frankly, does not take place very often in the Senate. Unfortunately, for whatever reason--without casting blame--it just does not happen. The American people understand that and are not happy about that. So reaching a compromise among people who look at the world very differently is not easy, but in this process, Senator John McCain of Arizona and I have tried our best to come forward with an agreement. It is an agreement which I am sure he is not 100 percent happy about and I can fully assure you I am not 100 percent happy about. I would have written a very different bill. I thank Senator Harry Reid for his strong support for this process, and Chuck Schumer, Patty Murray, and Dick Durbin for pushing this effort forward. I hope we will be back on the floor to continue the effort to deal with the many unmet needs of veterans, but right now we have a crisis on our hands and it is imperative we deal with that crisis.

To my mind, the essence of the crisis is that we have learned in many parts of this country--not all parts but in many parts of this country--veterans cannot get the timely care they need. They cannot walk into a VA facility and within a reasonable period of time get the treatment they need.

So this bill, in a significant way, begins to address that important issue. Let me very briefly tell you how it does that.

For a start, there are many locations around the country where we need new facilities, we need refurbished facilities, we need expanded facilities. In fact, there are 26 locations in 18 States where that is the case. This legislation would allow the construction of 26 major medical facility leases in 18 States around the country. I believe that will help us in many parts of the country in providing the quality, timely care our veterans deserve.

In my view, there are areas of the country where we simply do not have the doctors, the nurses, and the other staff we need to provide the care our veterans deserve. Many primary care physicians get burned out by working 12, 14 hours a day. They quit. The turnover rate is too high. It is my view that the VA, by and large--and this is echoed by the views of the veterans community itself in independent studies--that when people get into the VA, the quality of care is good. But I will tell you, if we do not have the primary care physicians, the other physicians, the nurses we need to treat veterans, they are not going to get the care they need.

This legislation will target $500 million in unobligated balances for the hiring of new VA doctors and nurses. I see that as a significant step forward.

One of the great embarrassments or shocks that all of us feel is that within the military we have seen in recent years horrendous accounts of sexual assault. What this legislation does is say to those women and men who were sexually assaulted in the military that when they get into the VA, there is going to be quality care for their needs.

This legislation also touches on a couple of issues that are not directly related to health care but have overwhelming support in the House and the Senate.

We have heard from many young veterans who are in college as a result of the post-9/11 GI bill who right now cannot afford it because they are not getting instate tuition. This legislation addresses that issue.

I have talked, as I know Senator McCain has, to Gold Star Wives. These are the women who have lost their husbands in combat who, I think for not a sensible reason, are unable to take advantage of the post-9/ 11 GI bill. They want to get their lives together. They want to be able to go to college or whatever. This bill addresses that issue.

There is another provision which was strongly supported by Senator McCain and other Republican leaders--and Senator McCain, I am sure, will go into it at great length, but essentially what this provision does is say if someone is 40 miles or farther away from a VA health care facility--a medical center, a CBOC or whatever it may be--they will be able to go to the doctor of their choice, under the strict supervision of the VA.

What this will do is prevent people from, in some cases in very rural areas--I think this is mostly a bill for people in very rural areas who now have to travel long distances to get their health care--this will make their lives easier. This is a 2-year trial project. We will see how it turns out, but that is in the bill as well.

The last point I wish to make is I do not think there is any disagreement in the Senate nor among the American people that when we have incompetent people in the VA or worse--dishonest people in the VA--they should be removed from their jobs immediately and that the Secretary of the VA should have the power to get rid of them. I do not think there is any debate about that.

Where there has been some debate is that in my view those employees deserve due process. I say that because I

do not want to see a situation where a new President comes in and for political reasons fires 400 top executives because they are Democrats or because they are Republicans or whatever. I do not want to see a situation where somebody is fired because she is a woman or Black or Hispanic or maybe gay, and maybe that is the underlying motive and that person has no course of appeal.

So what we have done is developed a very expedited process in terms of dismissal. We say if someone is dismissed, they are off the payroll tomorrow, they are gone, but they are going to have a week to file an appeal, and the appropriate body will have 3 weeks to rule on their appeal. I think that makes sense. I think when you think about it, it does make sense.

There are a few other important provisions. It is important, in my view, for the Nation to take advantage of the expertise that is out there in the private sector. How do we develop information technology for people accessing the VA? We want to do that. We have a commission that would help us do that. We have another Presidential commission that will help us with construction, which has been an ongoing problem in the VA.

That is a brief overview of what is in the legislation. Does it solve all of the problems facing our veterans? Absolutely not. Should we come back and continue to deal with this issue? Absolutely. But I think, given the crises we have right now, this is an important step forward.

