Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wish today to honor Teresa Lawrence, CEO of Delta Personnel and the 2014 recipient of the Excelencia Award for Small Business Leadership by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana.

Teresa was born in Cuba and came to the United States in 1973 to escape tyranny. She came here with her mother, brother, and grandmother. Tragically, her father was unable to join the family in leaving Cuba and was killed 4 years later.

Teresa's mother, along with her grandmother, instilled in her a strong work ethic. She began working at the age of 14 by bagging groceries, and eventually worked her way up to the position of advertising account executive. She attended college for 2 years until her mother was injured and needed her help. Teresa then took a full time job at a large architectural firm to help support the family. She said this position helped sharpen her skills and expand her vocabulary.

In 1988, Teresa married David Lawrence, whose family owned and operated a staffing agency, Delta Temporaries. That same year, the business was struggling and her father-in-law was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, so David and Teresa quit their jobs and began running the company. With no formal training in the staffing profession, they spent years trying to run the business, get out of debt, and just survive.

In 2000, Teresa became the sole owner of Delta Personnel. Just when she felt she had really turned things around, the community was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, which brought immeasurable changes not only to her business, but also to southeast Louisiana. Through a lot of hard work, Teresa and her staff were able to re-open the business in Baton Rouge before eventually being able to locate the business back home in Metairie.

Teresa is known as a great leader who places an emphasis on empowering her staff to make decisions needed to help their business grow and thrive. She participated in and graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program in New Orleans in March of 2012. Since joining 10,000 Small Businesses, her company has more than doubled their sales from $2.3 million with expectations to exceed $5 million this year. Teresa says the great reward is that she and her staff have placed more than 950 people in jobs across the Gulf Coast.

I am pleased to join with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana in honoring Teresa Lawrence.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I rise to talk about the crisis at our southern border and the need for unified action to deal with it and the need to come together on a commonsense enforcement approach that undoubtedly will need some additional resources, but also clearly demand some changes to the current law so we may quickly deal with the need to quickly deport folks illegally coming over our Mexican border back to their home country.

In the case of alien children, we need to get them out of the hands of criminal gangs and reunite them with their families in their home country. That is an obvious need in the eyes of the American people. I think a vast majority of Americans realize we need that

sort of approach which starts with much better enforcement of our southern border, and, yes, if people do get across, they need to quickly deal with their situation and quickly and effectively deport them. That is the approach we need. Sadly, that is not what the President has proposed, and that is not what Harry Reid is even allowing us to vote on on the Senate floor.

For a couple of weeks, at least, after this crisis hit the first page of the newspaper, President Obama constantly pointed to those parts of the law that he said tie his hands in terms of quickly and effectively deporting some of these individuals. He pointed to the 2008 changes of the law over and over and over again. The problem is that a couple of weeks after that--when he actually sent a proposal to Congress to deal with the crisis--any mention of that was gone. There was no suggestion of any change in the law in that regard or any other regard. The only request he made was for $3.7 billion--a huge amount of additional money. The great majority of that money is to feed, house, and relocate these illegal aliens, including unaccompanied alien children, within our own country.

The problem with that is it will encourage this flow of illegal immigrants into our country and this problem will continue to grow. It will not discourage it and it will not end it. We need that comprehensive approach--including necessary changes to the law and enforcement--to quickly deport these folks to their home countries and reunite them with their families.

In the absence of the President leading us in that regard, I came up with my own legislation. I introduced it in the Senate, and I have now introduced it as a floor amendment to the spending bill which Senator Reid is bringing to the Senate floor. It would change the aspects of the law that we need to change in order to streamline the process and allow us to quickly deport individuals within 72 hours so they can be safely reunited with their families in their home country. That is the only thing that will stem this increased tide, this increasing flow, and this increasing problem.

There has also been a lot of debate about the resources that are necessary and the increased spending that is clearly necessary. But before we pass the President's proposal, we need to marry it with these enforcement measures and these changes to the law. We need to pay for that enforcement and deportation and not simply pay to feed and house these illegal aliens within our country. We need to actually relocate them to other places within our country with no foreseeable end in sight. We can't do that unless we get the right enforcement measures.

I also have suggestions on how we can help pay for whatever increased enforcement, border security, and quick deportation we need. I have two suggestions in particular. I have two specific bills which I introduced some time ago in the Senate. I introduced each of these bills this week as amendments to the spending bill that Harry Reid is bringing to the Senate floor.

One is S. 1176, which is a freestanding bill, but I also introduced it as a floor amendment. It is called the Remittance Status Verification Act of 2013. What is this about? This is about remittances by illegal aliens in this country and how they are sending money back to families and others in their home country.

The GAO--which is a respected nonpartisan organization--previously noted that the United States is the largest remittance-sending country in the world, with the majority of funds being sent to Latin America and the Caribbean and substantial amounts of money also being sent to Asia and Africa.

In the past 10 years the total number of international remittances has increased by 8 percent in 2013, and is expected to grow 10.1 percent in 2014 and 10.7 percent in 2015. It is reaching an astronomical number. In 2015, it will be over half a trillion dollars.

If folks are working in this country legally, that is fine. We don't want to hassle them or make any problems for them. But, clearly, a significant portion of the folks we are talking about are here illegally and working illegally. That is wrong, and we need the legislation I am proposing to fix that, with four important goals in mind.

First of all, we need to see if the folks who are sending these remittances are here illegally; second, we need to ensure U.S. taxpayer fairness; third, we need to address inaccurate U.S. data on remittances and collect all the facts; and, fourth, we need to make sure that illegal aliens who are receiving U.S. benefits are--we need to see if they are remitting higher amounts abroad.

My legislation would address all of these goals and would fundamentally get a handle on the situation and make sure that those who are not in this country legally pay a substantial fee, and that fee would be used on border security and other immigration enforcement. That could grow a significant amount of revenue specifically dedicated to border and other enforcement.

The second proposal I have is in the form of other freestanding legislation, which I also introduced this week as a Senate floor amendment for the supplemental appropriations bill. It is about child tax credits. This amendment addresses a clear loophole in the IRS code that allows illegal aliens to access income-tax-based benefits, such as the child tax credit and the additional child tax credit.

According to the Treasury Department's inspector general--again, this is not some partisan Republican source, it is the Obama administration's inspector general for Treasury. They issued a report recently that said $4.2 billion--with a B--is sent each year to folks who are probably here illegally and do not qualify under these programs. We send them a check, a refundable tax credit, and it costs the taxpayers $4.2 billion.

As the inspector general has said, there is a pretty simple way to fix this by requiring a valid Social Security number or other appropriate identification number. This approach is straightforward, it is simple, and it will fix the problem. It would cut down the $4.2 billion--with a B--worth of spending that we are sending improperly and illegally to largely illegal aliens and illegal alien families. We can use those resources, instead, on enforcement.

Those are simply two specific suggestions that I filed this week in the form of Senate floor amendments that could help raise the additional resources we need to address this issue.

Again, I want to emphasize that we need to do a number of things, and it is not all about throwing money at the situation, particularly when most of that money under President Obama's proposal is simply to house and feed these folks who are here illegally and then distribute them throughout the country for an indefinite period of time. Fundamentally, we need to marry that with real enforcement measures, including those addressed and listed in my bill. I hope we take that approach. I hope Senator Reid allows that debate and allows those votes. Right now he is lying across the tracks. The only thing he is allowing a vote on is this spending measure which just gives the President a blank check. That will not solve the problem. That is not the correct response. We need to do all of the things, broadly speaking, I have laid out. I hope we do that and come together--as, in fact, the American people have-- around my commonsense approach with a clear consensus.

