Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 170, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the measure.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 171, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Thursday, May 18; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Brand nomination, with the time until 12 noon equally divided in the usual form; further, that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the postcloture time on the Brand nomination expire at 12 noon tomorrow; finally, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I come from a State that in some ways is very similar to yours, the State of Kansas. You get to see firsthand the impact of trade and exports on the people, on jobs, and on the economic opportunity of my communities. Our State economy relies on our ability to sell the products we grow and manufacture to people around the globe.

Strengthening our trade relationships and expanding market access for exports abroad creates a greater opportunity for Kansans today and those who follow us. One of my goals has always been to make certain that communities across Kansas remain a place in which the young men and women who grow up there find it to be a place to raise their families. Our ability to do that, especially in a small, rural community with agriculture and agricultural exports, is so important. It is a way that we can really put America first.

If our goal is to have an America that has strength and prosperity, we ought to continue to focus on improving our Nation's economy. That is one of the things that I appreciate--we seem to be focused in such a significant way on our ability to grow an economy. I think we are poised for much greater things economically.

``Economics'' may sound like just one of those words, but what that means is more jobs, better jobs, more secure jobs, jobs for our children so that maybe they can pay back their student loans. This country desperately needs the jobs in the communities across Kansas and around the country, and it is really what we call the American dream.

Trade, including our ability to sell the food and fiber we grow in our State, is a key part that drives our economy forward. Almost half of the wheat grown in Kansas is exported to foreign markets. What that means is, if you weren't doing that, nearly half of the acres planted in our State would be idle. That means the communities those farmers and ranchers live in and around would have half of the amount of economic activity that currently is occurring. American ranchers ship over 1 million metric tons of beef to consumers abroad. Thousands of acres of corn, sorghum, and soybeans being planted this spring across Kansas and the Nation will ultimately be exported.

Approximately 95 percent of the world's consumers live outside America's borders. To reach those consumers, our Nation must produce a trade policy that grows the existing export markets while continuously building and developing new ones. Without export markets, both production and prices would fall for farmers and ranchers, and rural communities supported by agriculture would disappear. The revenue generated by exports not only keeps family farmers and ranchers afloat, it drives rural economies and supports small businesses.

The aerospace industry, which is so important in Kansas, also relies on an integrated supply chain and strong trade policy. Wichita, KS-- appropriately labeled the ``Air Capital of the World''--manufactures more than half of the world's general aviation light aircraft and business jets. Without trade, aerospace and manufacturing facilities in Wichita and surrounding areas and Kansas City and surrounding areas would not exist and workers in those factories would be left without job opportunities.

It is critical that we protect these jobs, many of which depend upon the United States having a strong economic relationship with Canada and Mexico. The North America Free-Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994, plays a significant role in supporting trade with those two neighboring nations.

Of course, the world and technology have changed since 1994 when that agreement was entered into. There are areas of the agreement that can be improved and modernized. Many of those changes have been discussed and are issues that the United States, Canada, and Mexico agreed to during TPP negotiations, such as strengthening our intellectual property rights and new provisions for e-commerce.

If we work collaboratively with Mexico and Canada to address the issues with NAFTA, including the issues on which we strongly disagree, I am confident we can improve the agreement for all parties. But efforts to pull out of NAFTA completely or to weaken our trading relationship with Canada and Mexico during renegotiations would cause significant damage to the American economy. We must have willing negotiators sitting across the table when discussing NAFTA, and that starts with treating our neighbors as trade partners and as friends. We need to treat these folks as friends, and we need to seize the opportunities we have.

Working together to improve NAFTA or building economic relations with other trading partners does not mean America should take a step back from enforcing the current rules. Oftentimes in the past, we have been too focused on striking trade deals and selling them to the public, but we haven't done enough to make sure other countries are playing by the rules that are negotiated. Nontariff barriers and unfair trading practices by foreign countries harm our producers, workers, and consumers.

We must make certain American producers are competing on a level playing field in a global market and that our jobs and wages are not being undermined by other countries' efforts to distort trade policies and trade agreements.

