Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize and congratulate Chief of Police Nicholas Giaccone of the Hanover, NH Police Department for his 40 years of dedicated service to the law enforcement profession, the Town of Hanover, and the State of New Hampshire.

Chief Giaccone began his law enforcement career in 1973 as a patrol officer with the Town of Hanover, home of Dartmouth College. Nicholas Giaccone was promoted to detective in 1977; detective sergeant in 1987; and assumed the role of acting chief of police, then chief of police in July of 1994. As a detective sergeant, Nicholas Giaccone helped lead the investigation into a double homicide of two graduate students, which culminated in the successful prosecution and conviction of Haile Selassie Girmay on March 2, 1993.

He was chief of police when two Dartmouth professors, Half and Susanne Zantop, were killed inside their Etna home in 2001, garnering national headlines for days. Chief Giaccone's diligence in ensuring the department properly handled the vital physical evidence at the scene, led to the successful convictions of Robert Tulloch and James Parker. They were sentenced on April 4, 2002.

During his long tenure as a police chief, Chief Giaccone has been a leader in promoting community oriented policing; in improving public safety within the State of New Hampshire; and in promoting sound public policies and practices, which have helped keep New Hampshire one of the safest States in the Nation. Chief Giaccone has worked tirelessly with community leaders, New Hampshire's Legislature, and other public officials, to better the administration of justice and promote public safety.

As Chief Nicholas Giaccone celebrates his retirement, I want to commend him on a job well done, and I ask my colleagues to join me in wishing him well in all future endeavors.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a very important issue I spoke about on the floor yesterday; that is, eliminating sexual assaults in our military, making sure victims are supported, that they get the support they need.

Yesterday on the floor I talked about important reforms we are doing together on a bipartisan basis to make sure victims receive special victims' counsel, so each victim is now going to receive an attorney who represents him or her in the system, and stands up for their rights.

We make retaliation a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice so that victims of sexual assault understand if they are retaliated against, there will be a crime for that. In fact, those who retaliate will be brought to justice.

There are many other dozens of reforms that are in the Defense authorization, but today I want to talk about a very important issue. I see on the floor Senator McCaskill. I want to commend her for her leadership on this issue. She has been a tremendous leader. Senator McCaskill, Senator Fischer from Nebraska, and I have offered an amendment that will further strengthen historic reforms that we discussed yesterday on the Defense authorization, including allowing a victim to formally express their wish about how their case will be handled, in addition to their being, of course, provided special victims' counsel, to provide the prosecuting attorney the ability to disagree with a commander's decision, which I will talk about more, and to have a review of that decision by the civilian head of each force.

Then we eliminate things such as the good soldier defense. Then those who feel like they have been discharged from the military or how their discharge has been described will now get an opportunity to have their case reviewed. So we are not only looking forward, but we are going to look backward to make sure that victims of crimes know they will be treated with dignity and respect.

I have come to this issue as someone who was a prosecutor. Most of the cases I prosecuted were murder cases, but I also had the chance to serve as attorney general of our State, where I worked with not only murder victims but also victims of sexual and domestic violence. This is a set of crimes that is unacceptable in society, but particularly unacceptable in our military, where we expect the very best from our military.

I looked at this issue very carefully, the issue that has been discussed so much on the floor today, that is, in handling sexual assault cases and other types of cases, should the military justice system be changed fundamentally to take the commander out of the decision on whether a charge will be brought after an independent investigation. I came down on the side of we need to hold commanders more accountable, not less accountable, because everything within our military, of course, is deployable. We have the finest men and women who serve our country in the world. We have to have a military justice system structured in a way that it can bring justice in Afghanistan as easily as it can bring justice in the United States of America, wherever our men and women are situated. If we take commanders out of the

decisionmaking process, then fundamentally we are holding them less accountable for the results of how these cases are handled. So I would like to talk about the proposal Senators McCaskill, Fischer, and I have that I think will hold commanders much more accountable.

Right now, as we look at cases of sexual assault in our military, we want victims to understand they can come forward. When they come forward, and we want them to come forward, they will get the support they need and deserve; that their perpetrators will be held accountable for the crimes they have committed.

We want commanders to establish a climate within their unit to say no tolerance when it comes to sexual assault. If you do not handle a sexual assault case properly, you will be relieved of your command. That is what this is about.

So in our proposal, rather than remove commanders from the decisionmaking--let me say how this works so people understand. Right now, a victim of a sexual assault or another serious crime comes forward. They do not have to come forward through their chain of command. They can come forward through a health care professional, they can come forward through a 911 call, they can come forward through their pastor to report a sexual assault. Then it is independently investigated.