I thank the Presiding Officer, relinquish the floor, and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you, Madam President.

I stand today also with high hopes that the new leadership at the VA will bring much needed changes to a department that is clearly, quite frankly, in a shambles, failing our Nation's veterans. During his committee hearing, the nominee Robert McDonald promised to bring a high level of accountability and transparency to the VA, two characteristics that are sorely needed. This is extremely important in an agency where under the leadership of the previous Secretary it would often take months to get answers to routine questions--or in many cases you would never get answers at all.

By the end of this week I am also hopeful that besides confirming the new Secretary, we will send to the President the Veterans Access Choice and Accountability Act. This important legislation includes many needed reforms to the VA, including bringing that accountability to the Department and actually providing our Nation's veterans with choices about where they can receive care.

The bill also, perhaps most importantly for Louisiana, finally authorizes much needed community-based clinics around the country, including two which have been long delayed in Louisiana by pure ineptitude and bureaucratic screw-ups at the VA--clinics and expanded clinics in Lafayette and Lake Charles. For 4 years I have been fighting the Washington bureaucracy tooth and nail to get these new expanded outpatient clinics. They are vitally important to Louisiana veterans who now sometimes have to drive up to 4 hours to receive services that have been promised to them much closer to their community.

The current clinics in Acadiana are overcrowded and don't offer the full range of services that these new clinics will. As I said, VA ineptitude delayed the clinics in the first place. If it weren't for their mistakes, these clinics would actually already be built. When they were finally teed up and ready to go, then the Congressional Budget Office made a ridiculous decision that again threw these clinics into limbo because of a scoring issue out of the blue. Finally in December, the House was able to pass a bill that dealt with these CBO concerns that passed 346 to 1.

Normally when a bill passes with that sort of margin the Senate will quickly pass it by unanimous consent. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

First we needed to attach an amendment to address some marginal concerns. Then even after we had done that--even after that received full agreement in the Senate, unfortunately Senate Democrats, led by the Chair of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, held up the legislation basically as a hostage to try to get a broader VA package. Actually I had to come down and ask unanimous consent for the House clinics legislation six times on the floor. Unfortunately, six times Senator Sanders denied that unanimous consent. It was only after the VA scandal broke that momentum shifted and, thankfully, it looks as though we will finally pass this into law, the clinics legislation, along with this important reform bill.

When the authorization occurs, I strongly urge Mr. McDonald and the VA to streamline the process to get these two clinics built as soon as possible, given the long and arduous history of VA delays and screw- ups. The veterans of Louisiana have waited patiently, literally for years. These clinics are overdue. Let's get on with it. Louisiana veterans have had to wait for numerous delays caused by VA mistakes. The least the Department can do is to make sure these clinics are now built with the utmost haste and efficiency.

Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, there has been an important development in

the effort to bring fairness for the victims of poisonous drywall that was imported from China. Drywall sourced from China was found to emit dangerous chemicals that make people sick and damage metal components of air conditioning and other electronics, among other effects. In Louisiana, the defective drywall came at a particularly troubling time. Just as we were starting to rebuild after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the defective Chinese drywall was imported in large quantities. Many homeowners returned after their houses were rebuilt only to soon find them to be inhabitable yet again. We are still fighting today almost 9 years after the storm to bring justice to the affected families.

Some other companies, specifically German-owned entities, that supplied defected drywall from China have participated in the legal process and made settlements that have been helpful to homeowners. However, the Chinese company Taishan, a state-owned entity, refuses to take responsibility for its harmful products and continues to disregard U.S. law and our court system. If the homeowners' contractors got drywall from Taishan, they have thus far been out of luck in seeking fair compensation as Taishan continues to ignore our court system.

In February 2014, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld a $2.7 million default judgment requiring Taishan to cover the cost of removing its defective drywall. Even after losing the appeal, Taishan let the deadline pass for an appeal to the Supreme Court, meaning the case was back in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and Judge Eldon Fallon. Earlier this month, Taishan disregarded our legal system and refused to appear in court proceedings in this case. Judge Fallon ruled that Taishan was in contempt of court for failing to appear to address the default judgment entered against the company. He ordered Taishan to pay $15,000 in attorney's fees of the plaintiffs and $40,000 in penalties. Most importantly, his ruling banned Taishan and any of its affiliates or subsidiaries from doing business in the United States unless and until it participates in the court's process on this ongoing case. To help ensure enforcement of the order, the court sent notice of its ruling to the Federal Government.

I applaud the court's effort to protect the integrity of our legal system in taking action to force the Chinese company to comply with the law and the court's orders. If state-owned Chinese companies such as Taishan want to do business in the United States, they must follow the law and must honor our legal system. If they will not honor commitments and work to resolve claims, how can we expect any Americans to trust any business relations with or products from Chinese government controlled companies? Our government must insist that Taishan return to the table and participate in the legal process.

To help stop this situation from happening again, I worked to pass into law bipartisan legislation to stop unsafe drywall from entering U.S. markets by ensuring that the Consumer Product Safety Commission follows a voluntary consensus health and safety standard. Enacted in 2013, this law also ensures that unsafe drywall will not be reused by requiring that it be labeled and that its manufacturers are identified. I specifically offered an amendment to focus the emphasis of the legislation on high sulfur content, the main damaging element emitted from the defective drywall, and to make the origin of the drywall traceable to the manufacturer. This law protects homeowners going forward, but it cannot help the homeowners still looking for justice now. We know that the harmful drywall came from China, and the remedy for these homeowners is for Taishan to follow the court's order, come to the table, and reach a fair settlement.

Mr. President, I rise again on the Senate floor to talk about the crisis at our southern border, and it is a crisis. I don't use that word lightly, but it is clearly a crisis on many levels.

This fiscal year alone, since October 1, 2013, over 381,000 illegal aliens have entered our country through that border. Of course, a big part of that crisis is unaccompanied alien children--58,000 of them. The Obama administration itself says that number will probably grow to 85,000 or 90,000 in just the next few months, by the end of this fiscal year.

We see on this chart that since 2008, sending these UACs back, deporting them, effectively has plummeted--absolutely plummeted. This is a key part of the problem.

Since this crisis came into clear focus, I have been doing several things. I have asked the administration, through a letter to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh

Johnson, for facts, details about the impact of this crisis--the numbers, the particulars, and specifically what impact it can have on Louisiana, my home State. I haven't gotten any response. That is very disappointing. I am asking publicly again for a detailed response to those legitimate straightforward questions.

I have agreed with many others in the House and Senate to partner with the administration around strong action to change this trend, to change our policy, to deport illegal aliens effectively, to send a very new and different message to Central and South America to stem this growing crisis. Unfortunately, that plea has not gotten a positive response from the administration either.

In reaction to that, I have had to dig around wherever I can find credible sources and find out key information myself, particularly as it affects Louisiana. I have been making calls to military leaders, local ICE officials, anyone else with significant credible information.