Many Americans have lost confidence in trade agreements, and I believe that is partly because the benefits of trade agreements have been oversold, while the enforcement of unfair trade practices have been insufficient. In promoting agreements, leaders had set expectations for increased jobs, higher wages, growth in exports, and many other metrics that were impossible to meet. When these exaggerated promises did not come to fruition, many people lost confidence in those trade agreements.

America should strengthen our commitment to holding other countries accountable in order to inspire greater confidence from the American public in our Nation's ability to reach a trade agreement that benefits us all.

Weakening our trade relations will cause Kansans to lose jobs. Farmers and ranchers will no longer be able to pursue their careers and lifestyle. But with strong leadership and smart negotiating, I am convinced that America can improve our trade relationships in the world and continue to build on the economic successes we have today.

A robust U.S. economy that provides market opportunities for farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers, and job prospects for workers is an essential pillar of America's strength and well-being. Strong trade relationships, particularly with Canada and Mexico, are primary drivers of our Nation's economy. We must protect those relationships and carefully consider changes in our approach to trade to be certain that Americans continue to benefit from economic opportunities that are created by a strong trade policy.

Madam President, our relationships with Mexico and Canada are important and in many ways determine the economic future of the people of my State at home.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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 speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, all of us, every Member of the U.S. Senate, all 100 of us, whether we are Republicans or Democrats, want the U.S. Senate to function. We ought to want the Senate to be able to accomplish its work. It is a challenge all the time but learning what transpired this morning on the Senate floor, in my view, reaches another low for the Senate.

It is hard to explain, but it takes unanimous consent for committees to meet while the Senate is in session, and that is a request that is made on an ongoing basis when the Senate convenes, and it happened again this morning. Almost without exception, it is routine. The rules require that 2 hours after the Senate convenes, no committee can then meet unless there is agreement. So the majority leader today requested that the unanimous consent be granted, just like in almost every other day in the Senate, but what was different today was an objection was raised by the minority whip, and apparently the explanation is it is because of the firing of the Director of the FBI last night.

Now, how the Senate is functioning or not functioning seems to me to be unrelated to what transpired last night relating to the Director of the FBI. So in this place, where we are trying to do the people's work and make decisions and do good for America, the spillover over partisan politics, the spillover about playing a political game, highlighting a point has now caused the Senate to not be able to conduct hearings today. In fact, the minority Members of the Senate were instructed, requested, on their own volition--all left the hearings that were already being conducted this morning in protest over what transpired last night.

I am of a view that this is a diverse country. I am of a view that people of the U.S. Senate represent folks from across the country with different philosophies, different political parties, different people, different backgrounds. We all bring to the Senate a set of characteristics that are different, one from another, but I have great regard and respect for every Senator's point of view, and I would say that every Senator ought to have the ability to express their views on behalf of their constituents, but we can only do that if we allow the Senate to function.

I was on the Senate floor not long ago praising the fact that we finally were successful in the appropriations process; that we passed the fiscal year 2017 appropriations bill. For too long, the appropriations process has been broken down, and we have conducted business in the United States by continuing resolution. I thought we were back on a path in which there was enough agreement, respect among Members, enough setting aside of partisan differences to actually accomplish legislation. I was pleased that we did that, but today we fall back into the pattern of when something happens we want to make a political point. We then obstruct the ability of others in the Senate to conduct their work, to express their opinion, to gather the information they need.

This came to my attention--what transpired today--because this afternoon at 2:30 was scheduled a hearing by the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. That hearing has absolutely nothing to do with the FBI. We have the new Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs scheduled to testify about the Department's plan for modifications to a program called Choice that is important to me, my constituents, and to the veterans of Kansas. I was so pleased the hearing had been scheduled, and I was looking forward to the questioning and having a conversation with the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs about how to make this system of Choice work for veterans who live in Kansas, from the rural side of our State to the suburban and urban side of our State, but because of a pique of anger, political posturing, and partisanship, the hearing is apparently no longer able to take place. The hearing this morning, which could only last for an hour and a half and which I guess the minority members walked out--seemed to me, at least sounded like, to be things that would be very important for us to pursue.

The Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities was to have a closed briefing this morning. The Homeland Security Committee was to examine cyber threats facing America, focusing on an overview of the cyber threat landscape. The list is significant in the things that we ought to be paying attention to, and yet, because of an objection, those hearings will not take place or were shortened or disrupted by only one party's participation.

I am not here trying to create further partisanship between Republicans and Democrats. I am here trying to remind ourselves that there is value in allowing cooperation between the minority and majority, not for our own benefits but for the benefit of the country and the citizens we represent. Everything does not have to be partisan. Everything does not have to be political.

Today we see the Senate sliding back into the habit of making things that we have really nothing to do with and weren't the cause of taking place--apparently to make a political point and perhaps to score votes for support in a political way. We ought to all, as U.S. Senators, respect the opinions, values, and the positions of others, but we do that in a setting in which we all come together, not in which we cancel meetings as a result of a political statement.

I appreciate the opportunity to express my concerns about what has transpired and to ask for us to go back to the time in which we worked together on a daily basis and we don't use an excuse to shut down the committee hearing process.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor University of Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, a chancellor who has made a significant impact on both the university and our State.

This summer, Chancellor Gray-Little will step down from her 8-year term serving as the 17th chancellor of KU. Serving since 2009, she has expanded important research opportunities, elevated the university's national stature, and transformed the way KU serves the State, and the world.

Under Chancellor Gray-Little's direction, research has increased and provided greater opportunities for our Kansas students. KU's Alzheimer's Disease Center became nationally recognized, while the KU Cancer Center achieved National Cancer Institute designation and is now taking an important step in pursuing a ``Comprehensive'' status designation.

In her 8 years at KU, Chancellor Gray-Little has advanced the university's mission to educate leaders by implementing new admissions standards, launching a new undergraduate curriculum, strengthening scholarship offerings, prioritizing retention and graduation rates, growing the freshman class for 5 consecutive years, reinvigorating the academic environment, and making the university a true ``community of scholars.''

The university's growth under Chancellor Gray-Little's administration is plainly visible in the number of renovations that have taken place and the new buildings on campus. Support for Capitol Federal Hall, the Health Education Building, Self and Oswald Halls, the Central District Redevelopment Project, the DeBruce Center and the Earth, Energy & Environment Center, as well as major renovations to Swarthout Recital Hall, the Spencer Museum of Art, and Jayhawk Boulevard, all stand as testaments to her vision for the future of KU.

While her term as chancellor will be remembered for her numerous successes and achievements, Chancellor Gray-Little will also be remembered as the first female and first African-American chancellor in the university's history.

Chancellor Gray-Little has led the university with remarkable dignity, grace, and humility. She serves as a role model and an inspiration to students, staff, faculty, and colleagues throughout the State and Nation. I am grateful to have worked with her to improve the University of Kansas and our State, and I wish her well as she moves on to new endeavors.

Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about winter storms that hit Kansas and surrounding States over the weekend, destroying crops and killing livestock. We face many challenges, and the Senator from Utah just described a serious circumstance for many people in this country. I applaud his efforts to try to find the solution.

The challenges that we face in Kansas after this weekend are another vivid reminder of the difficulties that each day our farm families and ranchers face trying to produce a crop or raise cattle. A farm family's economic situation can change in a moment's notice. What happened over the weekend was 17, 18, 20 inches of snow and high winds with a devastating blizzard, and it was preceded by temperatures into the twenties. The consequence to the wheat crop is dramatic.

A weekend weather event like this is often just an inconvenience for most people. However, it is the difference between having a crop to harvest or having nothing to sell. It is the difference between earning a living and not earning a living. It is the difference between staying on the farm or ranch and not being able to.

While the extent of the damage is being assessed--and we don't know exactly what that will be--it is clear that many wheat producers will likely have lost their entire crop. We have about 7.5 million acres of wheat planted in Kansas, and many of those acres--perhaps up to about half--were harshly impacted by this snowstorm and winter conditions.