From there, that investigation is presented to a JAG lawyer in the chain of command who then makes a recommendation to the commander of whether a charge should be brought and whether they should be going to a military trial at that point. So to take out of that the decision of the commander is now to leave the victim in a situation where--let's put this victim in Afghanistan. They are in a situation where the case has been investigated. It comes back. The commander now does not take responsibility for whether a charge is brought. The commander is now put in a situation where: I am sorry, that decision is being made by another set of JAG lawyers who are outside of the chain of command, so go talk to the lawyers over here, not me. It puts the commander in a bystander responsibility rather than taking responsibility for these decisions.

So what we have done is made commanders more accountable. When the JAG lawyer comes to the commander for a recommendation, saying this case should be brought on a sexual assault case, if the commander says: No, it should not, that will go all the way up to the civilian secretary of whatever force is involved, whether it is the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Air Force, each branch, and will be reviewed separately. That will hold commanders more accountable than turfing it over to a lawyer over here where the victim has to hear that: I am sorry, I cannot tell you what the decision is on your case because there is a lawyer over here making this decision.

Even in a case where the commander and the JAG lawyer both agree that a charge should not be brought, under our proposal there will be another review of those cases up the chain of command to say someone else should look at it. There should be accountability. There should be accountability at every level of our military to ensure that victims of sexual assault will be supported and that these cases will be handled and the perpetrators will be brought to justice.

There has been a lot of discussion on the floor today. All of us want more victims to come forward and feel that they can report their case, because not enough of them have come forward.

Yet the evidence shows that if we take commanders out of it, we are not necessarily going to get any more reporting. In fact, we have cases that may not be brought to justice. The evidence shows that commanders are being more aggressive than the actual JAG lawyers in terms of cases that are being brought. If we look over the last 2 years, there are 26 Army victims where the JAG lawyer said: Don't bring the case.

The commander overruled the JAG, went to trial, and the perpetrator was convicted. There was justice for this victim.

Under this proposal those cases would not have gone forward because the JAG lawyer said: No, don't bring it. There were 16 cases in our Marine Corps over the last 2 years where that would have happened as well, where 16 victims wouldn't have received justice.

There was one Navy victim, and nine Air Force victims would not have seen a conviction for their perpetrators--the rapists, who deserve to go to trial, to be convicted, and to be judged. Those cases would not have gone forward.

When I hear Senator Gillibrand's proposal--and I respect her so much, and there is so much we agree on, and I respect the work that she has done and the work that we have done together on many of the provisions that I have talked about--the discussion that taking it out of the chain of command will cause more reports to come forward, then if less cases will go to conviction, if I am the victim, how does that make me feel more as if I want to come forward and report my case? Maybe my case won't be brought or there is a set of cases that would not ever be brought if a commander--who has responsibility within his or her unit for this--hadn't recommended this case go forward.

The other argument we have heard a lot about is many of our allies have taken it out of the chain of command, including Canada, Great Britain, Israel, Germany, and Australia. There has been a misunderstanding, because as we researched this issue as to why our allies took it out of the chain of command, we discovered the truth is they took the decision out--of whether a commander would make the decision to go to a trial on a sexual assault case or other serious felony--to protect defendants, not victims.

I can assure people--with all due respect to defendants, and I have defended cases as well because they certainly have rights under our laws and I respect that--this is about protecting victims. Our allies changed their system to protect defendants. What we are trying to do is to have a victim-friendly environment where people will come forward and where perpetrators will be held accountable.

If we look at those countries such as Canada, Great Britain, Israel, and Australia, that have changed their system, they have not seen any greater reporting. In other words, it is one thing if we looked at it and said when they changed their systems the victims came forward. That is not the case. That is not what the evidence shows. Facts are stubborn things.

As a former prosecutor, I want to make decisions on how to address this very real and important problem based on facts. The facts are that there are cases that wouldn't have been prosecuted if we took it out of the chain of command--perpetrators that should have been held accountable. Our allies did it, but they haven't seen any greater reporting, and they did it to protect defendants.

What do we want to do? Let's hold our commanders more accountable. This is what some former peers of our military have said, such as COL Lisa Schenck, U.S. Army retired former Judge Advocate General, who spent 25 years in the military. We asked her about these two proposals. She said: If you take out the convening authority--meaning the decisionmaking process from the commander--you are essentially gutting the military justice process. If you take the court-martial process away from the convening authorities for sexual assaults or for major offenses, that allows them to say: Hey, the JAGs are dealing with it. They need to be held accountable, and they need to be part of a process.