Again, this should be able to come directly from the Department of Homeland Security. It has not. But this is what I am finding out: The Louisiana ICE office has a backlog of juvenile cases--cases involving minors. First of all, it already had about 2,000 of those cases in Louisiana alone before this wave upon wave of minor illegal aliens reached crisis proportions. Adding on to those 2,000 cases--1,956 to be exact--there are now over 1,200 new juvenile cases in Louisiana. These are unaccompanied children coming into the country illegally and then being brought into Louisiana, in most cases turned over to the custody of a family member or a sponsor, and many of these family members are themselves illegal.

We are not a border State. We are not Texas, we are not Arizona or New Mexico. We are not one of the States most affected. Yet even Louisiana has this significant impact with very troubling numbers.

I talked to folks at the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in Shreveport and found out that the International Association of Fairs and Expositions-- a trade association for their sorts of facilities around the country-- was contacted by the Department of Homeland Security about locating mass space for housing of illegal alien UACs. The Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in particular in Shreveport was contacted to see if they could be part of that, and they said they couldn't. It was not practical at all. But that inquiry was made.

On the military side, I talked to leadership at Fort Pope. They were contacted by the U.S. Army Installation Management Command Headquarters and asked if they could house between 400 and 500 unaccompanied alien children. They said they couldn't for very compelling practical reasons at Fort Pope.

Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport was asked via the Air Force Global Strike Command and the Department of Defense if they had capacity for the same mass housing operation. Their response was as follows:

Barksdale's answer has been consistent with our strategic

mission and supporting base infrastructure for the nation's

#1 mission (nuclear)--we would not support or participate.

But it is significant those inquiries were actively made.

Belle Chasse Naval Air Station in New Orleans, again on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, was contacted about their capacity for this same sort of thing twice.

Again, it makes the point that even Louisiana--not a border State, not a State most affected--is fielding many inquiries and significant impacts--1,259 new juvenile cases being brought into the State, all of these inquiries.

I wish I could get this information directly from the Department of Homeland Security. I have asked for it. They have not been forthcoming.

Unfortunately, the administration likewise has not been forthcoming about real solutions, partnering with Congress to make changes in the law and anything else necessary to stem this tide and reverse the policy that continues to encourage this tide. We have seen no leadership there either.

While the President spent the first 10 days of focus on this crisis talking about various parts of Federal law that he said were tying his hands, when it came to sending a request to Congress, there was no request to change any of that law. There was no request to streamline any deportation procedures. There was no request to heighten the standard for asylum or anything else. The only request was to send him a huge amount of additional money, billions upon billions of dollars.

So in the absence of that leadership and partnership and information, I started to develop legislative ideas with many others myself, and I have introduced a legislative solution--S. 2632--to address this specific unaccompanied alien children crisis, and it has been introduced in the House by my Louisiana colleague, Congressman Bill Cassidy.

Fundamentally, this legislation would reverse the policy we have in place which accepts these folks over and does nothing to quickly deport them to their home country. It would reverse that policy so we would have quick, effective, immediate deportations to send the message to Central and South America that this has to stop and to stem that tide.

Specifically, the legislation would do nine things:

No. 1, it would mandate detention of all unaccompanied alien children upon apprehension. No catch and release. No catch and then, yes, here. We will further the smuggling and give you to your family members or sponsors in this country.

No. 2, we would amend the law to bring parity between UACs from contiguous and noncontiguous countries. All UACs, regardless of country of origin, will be given the option to voluntarily depart. That is a practical solution, in the case of those coming from Mexico and Canada--obviously many more from Mexico.

No. 3, those UACs who do not voluntarily depart will be immediately placed in a streamlined removal process and detained by the Department of Homeland Security. Currently, they are transferred instead to Health and Human Service's Office of Refugee Resettlement, where they are basically resettled.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

I will consider objecting, but I would far prefer to amend the unanimous consent request so that I get the additional minute I was just denied and the Senator from Maryland gets her time.

Mr. President, my unanimous consent request was for me to finish my remarks in 1 minute and then have the Senator----

I object.

Mr. President, I would just like to again ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 1 additional minute following the Senator from Maryland being recognized for 4 additional minutes.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to speak about a pressing issue--really, a crisis, and I don't use that word lightly--of some 52,000 unaccompanied alien children streaming across our southern border with Mexico, coming into our country, and that number is continuing to grow. In fact, the Obama administration itself says that number could reach 90,000 or more by the end of the fiscal year on October 1--in just a few months.

Again, this is a crisis on many levels. It is a border crises. It is a national security crisis. It is a humanitarian crisis. It is a fiscal issue for our country. It is a very serious situation.

I talked about it on the floor last week and laid out, broadly speaking, the policy response I think we need to have so this flow does not continue to grow. Today I come back to the floor, and I wish to speak about two things--specifics I have learned about how this crisis is specifically affecting Louisiana. I am really concerned about that. I am sure every Member here is concerned about the direct impact on their State.

No. 2, there is legislation I have introduced to directly respond to this crisis. Again, it is a real crisis.

In Louisiana, just in the last week or so, I have learned a number of specifics that are significant and continue to raise my concerns. I wrote the Secretary of Homeland Security asking a number of detailed questions some time ago, including about impacts on Louisiana. Unfortunately, I have heard nothing from the Department. I have received no response yet to that letter. I will follow up and get a response. In the meantime, these are specifics I am hearing from other reliable sources:

First of all, the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in Shreveport, LA, has been apparently contacted by the Department of Homeland Security about locating space for the housing of illegal minors--setting up a camp, a facility specifically for that. No Member of our delegation was contacted. I had asked specific questions about any activity impacting Louisiana. I wasn't told, but they were contacted directly.

This isn't happening. It is impractical. It can't happen at the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum. They have many commitments and a lot of things they need to do there. So I don't think there is any chance of this sort of detention facility being set up there. But they were contacted.

In addition, there are thousands of new ICE cases regarding unaccompanied alien children. First of all, before the current crisis began there was a backlog of these UAC cases being sent to Louisiana with family members or sponsors. So there is a backlog of about 2,000 cases. Apparently, since

this crisis started developing in the last several months, we have 1,259 new juvenile cases for Louisiana alone. That is a significant number for a State the size of Louisiana.

We believe these are folks being sent through the Chicago detention facility to be united with family members or other sponsors in Louisiana. Again, this is exactly the sort of thing I had asked the Department of Homeland Security about. I haven't received any response to my letter. I haven't received any official formal response to my specific questions. We have had to learn this through other sources, talking to some ICE officials and others directly. This is really concerning. If this is going on in Louisiana, this is going on in every State of the country, and it underscores what a serious situation and in fact a crisis on many different levels this is.

That is why last week I introduced legislation to try to address this very serious situation, this border crisis. I introduced S. 2632 to address specifically the UAC issue. I will outline broadly what it will do.

Broadly speaking, it will make sure we detain these individuals, don't release them to relatives, family members, sponsors--don't release them out into society but detain them, and have a much quicker, more efficient process for deporting them and returning them to their home countries. Specifically, we would have mandatory detention of all unaccompanied alien children--UACs--upon apprehension.

No. 2, we would amend TVPRA to bring parity between UACs from contiguous and noncontiguous countries. As most Senators know, we have a more streamlined, workable process for unaccompanied alien children from contiguous countries--namely, Mexico as well as Canada--but it is much more of an issue with Mexico. We would bring noncontiguous countries--Central and South American countries apart from Mexico--into the same category and treat those aliens the same way.