Having a bountiful production is especially important for farmers at times of low commodity prices. That is what we are in now. The price of wheat, and the price of cattle, the price of corn, they are historically low. These are already challenging times. While the overall farm income, as a result of that, has been cut in half since 2013, Kansas producers fortunately were able to overcome that, to some degree, because we had bountiful harvests, great crops, high yields. Yet the number of bushels these producers will have to sell now as a result of these storms is clearly in question.

With low prices, we need high yields and large harvests. We clearly will not

have that. Those of us from ag States often talk about the importance of crop insurance and farm programs for producers. This storm reminds us, once again, the importance of that safety net. A farmer who lost an entire wheat crop over one weekend cannot afford to continue to farm without crop insurance to help cover the losses.

These farmers in Kansas would either go out of business or require ad hoc disaster assistance, something that used to happen during my earlier days in Congress. Every time there was a snowstorm, a freeze, a drought that devastated a crop, Congress was asked to provide ad hoc disaster assistance to make up for that challenge.

Giving farmers the ability to purchase affordable crop insurance means they have the ability to survive, to farm for another year. It is critical that we continue to promote and protect crop insurance in the upcoming farm bill.

Cattle producers and feeders also experienced losses due to this storm. About 75 percent of the cattle on feed in the country--75 percent of the cattle that are being fed in this country, ultimately for consumption in the grocery stores or restaurants, are located in the area hit by this winter storm. Feed lots are reporting the loss will total into the thousands of head of cattle. This impact comes only weeks after wildfires in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma destroyed ranches and killed thousands of cattle just a few weeks back.

Farmers and ranchers are some of the most resilient people. They remain optimistic in times of very difficult circumstances. Facing potential disaster and adversity every year, these men and women continue to bear the burden of producing food, fuel, and fiber for our country and for the world.

I would offer my prayers to those farmers and ranchers harmed by the snowstorms and these prairie fires, and I would, once again, express my commitment to making sure they have the tools necessary to survive this and future weather disasters.

In discussing the challenges currently being faced by farmers, I also want to take a moment to mention my disappointment that the budget- neutral cotton provision was left out of the omnibus legislation that was released earlier this week and we expect to vote on tomorrow or the next day. As a result of the 2014 farm bill, cotton farmers, including those cotton farmers in Kansas, were no longer eligible to participate in title I of the farm programs.

Without an effective safety net, cotton producers have especially felt the impact of the downturn in the farm economy due to those low prices. For over a year, the cotton industry has worked with both authorizers and appropriators to fix the issues stemming from the 2014 farm bill.

So it is really discouraging when their proposals met with resistance at the very last minute, not because of the merits of the proposals but because of unrelated issues with dairy policy that were not resolved. I, too, want to strengthen the protection provided for dairy producers in the farm bill. Kansas is one of the fastest growing dairy-producing States in the Nation.

Helping cotton farmers ought not be contingent on issues with dairy policy. I have heard from a number of Kansas cotton producers about the importance of this proposal, and my message to them remains the same: I understand the economic hardship that they are facing, and I am committed to working with the new Secretary of Agriculture to find a solution to the cotton problems and issues they face, as well as many others facing farmers and ranchers today.

I ask my colleagues to keep in their thoughts and prayers those farmers and ranchers across the Nation who, through no fault of their own, are struggling today because of weather and fire.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. President, this afternoon, the President will be signing an Executive order to increase accountability within the Department of Veterans Affairs. For several years, I have been calling on the VA to hold bad actors within the VA accountable. In my view, in too many instances, that has not occurred. There are far too many examples of those who commit wrongdoing while working at the VA, and even crimes against veterans and other VA employees have occurred without any consequence.

On his first day in office, I wrote the President urging him to make accountability within the Department of Veterans Affairs one of his top priorities. We see too many examples, and unfortunately one of those examples--one of those egregious examples--is in my home State of Kansas, where we face a terrible example of a VA employee violating the trust of veterans. Yet the VA seems to have no real sense of urgency in holding this person accountable or committing to fix the process by which he got into the position that he could commit the acts he did.

In 2015, we learned from local newspaper reports--not from the VA-- that a physician's assistant at the Leavenworth VA hospital had been sexually abusing veterans. Shortly after that news broke, Leavenworth County prosecutors charged this individual with multiple counts of sexual assault and abuse against numerous veterans. He is currently awaiting trial.