We don't want to create a situation where we say: I have turfed it to my lawyer over here, and the lawyers over here are going to make the decision.

Commanders should be held accountable for those decisions.

In fact, we had a woman who is currently in the Marine Corps come to the Republican Conference, a woman commander. She is very impressive to have reached the level she has in the Marine Corps. She works training our marines. I was very impressed with her experience. She has commanded at every level. She said: If you want to get this done for victims, don't make the commanders bystanders.

This is what makes me very worried. If I thought that taking the commanders out of the decisionmaking process would help victims further, I would do it. As she describes: If you make a commander a bystander--which is what the proposal on the table of Senator Gillibrand is, who I very

much respect, and I know her passion is very real for this and I share it. I don't want commanders to be bystanders. If they are bystanders, then how do we relieve them from command when they don't do their job on this because we have taken the decisionmaker standard from it.

This is another issue that concerns me. We have spent a great deal of time, rightly so, trying to address the issue of sexual assault in the military. The Gillibrand amendment that is on the floor doesn't only take sexual assault out of the chain of command, it takes out murder, manslaughter, death or injury of an unborn child, stalking, rape--we talked about rape--larceny and wrongful appropriation, robbery, forgery; making, drawing, or uttering a check, draft or order without sufficient funds; maiming, arson, extortion, assault, burglary, housebreaking, perjury, and frauds against the United States.

We need to understand that the reason we have the military justice system structured this way is because we deploy to places such as Afghanistan. Not only in sexual assault cases will the decision of the commander--whether or not to refer the charge for a trial--be changed under the Gillibrand proposal, but in all of these crimes in which we have not received any testimony about. We have not received evidence that the commanders are mishandling murder cases, manslaughter cases, arson cases, extortion, assault, burglaries, fraud.

This is very much a fundamental change, not only in an area we all care passionately about getting right, to make sure that victims of sexual assault are supported, but all of these crimes will now be removed from the chain of command.

How will that work in Afghanistan and Iraq? I am trying to figure this out. There have been over 900 cases in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I understand it, where some type of trial has had to be held because of offenses that were committed in Afghanistan, all different types. I am not only talking about sexual assault, I am talking about all different types of crime.

How is that going to work? Are we going to say we will wait to see whether we should bring this to trial? The lawyers are located somewhere else. We don't know where; it could be in the Pentagon. So we will wait for the lawyers from the Pentagon, or wherever this separate set of lawyers are located, until we have justice in places such as Afghanistan.

This is for all of these cases on all of these crimes about which we haven't even had any testimony before the Armed Services Committee to address an issue that we all care very much about.

There were 900 cases from Iraq and Afghanistan. As we know, Iraq could have been as much of an issue in terms of having a deployable, military justice system to ensure that victims of all types of violent crimes, no matter where they are, will get justice and that perpetrators, no matter where they are, will be held accountable for their actions. This is what this is about.

I thank the Chamber for all of the work that is being done, for all of this work done on this important issue. I know that after we vote on all of these proposals--Senator Gillibrand's proposal, as well as the proposal that Senator McCaskill, Senator Fischer and I have--that we will be working together to make sure that there is accountability on this issue. Reforms have already been passed that are in the Defense authorization. They are very important items such as the special victims' counsel that I mentioned earlier.

I see Senator McCaskill, and I know that she and I, as members of the Armed Services Committee, are not going to let this issue go. There will be follow-up to make sure that the military is held accountable. We have the best military in the world.

This does go to the core of our readiness of good order and discipline. We can't have good order and discipline if we put commanders on the sidelines. We will hold them more accountable under our amendment, amendment No. 2170.

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to speak on this important issue.

I yield the floor.

Would the Senator from South Carolina yield for another question?

So under the situation where the Senator says we have commanders who aren't going to ignore what is brought before them in an investigation from their JAG lawyers, particularly on a sexual assault, let's assume they did do that. Even though the evidence isn't there, they do it. Under our proposal--the proposal of myself and Senators McCaskill and Fischer--if the commander makes the decision not to bring the sexual assault case and it then goes up for review before the civilian secretary of whatever force is at issue--the Army, the Air Force, the Navy--what does the Senator think that will do in terms of accountability?

Would the Senator yield for a comment? Looking at the facts, the evidence we have reflects that commanders are bringing more cases, are pursuing more cases than those recommended by their JAGs in sexual assault cases.