Third, those UACs that do not voluntarily depart--which is part of the process dealing with Mexican UACs--will be immediately placed in a streamlined removal process and detained by the Department of Homeland Security. Currently, UACs are transferred to HHS and their Office of Refugee Resettlement, where they, quite frankly, disappear into the United States. They are reunited with parents or sponsors living in the United States, often illegally. What that means as a practical matter is they essentially disappear into our country.

Fourth, anyone with gang affiliations, whether those affiliations are renounced or not, will be immediately placed in expedited removal proceedings under INA 235(b). Therefore, that would make them ineligible for asylum status.

Fifth, we would raise the standard for asylum determinations, from a standard where it is now ``credible fear,'' which is extremely subjective and, quite frankly, a standard that is too easy for these folks to meet, simply by repeating the right magic words which they learn about as they come here. We would raise that standard from ``credible fear'' to ``substantiated fear of persecution.''

Sixth, within 72 hours of an initial screening, all UACs found not to have a claim for asylum will be given a final removal order and placed on the next available flight to their home country, subject to determinations of cost, feasibility, and any repatriation agreements with their home country.

Seventh, a final order of removal is not subject to review and sets, as a minimum, a 10-year bar to reentry.

Eighth, upon apprehension, biometric data--including, but not limited to, photographs and fingerprints--will be collected for future enforcement use.

Ninth, and finally, the Department of Homeland Security will report annually to Congress on the number of apprehensions, the number of removals, the number of voluntary departures, et cetera. And specifically, in no event shall a voluntary departure be counted as a deportation.

Now, what does all this mean? It is a very detailed bill. We put great time and effort into the specifics of the legislation. We need to get the specifics right. But what does it mean? It means we are stopping catch and release. It means we are stopping simply releasing these folks out into the country, to family members or to sponsors, where they are usually never heard from again. They don't show up for court dates and they don't respond to any enforcement actions. Catch and release is a complete failure because it essentially means being released in the country for an extended period of time, and it means we retain control and detention and then have a quick, efficient process for removing them from the country. That is the only way we will stem this increasing flow--still increasing. The number of unaccompanied alien children is still mounting and mounting and mounting.

I called this a crisis at the beginning of my remarks, and it is. It is a crisis on many different levels. It is a border crisis, it is a law enforcement crisis, and it is a fiscal issue. As many folks have correctly said--particularly on the left--it is a humanitarian crisis.

The biggest threat to these individuals in humanitarian terms is the fact that they are entrusted and put in the hands of outright criminal gangs, often drug lords and drug gangs, coyotes--folks who do not have their best interests in mind, and very often in that process they are abused in multiple ways. That is a humanitarian travesty and it is a humanitarian crisis.

The problem is we have a policy right now that encourages that treatment and allows for those numbers to grow and not to be brought back down to zero. We need a different policy that discourages and stops that. Fundamentally, the way to do that is to apprehend these individuals, and instead of releasing them into the country--which means the illegal gang smuggling operation has been successful--quickly and efficiently deport them back to their home country. That is the only action which will reverse the message that has gone out far and wide in Central and South America, which is to send your minors because President Obama has an Executive order that says we won't prosecute them. That is the message that has been heard and the fundamental message we have to reverse, and you only reverse that message if you reverse the policy through specific actions such as what I have described.

This is a graph which very clearly shows that deportations of this class of illegal aliens have plummeted under President Obama. President Obama often points to a change in the law in 2008 that was part of that equation. He complained about that for weeks and weeks when this crisis first hit the front page of the paper. The problem is when it comes to his proposal which was sent to Congress about how to deal with the crisis, he didn't ask to change the law. He didn't ask for any new authority to expedite the removal process. All he asked for was $3.9 billion, largely for the housing and feeding of these aliens and not for expedited and effective removal. That is what we need to change. This trendline is what we need to change in order to address the problem and stop this mounting flow and crisis at our border.

I hope we act in a responsible way by adopting this sort of policy and catch and release and detain these folks. Of course we need to treat them humanely and provide what we need to provide for them in the limited period of time we have them detained, but don't release them into the country with family members and often other illegals or sponsors. Detain them and deport them to their home countries. That is the only appropriate response which will stop this crisis from continuing to grow and stop the abuses and humanitarian crisis from continuing to grow.

I encourage my colleagues to come around to this commonsense solution. The American people have already done that. Have a townhall meeting on this. I don't care what State you come from. Look at the polling on this issue. The American people have already reached this commonsense consensus. The question is, is Washington going to catch up and follow? Are we going to reach the same commonsense consensus and respond in a commonsense way that solves the problem rather than just growing it or throwing money at it?

I encourage all of us from both sides of the aisle to come around to this sort of consensus approach. Of course I favor the specific legislation I have filed, S. 2632, but it doesn't have to be exactly that vehicle. It does have to be

that general approach in order to stop this mounting flood of illegals at our southern border and to deal with this crisis--including the humanitarian crisis--effectively rather than continuing to deal with it in a way where the numbers, the burden, the crisis, and the abuses continue to grow.

In closing, I will say I am, again, very concerned, as I am sure every Member in this body is, about the specific impact to my State. I mentioned some of those impacts. I didn't get those details from the Department of Homeland Security even though I specifically asked for that from the Department. I have had no real cooperation or information from the Department. I had to search out that information from other reliable sources. I will continue to do that, and I will continue to get the word out to Louisianans because they deserve to know what our State and communities may be dealing with.

In the meantime I hope the Department of Homeland Security will actually answer my letter, answer my questions, and give us the details directly so we all know exactly what we are dealing with as a country and in our individual States.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment so that I may call up my amendment No. 3550, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about this amendment which I look forward to being adopted on this important terrorism risk insurance reauthorization bill. It is a commonsense amendment. It is about the Federal Reserve Board, and it says at least one member of that important Board should have significant experience as a community banker or a community bank supervisor.

This used to be commonplace because community banks--smaller institutions--were and are an important part of our financial system. In fact, these days it is one part of our financial system that sets us apart from many others, such as Canada and Europe, which are far more dominated by mega-institutions. Of course, the United States has some very big institutions, and they serve an important role and they have an important place, but smaller institutions, so-called community banks, serve a vital role as well and particularly in smaller communities and in more rural areas they serve those communities in a way megabanks simply do not.

I have been looking at this trend on the Federal Reserve, and unfortunately there is an unmistakable trend away from having adequate representation from folks with community bank experience; that same trend has been toward having the Federal Reserve Board completely dominated by academics and folks with megabank and academic economist experience.

This chart I have in the Chamber shows that trend. From 1936 until the present, it goes decade by decade. The chart is a little busy, and we have this color coding here, but basically we can see this huge growth in the domination of this red category: folks with pure academic economic experience. Folks with community bank experience, which used to actually dominate the Federal Reserve Board several decades ago, are now very limited.

Look, there is nothing wrong with folks with academic experience, but it should not be so dominant on the Federal Reserve and we should have regular representation from community banks or community bank supervisors because that is a vital part of our banking system.

My amendment is therefore very simple. It would mandate that at least one member of the Federal Reserve Board have that experience, have direct community bank experience or have direct experience as a community bank supervisor. Specifically, we are talking about institutions with less than $10 billion in total assets.