The stories continue to come into our office and to the prosecutor about other victims. Veterans who sought services at the VA--the place they would expect to be cared for, respected, and the place they certainly should find safe--found something exactly the opposite.

As the story unfolded, we learned that Mr. Wisner--the person now charged with crimes--targeted vulnerable veterans suffering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome; he prescribed opioids that inhibited their thinking, and he used his position to deepen their wounds of war rather than to heal them.

Although Mr. Wisner is now beyond the reach of the VA, he and others like him who fail our veterans are not beyond the reach of Congress. It is ridiculous that taxpayers continue to fund pensions of VA senior executives and personnel convicted of crimes that harmed our Nation's veterans when they should have been serving and caring for them.

In the last Congress, we led significant efforts to develop, introduce, and pass legislation. Most of those efforts were with the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal, and we passed some legislation unanimously here in the Senate. That legislation increases the accountability of the Department of Veterans Affairs to make certain that senior VA executives and certain healthcare employees convicted of a felony do not receive the same benefits as those who diligently and honorably serve our Nation's veterans.

Not as an aside but as a separate sentence, let me take this moment to say thank you to those people within the Department of Veterans Affairs who conscientiously care for and fulfill their responsibilities to our Nation's veterans each and every day. How saddening it must be that they have to work side by side with people who commit crimes--and other failures for our veterans--and receive no consequence for that behavior.

We want to protect our veterans. We also want to make sure that those who work at the Department of Veterans Affairs know that their profession is honorable and that they are doing the right thing. It is difficult to reach that conclusion when surrounded by individuals who have not fulfilled that responsibility.

In light of the situation with Mr. Wisner--and other cases of wrongdoing so awful that they have been found guilty of a felony--we will not tolerate crimes against veterans that cause harm to their personal safety or that involve corrupt, backroom dealings with senior VA executives.

That legislation passed the U.S. Senate on the final day of our session last year. It passed unanimously. Unfortunately, that legislation did not then pass the House of Representatives, despite what we were told was significant support for it. It just didn't work in the schedule. So today I am back on the Senate floor. A hotline request is pending in which we ask--I ask--that legislation unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate on the final day of the previous session would pass today. That will then give the House of Representatives the time and the mechanics to see that this legislation becomes law.

In fact, the very first piece of legislation I introduced in this session, the 115th, was Increasing the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability to Veterans Act of 2017. We today call for its swift passage. I am hopeful this legislation will provide an ounce of justice to those victims who have suffered at the hands of this VA employee, and I call on my colleagues to once again stand with me in passing this legislation.

In addition to the issues of accountability of wrongdoing employees of the Department, this legislation also has additional provisions. Those provisions include holding VA leaders accountable for Department mismanagement, hiring well-qualified people and addressing employee performance, preventing employees from conflicts of interest, and improving manager training.

We have a duty. Of all people in this country, whom should we pay respect and honor to? Whom should we care for? For whom should we make certain we live up to the commitments that were made? One would think that those who served in our military, who protected our freedoms and liberties are the ones we would put on a high pedestal and make sure everything possible to protect them is done.

We have a duty to taxpayers, as well, to make sure funds are not going to employees who are convicted of crimes against those veterans that they are charged to protect and to serve.

There have been a number of VA scandals, corruption, and illegal activity in nearly every State. Whether it has been a secret wait-list in a hospital that delayed critical care, opioid overmedication that led to death or suicide, or physical abuse and neglect, crimes must come to an end. There must be accountability for us to be able to say we are doing everything possible to bring those crimes to an end.

This legislation is an important step in making the VA worthy of the service of those who have sacrificed for this Nation. Given the previous unanimous support, I can't imagine--I hope there is no reason this legislation should not again pass today. I call upon my colleagues in the U.S. Senate to stand with me and Senator Blumenthal and others as we work to make certain the VA is a department worthy of the veterans it serves.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Montana for his efforts to see that this legislation gets passed. I am pleased to see that we have been joined in a unanimous way by the Senate, Republicans and Democrats working together to see that our veterans receive better care.