We received a letter from ADM Winnefeld, Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, basically pointing out that there were over 90 cases where commanders had a different view than their JAGs that a case should go forward. Guess what. Convictions were had and people were held accountable.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania Senator Casey for his leadership on amendment No. 2172, which is very important. I appreciate what he just said on the floor--the cases of the bravery of Afghan women, the leadership they

have shown under tremendously difficult circumstances, and the sacrifices our men and women in uniform have made to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists again.

One of the keys to that is that no society can be free, no society can have true safety and security unless the women in the society also have safety and security. So I thank Senator Casey for his leadership in ensuring that we stand by the Afghan women because we cannot succeed in Afghanistan if women go back to what they endured under the Taliban, which was horrific and was wrong, and none of us should accept.

So Senator Casey really has been a leader, and I thank him for being so concerned about what will happen in Afghanistan and working to make sure it never becomes a haven for terrorists again; that women in Afghanistan can live with security; that women and girls can go to school; that they can contribute to Afghan society and take part in free elections; and that Afghanistan will be a place where women will no longer be brought into soccer stadiums and violated.

So I thank Senator Casey for this amendment and bringing it forward. I am very proud to cosponsor it. As Senator Casey mentioned, our amendment would ensure adequate staffing at polling stations by female officers so that when they have elections, this would improve the security of those stations, making sure women can come forward and vote. It would increase the awareness and responsiveness among Afghan National Army and national police personnel regarding the unique challenges women confront when joining those forces. Yes, women--some of them--are now joining the Afghan security forces to defend their nation.

The amendment would focus on improving the recruitment and retention of women in Afghan security forces, and it would ensure that as we enter the bilateral security agreement that DOD will produce a strategy to promote the security of Afghan women and girls.

These issues are very important. I commend our men and women in uniform for everything they have done in Afghanistan to prevent Afghanistan from being a haven for terrorists and to ensure that women and girls can live securely and won't be violated the way they were when the Taliban was in charge of Afghanistan. The images so many of us saw were beyond the word ``outrageous.'' We can't even describe the horrific way women and girls were treated--worse than second-class citizens--under the Taliban.

This amendment will ensure what we all understand to be the bottom line: that no strategy in Afghanistan can succeed if women are not an integral part of that strategy, if women aren't allowed to have the security, the dignity, and the freedom all people deserve.

I thank Senator Casey for his leadership. I hope my colleagues in the Senate will adopt this amendment because last year when we considered Defense authorization, the Senate passed a similar provision by unanimous consent. So I hope my colleagues will do the same and pass the Casey-Ayotte amendment to promote the security of Afghan women and girls; as we look to the bilateral security agreement, as we look to working with our coalition partners as we are drawing down in Afghanistan, we will not leave the Afghan women and girls behind and we will ensure that Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists again.

I thank Senator Casey for allowing me to speak on this very important issue.

I yield the floor.

I thank my colleagues Senator Collins and Senator Mikulski for their leadership on this issue and for bringing this important discussion to the floor today.

I also thank Senator Murkowski, who I see in the Chamber as well, who has been a leader. Also, I thank Senator McCaskill, who has been a leader in the Armed Services Committee with me.

This has been an issue that has brought people together. It has brought people together for the right reasons. This is an issue that the women of the Senate have really driven, but it is important to understand that this is not a woman's issue. The issue of ending sexual assaults in our military is an issue for everyone. This is an issue about justice. This is an issue about fairness. This is about making sure that victims of crimes, both men and women, get the justice they deserve, the support they deserve in our military, and that they understand and appreciate that we want them to have a climate in the military where if they are a victim, they can come forward and receive the support they need and that they deserve.

Finally, this is also about the character of our military. We are blessed to have the very best military in the world, but when there is a plague of sexual assaults such as we have seen in our military, it undermines the very fabric of our military in terms of our readiness, in terms of our preparedness, and in terms of the cohesiveness of our units.

This is why it is not only important that we address and support the victims of these crimes, that we end sexual assault in our military, but that we have a climate in our military that says: If you are a commander and you do not stop sexual assaults, prevent sexual assaults, have a climate in your unit that says zero tolerance, this is not going to happen; if a victim comes forward in your unit and you don't handle this the right way, do the right thing, support victims, and ensure that perpetrators are held accountable, you will be relieved from command.

That is the climate in which all of the reforms in this Defense authorization are brought forward, where we work together across the aisle with very strong provisions to support victims.

One of those provisions is a special victims counsel. Senator Patty Murray and I introduced a bill, stand-alone, to ensure, based upon a pilot program in the Air Force, that victims of sexual assault will actually now have their own lawyer, someone to represent them and their interests, to know that if they come forward there is someone looking out for them. That is one of the provisions contained in this Defense authorization bill, to ensure that every victim will have someone who stands for them.