I thank Senator McCain. Senator McCain's views on many issues are not my views. We look at the world differently, but that is what democracy is about. Our job was to sit down and work out the best agreement. We did. I think from day one Senator McCain showed absolute good faith in this, a desire to reach a compromise. I hope he feels I did the same. We are where we are today.

So with that I yield the floor for Senator McCain and thank him very much for his efforts.

Madam President, I thank Senator McCain again. I think his remarks were right on in terms of describing what is in this legislation. I support his appeal.

Look, everybody has an issue. Every time a bill comes up, I have my pet concerns that I could bring forth amendments on, Senator McCain has his. But what we are appealing to right now is if you have a way to improve this bill for our veterans, bring forth that amendment. But please, please, do not bring forward extraneous amendments. Let's focus on the needs of veterans. Let's not make them political footballs. I hope very much we can proceed in that direction.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Blumenthal pertaining to the introduction of S. 2422 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise today to introduce the Ensuring Veterans Access to Care Act of 2014.

I thank the 16 cosponsors of this legislation, and they are Senators Rockefeller, Begich, Shaheen, Kaine, Reed, Merkley, Casey, Whitehouse, Blumenthal, Heinrich, Udall of New Mexico, Schatz, Baldwin, Wyden, Hirono, and Leahy.

It is safe to say there is broad bipartisan agreement among all of us that every veteran in this country who enters the VA health care system deserves high-quality care and deserves that care in a timely manner.

Overall, talking to veterans in Vermont and, in fact, throughout this country, talking to the veterans service organizations who represent their interests and reading independent studies, they all confirm that by and large, once veterans get into the VA health care system, the system is, in fact, quite good.

However, it has become clear--and I think all of us are aware of what has happened in the last month--that while quality is generally good, there are too many veterans throughout this country waiting too long to access this care.

In recent years, the VA has seen a huge increase in its patient load.

In fact, in the last 4 years, 2 million new veterans have come into the system, many of them with very complicated health care cases, including TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder, and many of the needs that older veterans and older people generally have.

Despite this fact, it is still absolutely unacceptable that some veterans are forced onto long waiting lists for care, and it is totally intolerable--it is reprehensible--that any VA employee could be manipulating data in Phoenix or anyplace else to hide how long veterans have been on waiting lists to see doctors. This is an issue that must be dealt with and must be dealt with rapidly and strongly.

These problems are real, and they have to be addressed. But they should not be an excuse to walk away from a system that serves 6.5 million veterans every single year and 230,000 veterans every single day. This is a system we must fix, not a system that we should ditch.

We must focus on the underlying problems and work to transform the

Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise today to introduce the Ensuring Veterans Access to Care Act of 2014.

I thank the 16 cosponsors of this legislation, and they are Senators Rockefeller, Begich, Shaheen, Kaine, Reed, Merkley, Casey, Whitehouse, Blumenthal, Heinrich, Udall of New Mexico, Schatz, Baldwin, Wyden, Hirono, and Leahy.

It is safe to say there is broad bipartisan agreement among all of us that every veteran in this country who enters the VA health care system deserves high-quality care and deserves that care in a timely manner.

Overall, talking to veterans in Vermont and, in fact, throughout this country, talking to the veterans service organizations who represent their interests and reading independent studies, they all confirm that by and large, once veterans get into the VA health care system, the system is, in fact, quite good.

However, it has become clear--and I think all of us are aware of what has happened in the last month--that while quality is generally good, there are too many veterans throughout this country waiting too long to access this care.

In recent years, the VA has seen a huge increase in its patient load.

In fact, in the last 4 years, 2 million new veterans have come into the system, many of them with very complicated health care cases, including TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder, and many of the needs that older veterans and older people generally have.

Despite this fact, it is still absolutely unacceptable that some veterans are forced onto long waiting lists for care, and it is totally intolerable--it is reprehensible--that any VA employee could be manipulating data in Phoenix or anyplace else to hide how long veterans have been on waiting lists to see doctors. This is an issue that must be dealt with and must be dealt with rapidly and strongly.

These problems are real, and they have to be addressed. But they should not be an excuse to walk away from a system that serves 6.5 million veterans every single year and 230,000 veterans every single day. This is a system we must fix, not a system that we should ditch.

We must focus on the underlying problems and work to transform the

Reserving the right to object, Madam President, I thank Senator Rubio for his remarks, and I think many of us share the exact same concerns he has raised. When men and women put their lives on the line to defend our country, they are entitled to the best quality health care we can provide to them.