In addition to the Senator from Montana, I thank Mr. McCain, the Senator from Arizona, who is joining us on the floor. I also thank Senator Isakson in particular, the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, for his leadership in seeing that we are here today to bring this legislation across the finish line.

The House passed legislation similar to this, so this is an opportunity for us to get an accomplishment--not for a pat on our backs but for the improvement in the care of those who served

our Nation. I asked this question on the Senate floor before: Of all the people in the United States, who would you expect to get the best care possible? While we want every American to have high-quality care and access to medical treatment, we certainly want to make certain those who served our country and to whom a commitment was made that they would receive care--we want that commitment fulfilled, and we want it done in a way that is advantageous and easy for our veterans.

The Senator from Montana is correct. The Choice Act is a significant improvement, in my mind, for accessing care. Kansas is not quite as large as the State of Montana, but we are a large rural State, and it is a long distance to a VA hospital. So Choice was brought into play to try to alleviate the backlog, the lack of providers within the VA, and the wait times that veterans faced, but also to try to satisfy the needs of veterans who live long distances from a VA facility.

So Choice is in place, but it still has been a difficult time for many veterans across the country and certainly at home. It is the most common conversation I have when I am back in Kansas. In fact, I had a townhall meeting in southwest Kansas, in Dodge City, and it is veterans who, in the public forum, will tell me about the problems with the VA and particularly with Choice, or they will line up after or before that meeting to tell me in person that they need help.

This legislation does three significant things. More is to come. We need a permanent act. This is an extension of the Choice Act that expires on August 7, so continuing the program is the first step while we work out the desired outcome of a long-term permanent program.

Secondly, it provides the money through that period of time. It allows the expenditure of dollars to pay for Choice.

Third, it eliminates the intermediary--somebody separate from the VA in paying the bills--and that reduces the bureaucracy and burden on our veterans.

I was just looking through what we call casework, things Kansans bring to our office to try to get solved. Front and center is the number of veterans who are being harassed by collection agencies for bills they thought would be paid by the VA through the Choice Program, and they are not being paid in a timely fashion. This eliminates the intermediary--the manager of the program--from paying the bills and restores that authority to the VA to write out the checks with the goal of reducing the bureaucracy and paperwork for the veterans. It also increases the timeliness for the payment that is due the healthcare provider--the doctor, the pharmacy, and the hospital.

Again, as a rural American, many of our providers are struggling. Hospital doors are a challenge to remain open in rural communities across my State. And that long wait for a reimbursement check for services provided months ago also creates a burden on that hospital, that healthcare provider. So timely payment certainly will benefit the veterans, but it also increases the chances of the stability of healthcare providers in rural communities across my State and around the country.

Finally, it increases the ability for the sharing of medical records between the VA and that community healthcare provider.

Choice is in place to help those veterans who need to have care more quickly and who need to have care closer to home. This bill improves that program and extends it, and that is a significant development. I appreciate the opportunity I have had to work with the Senators from Arizona, Montana, and Georgia to make sure we got to the point we are today. I appreciate my colleagues' unanimous support for the passage of this legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks, as well as the working together with the Senator from Montana as we tried to make certain that a program that is so valuable to veterans across the country--in my case particularly, veterans who live in rural America, in Kansas--to make certain that veterans can attain the care they have earned and the care they deserve.

We had a scandal at the VA in which many tragic things happened, and Congress came together at that time and passed the Choice Act. What that law basically has given our veterans is, if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility--in other words, if they live a long distance from access to care--they can, at their choice, have that care at home: hometown hospital, hometown physician, pharmacy, physical therapy. They can see a provider in their hometown.

In so many instances in Kansas--in fact, I have mentioned this before on the Senate floor. The House district I represented as a Congressman is larger than the State of Illinois, and there is no VA hospital in that congressional district. So veterans not having to travel 2, 3, 4, 5 hours to Denver or to Wichita or to Amarillo is of such value to our veterans, particularly those who have a disability or are aging. What we did in the passage of Choice was so useful to so many veterans.