In addition to that is retaliation. We have now made retaliation against victims a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This is to say to victims that if they come forward and for some reason are retaliated against, then whoever does that will be guilty of a crime. This is sending the message to please come forward, we want to support you, and we want to be sure the perpetrators are held accountable.

In addition, I believe that if we want to solve this problem, the provisions in this bill that people have worked together on are very strong. I thank the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the ranking member for their work together.

We are going to pass in this Chamber unprecedented reforms that ensure that the military understands this is not an issue anymore that can be left in the closet. This is not an issue that can be quietly spoken of where victims feel they can't come forward. The reforms in this bill are very tough. They support victims. They hold commanders accountable, and they make sure we do not see what we have seen in the past, things such as commanders overturning the verdicts. That will be done under this bill. That is not allowed anymore if this bill passes on the floor.

So I simply come to the floor today to say there is so much we have agreed upon that is going to address this issue in the military, and I thank all my colleagues on the floor today for their leadership. We will not let this rest. The one thing I do know, for those of us who serve on the Armed Services Committee and those who are here in the Chamber who do not serve on the Armed Services Committee but serve on other important committees, including the Appropriations Committee, despite the unprecedented reforms I believe we are going to pass on a bipartisan basis to end sexual assault in the military and to ensure victims are supported, we are not going to let this go. This is not going to be something where we pass these reforms and that is the end of the story. Every few months we are going to be asking: What have you done to implement these reforms? Every few months we are going to be expecting a report back to the Senate to ensure that what we all have intended to occur here--that is the right thing for victims of crime, that is the right thing for our military--is getting done.

So while I am very proud of everything we have done and we will do when we pass the Defense authorization bill on a bipartisan basis to stand against sexual assault in our military, this is not the end of the story. We will continue to pursue this to make sure that our military understands they are accountable, that victims of crime understand that while in the military they will be supported, that we will not let this go.

I thank the Chair and my colleagues for their leadership and everything they have done to support victims of crime and to end sexual assault in our military.

I wish to thank my colleague from Georgia, who is the Republican ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator Chambliss has seen so much in terms of the real threats that we face from terrorists in this country. I appreciate his leadership on ensuring that America remains safe and his leadership on this issue of ensuring that the Guantanamo detainees are not released to get back in the fight against us, to attack not only our soldiers but us and our allies.

I would start with the Defense authorization, as it stands, and even the side-by-side offered by Chairman Levin, is a dramatic change from current policy of where we are now with regard to Guantanamo and the transfer of Guantanamo detainees internationally and to the United States of America between last year's Defense authorization and this year's Defense authorization.

What has changed? The only thing that has changed is the fact that the reengagement rate of those who are suspected of having been released--who have been released from Guantanamo and are suspected or actually have reengaged in the fight against us--has increased, not decreased.

Yet the status quo of where we stand now, if our amendment just described

by Senator Chambliss is not adopted, amendment No. 2255--is that we would weaken what is required to be certified from people who are released from Guantanamo.

In other words, the Defense authorization and the proposal offered by Chairman Levin would weaken the national security requirements that are currently in place; the standards which we have to meet before someone is transferred from Guantanamo to another country, even though the reengagement rate has actually increased.

What else would it do? It would now allow the potential for transferring Guantanamo detainees to the United States of America. This would include Guantanamo detainees potentially such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed whom Senator Chambliss has referenced. He is the mastermind of September 11. He is the key player behind the attacks on our country on September 11, and so we are going to allow the potential that he could be transferred to the United States of America.

In addition, there is allowance for a potential transfer to the country of Yemen. As Senator Chambliss has talked about, the country of Yemen is the place where the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is centered. Not only that, in Yemen, there have actually been instances where we have seen prison breaks in Yemen. In fact, it is a very destabilized place.

In June I asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about Yemen, and he assessed it to be the most dangerous. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is located in Yemen, is the most dangerous Al Qaeda affiliate. Again, when we look at Yemen, there have been breaks from detention facilities there.

Senator Chambliss has described the 2009 Christmas Day Bomber who received his training in Yemen.

We have Guantanamo detainees who have actually been captured--whom we have let out previously--captured, killed or spotted in Yemen. These included Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's former second in command, Said al-Shihri and Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish, alleged to be one of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's main religious leaders. We have instances where in Yemen there actually been have Al Qaeda terrorists, some who have returned to the leadership of Al Qaeda after we released them from Guantanamo and have gone back in.