This bill follows a letter several of my colleagues joined me in sending to President Obama. We were asking him to nominate an individual with that sort of experience, and I thank the cosigners on that letter: Senators Tester, Moran, Merkley, Coburn, and Johanns on the committee; and noncommittee Members Senators Hirono, King, Franken, Baldwin, Begich, Landrieu, Heinrich, and Udall.

We seem to be making progress in that regard. There is widespread reporting that the White House is considering a list of candidates for the Federal Reserve with community banking experience. But this specific mandate--just one member, a very modest mandate--would help ensure that happens and would help ensure that regularly happens into the future to reverse this trend, to get more balance on the Federal Reserve Board.

This is very important in the context of the too-big-to-fail debate. Too big to fail helped lead to the crisis several years ago in the banking industry. It helped lead to the massive bailouts of mega- institutions, and unfortunately I am one who believes--and there are many others--that too big to fail is alive and well today, and in some ways Dodd-Frank institutionalized too big to fail. It did not end too big to fail in any way.

We need to do a number of things to even the playing field, to make it fairer for smaller institutions, community banks that serve our smaller communities in rural areas, particularly on the Federal Reserve Board, which is such a significant governing and supervisory board in our banking industry.

I specifically thank the ranking member of the committee, Senator Crapo, for his support of this concept, his support in negotiations of this amendment, and his very active involvement in getting this amendment accepted on to the TRIA bill.

I think the ranking member may have a few words about this and other matters. I will relinquish the floor.

Mr. President, just one final wrapup issue. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter of support for this amendment from ICBA, the Independent Community Bankers of America.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Madam President, I rise today to discuss the growing crisis of unaccompanied alien children streaming across our southern border. It has been called a mounting crisis, including the security crisis it is. There are some 52,000 who have come across in the last several months, according to recent reports--up from just a few thousand 1 year ago--and the threat is that will grow significantly. It is continuing to grow.

This has been called a humanitarian crisis, and it is. These are, in most cases, vulnerable children who were taken through by human smugglers, by drug cartels, by other folks who do not--absolutely do not--have their best interests in mind. These children are often mistreated in all sorts of despicable ways through that journey.

How do we address this crisis? It seems to me we need to get our core response right, and the only way to stop this increasing flow is to make clear this activity will not be successful.

The only way to do that is to detain these illegal aliens in our country and keep them under our supervision until we quickly deport them to their countries of origin.

That is the only response, the only message, the only visual that will stop this mounting flow from continuing to grow. That is the most humanitarian response that will stop more and more of these Central and South American children from being put in this illegal trade and being victimized along the way.

Now, unfortunately, so far, that is not the response President Obama has made.

After speaking for weeks about the 2008 change in immigration law as a factor in this scenario, when President Obama presented a request to Congress on this issue, he did not request any change in that law. He talked about it. He pointed to that law for weeks saying this was the root cause of the problem. Yet in his request to Congress he is not proposing we change that law.

Instead, all he is proposing is more money--a lot more money--$3.7 billion. Now, some more response and some more resources are undoubtedly necessary, but the lion's share of that, again, doesn't go to enforcement, doesn't go to deportation, doesn't go to sending these illegals back to their home country quickly, humanely, and efficiently. It goes to feeding them and housing them in this country for an extended, indefinite period of time.

That is not what we need again.

What we need, instead, is whatever changes to the law are necessary to allow us to detain these folks in a proper, humane way and quickly move them back to their home countries. We need the will and the resources to get that done in a quick, efficient way. That is what I will be proposing with many others in both the House and the Senate.

For this to work we also need the will and the cooperation of the administration, and I am concerned that there isn't that real focus, real determination, and real will. It is great to have the right law written down on a piece of paper, the right words on a page, but it is equally as important--perhaps more important--to have the right administration, the right spirit, the right execution, the right follow-through on those words on a page.

Unfortunately, we haven't had that in the Obama administration either.

The Los Angeles Times, not exactly a right-leaning publication, has noted that deportations of illegals has plummeted from the high in 2008, plummeted every year since then, to an absolute low in 2013 of about 1,669--from a high of 8,100, down each and every year to 1,600.

This first drop probably had a lot to do with the change in the law to which President Obama has alluded. We need to fix that. But these other drops have to do with the spirit, the focus, and the determination--or lack thereof--of the present administration.

Similarly, about 600 minors--all illegals--were ordered deported each year from nonborder States a decade ago--a decade ago 600 and last year only 95. Again, this is the same plummeting trend, the same absolutely plummeting trend. That is what we need to fundamentally reverse.

To reverse that I have joined with other Members, as I suggested, to get the right solution in Congress, both changes in the law we need to make and the resources we need to hold these illegal aliens and quickly turn around the flow and send them back to their home countries. That is why I have joined already with Senator Flake in his amendment, which he was trying to propose on the Senate floor this week, to repeal the troublesome part of the 2008 law.

That is why I am going further and drafting additional legislation to give this administration the mandate, the ability, the directive it clearly needs to change that practice and to change that policy--not to allow these illegals to be released into the country simply on the honor system that they might show up for a court date--we know that well over 90 percent never show up--and not simply send more money to HHS to properly care for these illegal aliens with no end in sight.

Of course, they need to be properly treated and cared for when they are in this country and beyond, but we should not just write a blank check to keep them here forever but change the law and have the procedure in place to detain them--not to release them--and to quickly, effectively, bring them back to their home country.

That is what happens in a much more routine way for illegal aliens from border countries such as Mexico and Canada. That is what happens effectively in those situations. We need to mirror that. We need to copy that and make sure that happens effectively when the illegal alien is from a border State.

I wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Johnson back in January of this year regarding this very issue, before it became the current crisis, regarding reports detailing actual DHS assistance in the completion of smuggling illegal alien minors.

In that case, a smuggled child in many cases was transferred to illegal alien parents actually by DHS--by HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement. So actually, in those cases, the Federal Government was not completing the object of the criminal conspiracy--was not stopping the smuggling, not punishing the smugglers, but completing the operation. Again, it is another classic case of sending the wrong message--a message that will increase the flow and increase the problem, not decrease it.

Ultimately, that goes back to the humanitarian issue too, because encouraging human smuggling enriches drug cartels, allows them to continue using violence as a means to an end, and wages war on Mexican and American citizens alike as well as the folks involved from Central and South American countries.

We need to change that basic message. We need to turn around those

basic incentives. The only way to do that is to have a law and the execution of the law that is reversing that flow, that is apprehending these folks, that is treating them humanely, that is not releasing them out into American society, and that is quickly and effectively returning them to their home countries.

That is the only message, that is the only visual, that will stop this mounting wave and will address the horrible humanitarian problems that flow directly from it.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as we all know, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the VA, is in shambles. Two national reports this week have highlighted the fact that bureaucratic ineptitude and incompetence seem to be the norm there. Unfortunately, reports that surfaced out of Phoenix which led to the resignation of Secretary Shinseki do not seem limited to Arizona.

I wish to talk about where we are nationally with this scandal, and also specific instances that have come out of Louisiana I have learned about working directly with whistleblowers and working directly with families of veterans whom I am very concerned about who are examples of this same sort of abuse.