The other part of that was that if you couldn't get the care you needed within 30 days at the VA, you could then attain your care at home. Again, with the backlog that was occurring at the VA, the lack of providers, this became important to another set of veterans who, because of their health condition, couldn't afford to wait that long to see a physician, to have surgery.

This is important legislation. If you are somebody who cares about veterans, you need to be in favor of this Choice Act. If you are someone who cares about particularly rural or veterans who need timely care, you especially ought to be supportive of Choice.

The challenge we have is that the Choice Act is expiring. It expires August 7, and it needs to be extended. There are dollars available in the program. Mandatory spending is available to pay for the services to a later date.

As the Senator from Montana indicated, there are a number of provisions that haven't worked very well in Choice because of the bureaucratic nature of the program, the way the program has been established. One of those that are most important is that you have veterans on one side who need the care and choose Choice, but you also need a willing provider. The local hospital, the local physician needs to be willing to provide that care. I have never known a provider who was not honored to provide care to a veteran, but the challenge in many instances becomes whether that provider, that doctor or hospital gets reimbursed, gets paid.

This legislation has a number of reforms, but in my view, one of the most critical and most important is to make the VA the payer, to make the VA be the entity that writes out the check to pay the hospital bill, to pay the physician for the services provided.

So this is another reform that improves really on both sides. It eliminates some of the bureaucracy that a veteran goes through and the number of times a veteran may receive a notice that he or she owes money that should be paid by the Choice Program, and it also encourages--by paying them--the physician or the hospital to provide the service. These are important reforms, important changes in the Choice Act that are worthy of our support.

What is transpiring here are a couple of reforms to the Choice Program and its extension to a later date, until the money expires, so the Choice Program can continue, and Congress can now take that time to determine what we want to do with the Choice Program into the future after that point in time. I appreciate the way in which this legislation has worked.

Often I get asked whether there is any hope that Congress can work together, that Republicans and Democrats can solve problems. This is an example of where that is taking place today, by the care and concern we all have for our veterans and the good will that exists by those who serve in Congress to make sure that good things happen for our military men and women who are now veterans.

I regret that the chairman of the Veterans' Committee, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Isakson, is unable to be with us, but, as the Senator from Montana indicated, he is fully supportive of this legislation. In fact, he is an original sponsor of the legislation.

I add my voice and ask my colleagues to agree to the unanimous consent resolution, that this legislation be passed. It will be another step in solving problems and caring for those who served our Nation.

Yesterday, I was at the Arlington National Cemetery--a reminder of the debt we owe to so many people. Those are veterans who are now deceased. Those are military men and women who have now died. Those who are living deserve the care and treatment that our VA can provide and the opportunities that our providers in our hometowns can assist in providing.

We want to make sure that good things continue to happen. We want to improve the quality of service, get the problems out of the Choice Program, and make sure those who are so deserving of quality care actually receive it.

I yield back to the Senator from Montana.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that one of my colleagues is en route to speak and perhaps object to this motion that is to be made. I would ask my colleague from Montana if he would mind holding for a few moments until that Senator arrives.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session and then recess until 2:15 p.m. for the weekly conference meetings.

Mr. President, I have 7 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Armed Services Committee

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 21, 2017, at 9:30 a.m., to receive testimony on U.S. Policy and Strategy in Europe.

committee on the judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on March 21, 2017, at 9:30 a.m., to continue a hearing entitled ``The Nomination of the Honorable Neil M. Gorsuch''.

committee on energy and natural resources

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to hold a hearing on Tuesday, March 21, 2017, beginning at 10 a.m.

committee on health, education, labor, and pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 21, 2017, at 10 a.m.

Special committee on aging

The Special Committee on Aging is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 21, 2017.

Select committee on intelligence

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the 115th Congress of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 from 2:30 p.m.

subcommittee on consumer protection, product safety, insurance, and

data security

The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to hold a meeting during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 21, 2017, at 2:30 p.m.

The Committee will hold Subcommittee Hearing on ``Staying a Step Ahead: Fighting Back Against scams Used to Defraud Americans.''