I ask, why are we lifting the prohibition of transfers to Yemen when there still is not a certification that can be made that they will not reengage and that Yemen even can detain these individuals or account for them in a place which is the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula?

Where we are now is very important in terms of the protection of our country. As Senator Chambliss mentioned, the administration has been so caught up in not wanting to transfer anyone into Guantanamo that we are left with a situation where we are potentially losing valuable intelligence to protect our country.

I wish to speak about that. If we captured tomorrow the current head of Al Qaeda, Zawahiri, what would we do with him? Are we going to bring him to the United States or should we bring him to a secure detention facility at Guantanamo?

The legal questions that are raised by this in terms of if we bring him to the United States, are we going to tell him you have the right to remain silent, even though he is the current head of Al Qaeda? Shouldn't the first priority be to collect information to protect our country, to know what they are planning, to know what they are doing, to know what could happen next?

We now have the example that was given of Warsame, who was a terrorist captured overseas. Instead of being brought to Guantanamo, he was put on a ship for approximately 60 days and then brought to the United States, where he was told you have the right to remain silent.

Worse, recently, there was the capture of a man named al-Libi, and al-Libi actually had been involved in the beginning--in fact, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently said before the Homeland Security Committee that he was a founder of Al Qaeda with Osama bin Laden--and recaptured in Libya. Rather than bring him to Guantanamo Bay, he was put on a ship for only 1 week, 1 week.

Then he was transferred to New York City and read his Miranda rights. This is someone who was alleged to have committed the bombing against the embassies in Africa in 1998 and someone who has decades of involvement in Al Qaeda and who was only interrogated on a ship for 1 week, rather than being brought to Guantanamo and fully interrogated to make sure we maximize the gathering of intelligence to protect our country.

Now the administration wants to close Guantanamo. The alternative offered by Chairman Levin is that they should come up with a plan of where we would put these detainees in the United States of America.

The question is why have we had to wait this long, first, to even have some information of what the plan would be and what to do. Second, why would we want the most dangerous terrorists in the world, some of them, to come to the United States of America, when we have a secure detention facility at Guantanamo? Why would we risk the legal questions that will be raised if we bring them to the United States? Do we have to read them Miranda? If we capture Zawahiri and we have no Guantanamo to take him to, do we have to read him Miranda because he is in the United States of America and we can't gather intelligence to protect our country?

How much does it cost to make sure people are secure in the area where these terrorists are being brought? We don't even know where they will be brought because the alternative amendment, all it says is that they have to come up with a plan of where to put these terrorists rather than at Guantanamo. We don't know--the amendment does not provide for us as Congress to approve this plan. It only says the Secretary of Defense has to come up with a plan, and then he may take action to transfer the detainees, allowing them to be transferred to the United States of America.

Stay tuned if the Guantanamo detainees are coming to your neighborhood because we don't know. This is why it is important that the prohibitions stay in place in the absence of any plan. Why should we bring them to the United States of America, given the dangerous nature of who they are? Also, why wouldn't we want to have a secure facility to ensure that we have a place to interrogate terrorists, to make sure we can maximize the information and understand what they know to prevent attacks against our country. Otherwise, we will continue to have a situation where terrorists such as al-Libi are only interrogated for 1 week and then they are told you have the right to remain silent. No terrorist should hear that right.

I wish to say that what this provision does is it puts back in place the requirements that the administration has to meet a strong set of criteria before they can transfer to third-party countries.

What was taken out? What was taken out, which is important, is the way they have weakened the requirements for transferring people, the requirements the administration must meet before transferring from Guantanamo to third-party countries. They have taken out language that requires the Secretary of Defense currently to certify that a country is not a state sponsor of terrorism or foreign terrorist organization.

Now there is no longer a requirement that we even have to certify that. If our amendment is not passed and the alternative is passed, if there is a country or an entity that is a state sponsor of terrorism or a foreign terrorist organization, then they can transfer there.

They have also taken out the provision that would consider whether we have previously transferred a detainee to the country and yet the detainee has gone back into the fight, has reengaged. In other words, if we made a mistake in the past and transferred someone out of Guantanamo to a country such as Yemen, they weren't able to secure that individual and that individual gets back into the fight, that was a consideration they had to take into account before they could transfer to that country.

That is now being removed from the national security criteria, making it much weaker and easier to transfer to countries that are not only potential sponsors of terrorism but are also

countries where we have already had a history of transferring detainees who have gotten back in the fight against us and our soldiers. We have seen some of these detainees show up in places such as Afghanistan against our soldiers. We have seen these detainees attempt to attack us and our allies. We cannot risk weakening the provisions to say we are going to transfer them and take our risks that they can do that again.