On Monday, the head of the agency that investigates whistleblower complaints in the Federal Government, Carolyn Lerner, sent a blistering letter to President Obama stating that the VA Office of the Medical Inspector has repeatedly undermined legitimate whistleblowers by confirming their allegations of wrongdoing but dismissing them as having no impact on patient care.

Lerner's letter lists numerous cases where whistleblowers reported numerous failings at the VA, including examples where drinking water at the VA facility at Grand Junction, CO, was tainted with elevated levels of Legionella bacteria, which can cause a form of pneumonia, and standard maintenance and cleaning procedures not being performed at the facility.

Also, in Montgomery, AL, a VA pulmonologist portrayed past test readings as current results in more than 1,200 patient files, ``likely resulting in inaccurate patient health information being recorded.''

In these cases, among many others, VA whistleblowers brought the information to the special counsel, an independent Federal entity charged with enforcing whistleblower protection laws. The special counsel passed it along to the Office of the Medical Inspector, but that VA medical inspector concluded the hospital's failings, while accurately reported by the whistleblowers, didn't threaten veterans health or safety, even when the VA inspector general had concluded that similar faults compromised care in other cases.

This is deeply troubling and severely cripples any belief that the VA is in any way capable of fixing its deep-seated problems on its own.

My colleague, Senator Coburn of Oklahoma, whom I have worked with closely in dealing with many of these VA problems, also released his oversight report on the Department entitled ``Friendly Fire: Death, Delay, and Dismay at the VA.'' To say his report is troubling is quite an understatement. Some of the key findings I found most troubling in the report were these: the fact that there seems to be a perverse culture, his report said, within the Department where veterans are not always the priority and data and employees are manipulated to maintain an appearance that all is well.

In many cases it also seems bad employees are rewarded with bonuses and paid leave, while whistleblowers, health care providers, even veterans and their families are subjected to bullying, sexual harassment, abuse, and neglect.

Senator Coburn's report also highlights criminal activity by VA employees, vast amounts of waste at the VA, the fact that the VA actually made waiting lists worse, and the VA Committee, led by Bernie Sanders, largely ignored these warnings and delay. That committee, under Senator Sanders, has only held two oversight hearings in the last 4 years.

As I said, this is a national scandal. These are national problems. The two reports I alluded to are national reports. But I know from my work in Louisiana that they have consequences, and that similar cases exist in Louisiana. I have been deeply involved in a couple that I wish to highlight.

First, the Overton Brooks scandal in Shreveport, LA. A whistleblower came forward to my office with very troubling information regarding the VA hospital in Shreveport called Overton Brooks. The whistleblower is a licensed clinical social worker there, and he accused that VA facility of the following: maintaining a secret wait list and manipulating the official electronic wait list; using gaming strategies to manipulate reported wait times--for example, holding appointments without scheduling them until capacity opens or entering into the system that the patient requested an out-of-date appointment when that just wasn't true; providing group therapy appointments to mental health patients, and counting these group sessions as an appointment with a primary care provider, which they were clearly not.

These aren't just allegations. I have also personally seen emails the whistleblower provided, and that has shown that this secret list could contain up to 2,700 veterans. It also seems to confirm that, while waiting for appointments, 37 of those veterans died.

Since hearing these allegations, I have sent a letter demanding a full investigation into Overton Brooks to the inspector general of the VA, and I have confirmed that that is happening. That absolutely is moving forward.

No veteran who served this country should be put on any secret waiting list. At a time when we are learning more and more about rampant mismanagement at the VA across the country, any internal allegations such as that should be taken very seriously and clearly investigated.

That brings me to the second case I have personally dealt with and learned about in Louisiana, this case out of the New Orleans area.

Gwen Moity Nolan was the daughter of a distinguished veteran. She came to one of my recent townhall meetings in New Orleans, and she explained to me personally that her dad passed away in 2011 while a patient at the VA hospital in New Orleans, allegedly in part due to delayed and poor care at the facility.

She described the medical treatment there as poor, and that her father's doctor had a terrible attitude and regularly refused to show up at the hospital in key situations.

She requested that information from the VA, including information regarding a supposed investigation into the case of her father, be given to her.

Her dad had passed. What she most wanted was to be sure the VA got it--to be sure the VA in New Orleans took some remedial action to correct the situation. Her case was done. Her case was done in two ways: First of all, tragically, her father was dead. Her father was passed. Secondly, she brought a legal action against the VA, and that was settled for a substantial sum of money which she received, and she is not disputing that or reopening that. That is done. But she wanted to know that these problems have been addressed.

On June 3 I sent a letter to the Acting Secretary of the VA, Sloan Gibson, demanding this information and the steps the VA has taken to correct what went wrong.

After the New Orleans VA responded by saying ``patient privacy laws prohibit us from discussing specific patient information,'' I sent another letter with the pertinent constituent's privacy release form. The patient is dead. The daughter will sign any release form they want. This was clearly stonewalling to avoid giving us appropriate information.

Unfortunately, the VA responded that they cannot share this information with my office unless very specific criteria are met. Guess what. They didn't think it was relevant to list the specific criteria we need to meet. Again, more pure stonewalling.

This information is extremely important, and I am continuing to fight to get my constituents and myself this information about if and how the New Orleans VA fixed these problems. I will

be demanding a meeting as soon as possible with the head of the New Orleans VA hospital so I can answer those questions directly, and that person had better not stonewall me to my face. That will have very negative consequences. We are setting up that meeting. That meeting will happen, and I will be following up on this New Orleans case.

Similarly, I am following up on the Shreveport case that came to light because of the whistleblower. I will be in Shreveport tomorrow, meeting with two significant people directly involved in these issues-- one an official at the VA; the second, someone who has come with additional information to confirm the fears, claims, and concerns of the original whistleblower. So I will be having those meetings in Shreveport tomorrow.

Again, these Louisiana cases that I have been personally involved in underscore the serious scandal at the VA. Every community has these cases. Every State has these cases. Every Senator--Republican, Democrat, Independent--has these cases. We need to fix these to properly honor our veterans. We need to ensure that this sort of abuse--in some cases, fraud and dishonesty--to the great detriment of our veterans never happens again.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as you know, Close Up is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes responsible participation in our democratic process. Its mission is to inform, educate, and inspire students to exercise the rights and accept the responsibilities of being a citizen in our democracy. Through experiential civic education programs based in Washington, DC, and other local communities, and publication of classroom resources to help educators teach students about public policy issues, Close

Up impacts the lives of students every day.

Both of us are testament to the profound impact these programs have on our youth, as we participated in the Close Up program in its early years, an experience that incited our first thoughts of a career in public service. We commend and congratulate Close Up on its important work.

Charlie was first introduced to Close Up in 1974 when he was chief of staff for Senator Bennett Johnston and helped secure funding for the Allen J. Ellender Fellowships that served to provide support for economically disadvantaged students and teachers to participate in Close Up programs. After working closely with Close Up for many years, he joined its board of directors in 1988 and has served as the vice chairman for the past 10 years. During his service, Charlie has provided leadership and assisted Close Up in its relations with Members in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Mr. President, I stand in strong support of the veterans bill we are about to vote on as well. I commend everyone who worked on it on both sides of the aisle, certainly including Senator McCain, who was here a minute ago, Senator Sanders, who is on the floor, and Senator Burr, who is the ranking Republican member of the committee.