In my view and I think in the view of virtually every veterans organization, the VA does provide good-quality health care to those people who access the VA system, but there are very serious problems in terms of access, there are serious problems regarding waiting lists, there are serious problems regarding the possibility of hospitals keeping two sets of books, and we are going to get to the root of those issues.

The one thing we do not want to do is politicize the well-being of America's heroes.

I have a quote from an editorial in the Washington Post:

The men and women who have served their country in uniform

deserve better than delay or denial of the medical care they

need and have earned. So it is crucial to get to the bottom

of allegations of misconduct at the

nation's veterans hospitals. America's veterans also deserve

not to be treated as so many pawns in election-years

gamesmanship--but that sadly is proving to be the case in

Congress's increasingly hyperbolic response.

It goes on:

That the extent of wrongdoing is unclear doesn't seem to

matter much to those more interested in scoring political

points. How else to explain the knee-jerk calls, mainly by

Republicans in the House and Senate, for the ouster of

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki or the ill-

advised and punitive legislation aimed at VA workers?

I will just make this point: I happen to think the bill that was passed in the House yesterday has many important provisions with which I happen to agree. But as the Senator from Florida knows, we have not held a hearing on this legislation, and some of us are old-fashioned enough to know that maybe folks in the Senate might want to know what is in the bill before we vote on it.

The Senator from Florida is right--it passed with very strong support in the House. In my view, a similar bill containing some of the salient provisions in the House bill will pass the Senate, but it is important that we discuss that bill.

One of the concerns I have is that I do not want to see the VA politicized. It is one thing to say--which I agree with--that if a hospital administrator is incompetent, the Secretary should be able to get rid of that administrator without a whole lot of paperwork. I agree with that. It is another thing to say that if a new administration comes in--whether it is Democratic or Republican--somebody sitting in the Secretary's office can say: I want to get rid of 20 or 30 or 50 hospital administrators because we have other people we want in there. We can just get rid of them, and they don't have a right to defend themselves.

I worry about that.

Clearly we have to discuss the issue. I suggest that the Senator from Florida understands that it is probably a good idea to discuss an issue before we vote on it.

The bottom line for me is, yes, every top administrator at the VA has to be held accountable. I do not want to see an enormous amount of paperwork and obstruction go forward before we can get rid of incompetent people. But before we vote on legislation, it might be a good idea to understand the full implications of that legislation, and there are some aspects of it with which I think some of us have concerns.

I have a few more points on that issue. I hope the Senator from Florida agrees with me that we have to be certain the VA is able to recruit and retain high-quality leaders and managers, especially when the VA is in competition with other Federal agencies for those leaders. To that end it is vital to ensure we are fostering an environment at the VA where individuals feel as if they are protected from the political whims of their leaders. That is the point I made earlier.

There are other areas that concern me in terms of setting precedents that may not be a good idea, but the bottom line is I think there are important provisions in the bill that passed the House. I want to work with Senator Rubio on this matter, and I think the administration wants to work with him.

If I might, I will make another point, which is that I was very happy to see so much concern being paid to veterans' needs over the last few weeks. As chairman of the committee, I am very happy to see that.

I say to the Senator from Florida and others that he is well aware that the veterans community faces many serious problems above and beyond what we have been hearing over the last few weeks with regard to the VA. We have 200,000 men and women who have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan either with PTSD or TBI. I would assume my friend from Florida agrees they need to get the quality care they deserve.

An hour or so ago I had the privilege of being honored by the Gold Star Wives. They are the widows of men who died in action. I brought legislation to the floor that would have made it possible for Gold Star Wives to be able to get a college education under the post-9/11 GI bill. That bill received 56 votes. One Senator was absent; otherwise, we would have had 57 votes. Only two Republicans supported that bill. I suspect that Senator Rubio and many others support that. That is in the bill I brought to the floor.

Right now we have--as I am sure Senator Rubio knows because the problem exists in Vermont, so it most likely exists in Florida as well--70-year-old women, in most cases, who are taking care of disabled vets, and they don't get the support they need. They are on duty 24/7, and they save the government money because those wounded veterans are staying at home. They need some help. I want to see them get help, and I hope Senator Rubio will work with me to make sure they get that help.

Senator Rubio is aware, as is the Presiding Officer, that there is great concern not only in the military--the VA and DOD--but in the civilian sector that there is too much use of opiates to treat problems. We have a very serious problem in that area. We have language in our overall provision that extends help to the VA to move forward to give our veterans alternative treatments other than opiates, and we think that is a very important piece of legislation.

We have legislation which has passed which provides 5 years of free health care in the VA for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. We think it is important to extend that to 10 years.