We should keep the current law in place. The administration has been able to meet the current law. They have transferred six detainees under the current provisions. They do not have an excuse to say that we can't transfer anyone because they have already been able to transfer people.

I ask unanimous consent to ask my colleague, the Senator from Georgia, a question about these provisions.

I ask Senator Chambliss, if we eliminate Guantanamo--in other words, under this proposal they would be permitted to transfer people to the United States of America or that new captures be brought to the United States of America instead of to a facility such as Guantanamo, what are the risks we face in terms of losing valuable intelligence that we need to protect our country?

I would say we have to go from the evidence we have before us, where we have a 29-percent reengagement rate. And let's face it. The easier decisions were made first, in terms of who should be released. Now we have some very hardcore individuals who are there. We already have a 29-percent reengagement rate of them getting back in the fight against us as terrorists, and so we face a grave risk of some of the most hardened individuals if we transfer them or we lessen the standard for transfer, which is what this is doing. It is taking away the issues I talked about--the consideration of countries we have already transferred to but people have gotten back in it--and making it easier to transfer and weaker in terms of the national security requirements that have to be met, and I am worried they will get back in and then harm us and our interests because we already have a history of that.

I want to ask the Senator from Georgia an additional question. Some have cited the cost issue as the reason we should close Guantanamo. But to the Senator's knowledge, has anyone done the cost estimate of all the considerations that would have to be taken into account in the United States and also the security interests of the people of this country of transferring these terrorists to the United States?

Finally, I would also say there are risks we face in losing intelligence if they have to be Mirandized, and things such as that. That is a huge cost in terms of protecting our country, is it not?

If we were to lose, for example, valuable intelligence, if we were to get Zawahiri tomorrow, or if we had captured Osama bin Laden instead of killing him, and were able to interrogate him, that is a value that cannot be placed on that in terms of preventing future attacks and understanding how Al Qaeda is planning things in order to prevent future harm to Americans; isn't that right?

I thank my colleague.

I would agree with Ranking Member Inhofe, and I want to thank him for his leadership. Absolutely, these are not common criminals. These are not people who have robbed a bank. These are people who have attacked our country and who seek to get other people to attack our country. That is the reason why we wouldn't want to mingle them with criminals or bring them to the United States so they can be told they have the right to remain silent. We have to protect our country by knowing what they know.

Mr. President, I rise in support of amendment No. 2255. Let me just say what we cannot afford. What we cannot afford is to read terrorists Miranda rights and tell them they have the right to remain silent.

Why can't we afford that? Because if we lose the opportunity to gather valuable information to protect our Nation, then we cannot prevent future attacks against the country.

Here is the problem we face. Here, shown in this picture I have in the Chamber, is the current head of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. If we capture him tomorrow, I ask my colleagues this: Do you want to send him to a secure detention facility where he can be fully interrogated under the laws of war and held there in detention under law of war authority or do you want to send him to a prison in the United States where we cannot know--the legal questions are many--where there is a real risk that he will not be able to be held in law of war detention and will be told you have the right to remain silent, and we will lose opportunities to gather intelligence to protect our country.

My colleague from Illinois talked about the worst criminals whom we put in prison. I am a former murder prosecutor, and I put some of the worst murderers in prison. There is a difference. We are not dealing with criminals; we are dealing with terrorists. The priority has to be to gather information and protect our country. If we catch Zawahiri tomorrow, bring him to a prison near you, give him a lawyer, tell him he has the right to remain silent, those legal questions are not dealt with if we adopt the alternative amendment that allows the administration to transfer people such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, to the United States.

What do we do with future captures, such as Zawahiri? How do we ensure we can gather information? By the way, that is priceless. If we can stop a terrorist attack by interrogating someone--the price we can save for America, we cannot put a number on that.

If you believe, with a rising reengagement rate of 29 percent--which is higher than last year in terms of people we have had at Guantanamo, we have let go but have gotten back in the fight against us--that we should weaken the standards this administration has to meet to transfer people from Guantanamo to third-party countries, then that is essentially what is done in the Defense authorization.

My amendment will restore existing law to ensure that there are strong national security waivers the administration must meet before they transfer prisoners to countries where they are getting back in the fight against us, where they are getting out and getting back in the fight, including against our troops.

So this is a fundamental question. We cannot afford right now, with what is happening around the world, to close the one secure detention facility we have, and it is clear we can conduct law of war detentions there. We still remain in a fight against terrorists. We cannot treat them like common criminals. That is what is at stake.