I am strongly supporting it, mostly with three key provisions in mind--one I have been working on since well before this scandal and this crisis that has engulfed the VA broke; that is, to dislodge, to get moving on crucial expanded VA outpatient clinics in 18 States around the country, including Louisiana. Mr. President, 26 clinics; 2 of those are in Louisiana, in Lafayette and Lake Charles. Those should have been built by now. They have been on the books, they have been in the VA plan for years. Through what the VA readily admits was a bureaucratic glitch--a complete screw-up at the VA--they were delayed for a significant period of time.

There was another glitch in terms of the so-called scoring of these clinics. That required legislation, which the House passed. But that legislation, which I was spearheading in the Senate, has been balled up in the Senate.

Finally, the corrective legislation, to get moving, to get these clinics done--including in Lafayette and Lake Charles, LA--is in this bill. So I have been committed to that for months--since well before this scandal erupted.

The other two provisions I want to highlight in this bill do go directly to this scandal. One is the need to give veterans choice when they are locked into a dysfunctional system. So for the first time ever we are mandating the unparalleled choice that if a veteran is either over 40 miles from a VA facility or he or she cannot get care--an appointment--in a reasonable timeframe, then that veteran can go to a Medicare provider or another provider who is delineated in the bill to get the care he or she needs in a timely way. That is a really important reform to expand choice and really competition that I think will make the VA system better and offer veterans, when need be, important care outside the strict VA system.

The third provision I wish to highlight is to give the leadership of the VA the tools it needs to clean house, to get rid of incompetence or, worse, to fire people who clearly merit that in the cases we have been reading about in the last several months.

We have had so many protections heaped on the civil service system over 100-plus years that it has become virtually impossible to fire or demote or punish someone who is deserving of that because of incompetence or worse. We need to change that because unless and until we do, bureaucracies such as the VA will remain broken. This bill has important provisions in that regard.

Those are the three top reasons I will be strongly supporting the bill.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, on April 29 of this year, Louisiana's House Republican delegation wrote a letter to Senator Landrieu, as well as myself, urging us to represent a majority of Louisianan's opinions and oppose the nomination of Sylvia Burwell to become HHS Secretary unless significant changes were made to the path we are on regarding the implementation of ObamaCare.

They asked us to oppose Ms. Burwell's nomination until an agreement is reached to provide for the equitable treatment and protection of all Americans under ObamaCare, and until the administration, including Ms. Burwell, committed not to pick and choose what parts of the law they would implement; not to pick and choose what deadlines they would meet, what deadlines they would ignore; not to pick and choose mandates they would enforce, such as the individual mandate, and what mandates they would ignore, such as the employer mandate.

This is that letter dated April 29. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. I agreed with that sentiment. I agreed with those concerns. So I responded shortly thereafter in a letter dated May 19 that I would oppose Ms. Burwell's nomination because of those concerns, because there is no evidence that Ms. Burwell would put an end to any of that, would put an end to the administration's common practice of creating special rules for big business, special rules for Washington insiders, for not simply following the law, not simply implementing the law but picking, choosing, and doing parts of the law, such as delaying parts of the law when it was politically convenient.

The Senate's consideration of Ms. Burwell's nomination to become Secretary of HHS invited a conversation to discuss all of that, to discuss her responsibilities for the full, impartial, fair, legal implementation of ObamaCare. I paid attention very much to that discussion. I was hopeful about it. Unfortunately, it was disappointing, in my view, in terms of her responses.

During the nomination process, Ms. Burwell was asked on a number of occasions how she would continue to implement and enforce various aspects of ObamaCare. Again, these concerns obviously arose because of the administration's decisions to make more than 20 unilateral changes to the law as written, to timing, to applicability of various provisions.

One of these decisions which was particularly highlighted in my House colleagues' letter of April 29 was to give big business relief from the employer mandate while there was no relief for individuals. Millions will face a steep penalty--face it right now under the individual mandates. Not only did Ms. Burwell punt to the Treasury Department, her response failed to even acknowledge that the administration has failed to execute the law as written because the law is broken.

The American people have really had enough of the administration passing blame through certain Federal agencies or to bureaucrats or to Congress or to political parties. They have had enough of the blame game. They have had enough of finger pointing. What I find even more hypocritical in this regard is that the administration worked with many Members of Congress behind closed doors to give Congress and Washington insiders special treatment under ObamaCare, to give them a way to avoid higher costs and lower quality care, the way Americans are suffering from that.

So I will also oppose Ms. Burwell's nomination until the American people get the same relief from ObamaCare as the Washington elite, as the Washington exemption from ObamaCare, as the Congressional subsidy. To date, at least 4.7 million Americans, including 92,000 Louisianans, have had their health insurance plans canceled as a result of the mandates of the law.

Many of these folks were then dealt with a choice of going without health insurance or taking the gamble of purchasing an expensive plan on the government-run ObamaCare exchange.

Again, the law, as written, was intended to make every Member of Congress and our staff walk in those same shoes, but the administration, again, was fast and loose with the law and created a special rule contrary to statute. Ms. Burwell was part of that administration, creating a special exemption, a special subsidy, a special rule not found in the statute.

So in contrast to that experience of many Louisianians, millions of Americans, Members of Congress, and congressional staff can get out of that mandate of ObamaCare. Many congressional staff have been exempted from having to go to the exchange, which is clearly a requirement under the statute. Members of Congress and staff who do go to the exchange get a huge taxpayer funded subsidy--nowhere in the statute and nowhere available to any other American at the same income levels.

For all of these reasons, because of this disparate treatment, because of ignoring the law, because of amending the law over and over by administrative fiat, I have to oppose Ms. Burwell's nomination.

She gave no indication in any of her testimony or in any discussions leading up to this confirmation vote that she would change any of that, and it is pretty clear she will not.

I will oppose the nomination.

If Ms. Burwell is passed by the Senate as Secretary of the HHS, I urge her to take heed of these calls. We have a law before us. We need to follow the law--not in some cases but in all cases, not implement here but not there, not give some folks special treatment and special exemptions not found under the statute but implement the law as written.

That will be her responsibility as much as anyone in the administration. I urge her to be a true leader in the administration, to start doing that in an appropriate, legal way.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the April 29, 2014, and May 19, 2014, letters I referred to previously.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss important veteran and VA issues--issues we are all properly focused on like a laser beam right now--and I will be joined over the next several minutes by Senators Rubio, Inhofe, and Heller, who share all of my concerns.

I have been coming to the floor pretty relentlessly--because apparently that is what is necessary--to talk about one specific priority with regard to veterans in Louisiana; that is, moving--there is no good reason we can't move--on expanding outpatient clinics that are overdue in 27 locations and in 18 States, including 2 new expanded outpatient clinics in Louisiana, specifically in Lafayette and Lake Charles. These clinics have been planned for, on the books, and paid for for several years now. They are not being built, they are not being moved into purely because of an administrative glitch at the VA that delayed the whole process by a year. Then, in that intervening year, a so-called new scoring issue came up on Capitol Hill at the CBO. We have blown through all of that. We have solved those problems, finally, after a lot of delay. We have solved those problems, and now there is absolutely no reason to not take up a bill that has been passed by the House, put a simple amendment on the bill and pass it through the Senate, and get on with building these new and necessary expanded VA clinics at 27 locations around the country, in 18 States, obviously including the State of Louisiana. There are two locations there, as I mentioned--in Lafayette and Lake Charles.