Many veterans out there do not have access to decent-quality dental care. It is a problem in Vermont, and I suspect it is a problem in Florida. We want veterans to get that care as well. There is bipartisan support for advanced appropriations for VA, and we have that in our legislation.

While the VA is making good progress in cutting back the backlog and moving from paper to a digital system, I want to see them do better. We have language in there that would push them to do better.

Just this morning, Senator Burr and I were at a hearing that dealt with the educational problems facing veterans who come back from the battlefield. There are problems when they go to college. Most of us think veterans should be able to take advantage of instate tuition in the State in which they are living.

Sexual assault has been a very serious problem in the military, and we want the VA to do better. Et cetera, et cetera.

I thank Senator Heller and Senator Moran for voting for this bill, along with every Democrat. I am very glad my Republican colleagues are now beginning to focus on veterans issues, and we need to step to the plate to help not only our veterans but their families, and that is the legislation I have offered.

I say to Senator Rubio through the Chair that your legislation has many important provisions with which I happen to agree. There are some that I think need work, and we are going to hold a hearing on that legislation and other legislation in early June.

I respectfully object to that legislation right now, but I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 297, S. 1950, with the Sanders amendment, which is at the desk and is the text of S. 1982, the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act. That is the comprehensive legislation supported by virtually every veterans organization in the country, millions of veterans, and the American people. It says ``thank you'' to the veterans who put their lives on the line to defend this country, and we are going to be there for you.

I ask unanimous consent that this legislation be passed.

Madam President, let me reiterate. When I quoted the Washington Post and when I talked about politicalization, I wasn't suggesting the Senator from Florida was being political on the floor today. What I was suggesting about politicizing the VA is if we have a situation, for example, where a new Secretary comes in or a new administration comes in and can fire wholesale hospital administrators, without the ability to defend themselves, I think that is not the kind of system the Senator from Florida would want or certainly I would want.

So how we address this issue is important. I would suspect that while this issue may have been taken up in committee today, I doubt very much there were any witnesses who testified about this bill.

Second of all, I found it interesting that the Senator from Florida said--and he is right that other Republicans have raised this point. The legislation I introduced, which again has the support of the American Legion, DAV, Vietnam Vets, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iraq- Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paralyzed Veterans of America--he is right--it costs money. He is right. This country has a deficit. He would be right if he said that going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost us trillions of dollars, which is one of the reasons we have the deficit we have. But I believe from the bottom of my heart that if we go to war, if we spend trillions of dollars on that war, that when our men and women come home from war, some wounded in body, some wounded in spirit--I don't want to hear people telling me it is too expensive to take care of those wounded veterans. I don't accept that. If we think it is too expensive to take care of veterans, don't send them to war.

So let me reiterate my view, as the Senator from Florida has raised an important issue. We are going to address it as quickly as we can, and we are going to address other issues facing our veterans who on this Memorial Day need to know we are there for them and their families.

Madam President, who has control of the time right now? Do I have the time?

Madam President, let me suggest to the Senator from Florida that we divide the remaining time, if he wishes to take a minute or two and I will take a minute or two; how is that?

We are not going to walk away from anything, but we are going to do it right. Again, the argument that when you run a health care system which has 151 medical centers, has some 900 community-based outreach clinics, has 300,000 employees that a new President can start wiping out, without necessarily giving people the right to defend themselves, does not make any sense to me.

So we are going to look at the positive provisions in Senator Rubio's bill, and I think there are some. I would say to the Senator from Florida, I think we are going to reach an agreement. I think the Senator from Florida is going to be happy. I think it will be a good bill and we will reach consensus around it and I think we have to do that.

On the other hand, I wish to reiterate the point I made about money. Senator Rubio is right, that one of the reasons we only had two Republican votes for a comprehensive piece of legislation that addresses the issues that the veterans communities brought to us--it is not a Bernie Sanders bill, it is a bill that listened to the needs of veterans and we said we hear you.

Once again, I would just say to the Senator from Florida, I don't think--I was just literally an hour ago at a function of the Gold Star Wives organization. These are women who have lost their husbands in battle. I think that under the post-9/11 GI bill, a very good and important piece of legislation, wives should have the right to use that legislation to go to college, get an education, so they can get better jobs. If I brought that bill to the floor today, I suspect I would have unanimous support, and I think that out of our committee the bill I brought forth, many provisions had unanimous support and many provisions were Republican provisions--good provisions, bipartisan provisions.

So what I say to my friend from Florida is thank you. The Senator's bill is an important bill and it is going to be dealt with and it will be dealt with in the very near future.