I again take the floor in the context of this much broader VA scandal to urge us to come together and act in this simple but important way. I have been coming to the floor to urge this action for months now--well before this current VA scandal erupted. But I think that new context of this national VA scandal makes bipartisan action on this and anything else we can agree on more necessary than ever. So I again urge all of my colleagues to come together to get this simple but important work done and to continue to work on all of the other very necessary changes we need at the VA.

In terms of these 27 outpatient clinics, there is no disagreement about this. A bill has been passed through the House--with one dissenting vote--to get this done. It sits in the well of the Senate. There is no objection to the merits of the bill as long as we add one perfecting amendment that has been worked out with every Member of the Senate. There is no substantive objection to that. However, it has been held up and objected to by Senator Sanders, the head of the veterans committee, purely because he wants to use it as leverage to pass his much broader veterans bill on a host of other topics.

As I have said many times before, those other topics are very important. Those broader topics have only been underscored in the last few weeks with this developing VA scandal. We need to address many areas, but we shouldn't hold veterans hostage and we shouldn't hold up progress in any area we can agree on simply to create a hostage to try to forge movement in these other areas.

In fact, in terms of that general proposition, I think Senator Sanders agreed with me. Back on November 19 of 2013, Senator Sanders adopted and endorsed this approach with regard to other matters. There was another set of work on other veterans issues, and issues were worked out so that a specific proposal could move forward by unanimous consent. Senator Sanders came to the floor and basically said: Yes, let's agree on what we can agree on. Let's move forward with what we can move forward on.

I am happy to tell you that I think that was a concern of his.

He was speaking about another Senator on this other veterans issue.

We got that UC'd last night. So we moved that pretty

quickly, and I want to try to do those things. Where we have

agreement, let's move it.

Senator Sanders was urging us, particularly in the context of the overall VA scandal and VA mess: Let's start acting. And where we have agreement, let's move it.

We are not going to solve every veterans problem in one bill overnight, but we can start. A bite at a time, a step at a time, we can start to do positive work, and these 27 clinics in 18 States are very positive, very concrete.

So where we have agreement--and we have complete agreement in this area--``let's move it''--a direct quote from Senator Sanders from late last year. I am sorry to say that Senator Sanders is not allowing us to move it. We have absolute agreement on the substance of these clinics. We can call that bill off the calendar right now. We can put the perfecting amendment on it. There is absolutely universal agreement on the substance of that bill with that amendment. But we are not moving it, apparently because he wants to use that as some sort of leverage for other VA proposals. I want to work on those proposals, but where we have agreement, let's move it.

Veterans want us to come together in a bipartisan way. They want us to act not in a month or a year, not after more and more studies, they want us to start to act now where we can, where we have agreement.

I think it is very important that we act. It is very important that we do so in a bipartisan way. This is one focused area where that is possible immediately, today, so I urge us all to do that.

There are other areas where we need to act. Senator Sanders is in discussions with many of us, being led on the Republican side by Senators Burr and McCain. I hope that broader agreement comes together. I hope it comes together very soon. I have been assured by both sides-- by Senator Sanders on the Democratic side and Senators Burr and McCain on the Republican side--that certainly this clinic issue will be included in any such agreement. But let's come together here and now where we have agreement--and we do on these clinics. Let's act for veterans as soon as we can, and we can right now with regard to these clinics.

I urge us to adopt that positive, commonsense approach: Act where we have agreement, immediately. Build consensus and continue to work on those areas where there is continuing discussion, and act and build agreement and build consensus as quickly as we can in those other areas. I urge us to do that as soon as we can, wherever we can, whenever we can, and that can start today--if Senator Sanders will let us--with regard to these 27 expanded outpatient clinics in 18 States.

I see Senator Heller has joined us on the floor, and I will defer to him. I look forward to the comments of Senators Rubio and Inhofe as well about the broader veteran and VA challenges as well as this specific clinics issue.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I wish to applaud the work of the Senator from Nevada and echo his sentiments. I am a member of this bipartisan working group on the claims backlog. I am a coauthor of the bipartisan legislation he helped spearhead, along with Senator Casey. It is another very good example of a bipartisan consensus where we can act. We can move it. So let's come together and let's act in a responsible, bipartisan way, and let's move it. That is what veterans want. That is what veterans tell me all across Louisiana. That is what the veterans service organizations are saying.

This crisis demands action. It demands bipartisan action. This is an area where we can act now and act effectively. We should. The clinics I spoke about are an area where we can act now and act effectively in a bipartisan way. We should.

I also applaud Senator Inhofe, who may be coming to the floor, for his leadership on this clinics issue. We need to authorize those and move on with them and get that done.

I also thank Senator Rubio, who will be speaking later about the legislation he has that has already passed the House to give the leadership--the new leadership, thank goodness--of the VA the authority they need to take dramatic action when necessary, to clean house when necessary, and get people in place who are going to make a difference in that broken bureaucracy.

So let's act now, in a bipartisan way, where we can. Again, that is absolutely possible in these areas, including these 27 outpatient clinics in 18 States, the 2 in Louisiana that I discussed.

We have complete agreement in the Senate on the substance of these clinics. We have legislation that has already passed the House. So please, Senator Sanders, release your obstacle, release your blockade. Let's move forward. Let's agree where we can agree. Let's act where we can act, here and now, and continue to work on those other vital areas where we also need agreement.

There is a common saying: Time is money. Well, in terms of what we are talking about, time can be lost lives. We have seen cases of that, documented cases of that with regard to veterans who were waiting for so long they died. Time in health care can be lost lives.

This past week, as I traveled in Louisiana, I had a townhall meeting in New Orleans, among other places, and a New Orleans police officer--a female police officer--came and told me about the case of her father who, because of a lack of attention and time lapsed in the VA system, died, literally died directly related to that. Her name is Gwen Moity Nolan, and although she has lost her father, she wants to make sure that does not happen to any other veteran's family, that what happened to Richard Moity does not happen to others. Her case was looked at by the VA, and they admitted fault, they admitted negligence, and they actually reached a substantial settlement with her over their lack of attention to her father. But she really wants to make sure that does not happen to any other veteran's family. She came to me pleading: Can you make sure they have taken the necessary steps to fix those problems in the New Orleans VA?

So I have written to the VA and said: I want to see the results of that investigation with regard to Richard Moity. You say you have taken corrective action? I want to understand exactly what that corrective action is.

Time is money? No. In this case, time can be lost lives--the life of Richard Moity, the lives of veterans in Arizona, the lives of veterans around the country for whom inattention, delay, and lack of responsiveness in the VA system meant lost lives.

So let's not delay here in the Senate. Where we have agreement, let's move, let's act. We have agreement on these clinics. We have agreement on action to address the VA backlog Senator Heller talked about. Let's act. Let's move because delay can lead to serious consequences in health care, even the loss of life.

I thank Senators Inhofe and Rubio, who may be coming to the floor later to talk about these issues, for their determined work. I look forward to moving on this issue. I look forward to Senator Sanders hopefully reaching agreement on a broader set of proposals, including this clinics issue, in the very near future, and if not, I will be back to the floor demanding action on these clinics within a few days.

I yield the floor.