If you believe this man shown in this picture should come to a prison near you, that is not what I have heard from my constituents or the American people. That is why my amendment will prohibit the transfer of the mastermind of 9/11 to U.S. soil and keep him in Guantanamo, a top- rate detention facility that keeps terrorists, as opposed to common criminals, secure.

Finally, I would say, as we look at the prohibition on Yemen, my amendment, which is also cosponsored by the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee and many other Members in this Chamber, would prevent transfers to the country of Yemen. Without my amendment, the administration could transfer terrorists to Yemen. What does that mean? Yemen is where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is centered. We have actually had terrorists who have been released from Guantanamo and gone back into Al Qaeda leadership and been found in Yemen and there have been prison breaks in Yemen. Yet if my amendment is not adopted to prohibit transfers to Yemen, the administration can transfer detainees from Guantanamo to countries such as Yemen, and the security requirements are weakened.

The world is not a safer place from last year to this year, unfortunately. The reengagement rate of Guantanamo prisoners has increased from last year to this year.

Why are we weakening the national security provisions? Let's keep existing law in place. Why do we want to send Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to the United States of America when we have a secure facility at Guantanamo? Why do we want to take any risk that if we are blessed enough to have our men and women in uniform--who do a fantastic job-- capture Zawahiri tomorrow, that he may have to be told ``you have the right to remain silent'' because there are legal ambiguities when he is brought to this country, as opposed to law-of-war detention and interrogation in Guantanamo? This is what is at stake.

We cannot afford to think we are no longer fighting a war against terrorists. We cannot afford to treat people like him as common criminals. As much as I believe in our criminal justice system, it was not created to gather intelligence, which is what we need

to do to make sure America remains safe.

I ask my colleagues to support amendment No. 2255, which is cosponsored also by Senator Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee; Senator Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee; as well as Senator Fischer, Senator Rubio, and Senator Barrasso.

Madam President, I urge my colleagues to vote against amendment No. 2175. If you want to bring the 164 Gitmo detainees to the United States, that is what this amendment will allow the administration to do. The plan they are going to submit requires no congressional oversight, no approval, and though the chairman said they will not get any additional legal rights, he does not answer the question what about constitutional rights if they are brought to our soil. Will they have to be told they have the right to remain silent?

If we catch Zawahiri, the current head of Al Qaeda, tomorrow, will he have to be read Miranda rights? Because that is what is happening when we bring them to U.S. soil now. That is the real question.

That is not required to be answered by their plan the administration wants sent, and we have no oversight over that plan. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

Mr. President, I came to the floor yesterday to share many stories I am receiving from my constituents about them receiving cancellations of policies they wanted to keep and higher premiums under this law. Each story is very sad, and I feel badly for the people of my State and across this country who are suffering under this law. My constituents are pleading for relief. This is only one example.

A small business owner from Peterborough, NH, who voted for President Obama twice, told me that her family has a household income of $50,000 and their total health insurance will now cost over $19,000 for the year, which is more than their mortgage. Their local hospital isn't even on the exchange. In New Hampshire we only have one insurer on the exchange and 10 of our 26 hospitals have been excluded from that exchange.

This constituent from Peterborough wrote:

We are frustrated, afraid, and angry beyond words. . . . I

urge a postponement of implementation of the Affordable Care

Act while those with the power look harder at the average

American and come up with a better plan. Life shouldn't be

this hard.

Citizens from across New Hampshire and this country are crying out for relief. I hope the President will listen to them and call a timeout on this law so that we can come together and, rather than what was done in this Chamber--passing a partisan law--come together for bipartisan health care solutions.

Mr. President, last week I came to the floor to discuss the negative impact that ObamaCare is having on the people of New Hampshire. I shared dozens of compelling stories from my constituents, who are telling me that they are seeing their coverage canceled and they are seeing their premiums rise. These sad stories continue to arrive in my in-box every day, and these are real people. They are having great difficulty with not only the Web site but structural problems that exist with the law itself. They deserve to have their voices heard on the floor of the Senate. I will say, as one of my constituents said to me: Lives in New Hampshire are depending on it.

Last week President Obama said he was sorry to those who are now receiving cancellation notices. But a simple apology falls short because the structural problems we are now seeing with this law, including the cancellation notices that too many of my constituents are receiving, were problems that many in this Chamber, even before I got elected to the Senate, warned about before the law was passed.

Here are some of the stories I want to share from people in New Hampshire and how they are being impacted by this law.

Jeanne in Meredith wrote me she was diagnosed with breast cancer 2\1/ 2\ years ago. She was laid off from her job of 20 years and then went on COBRA. Jeanne traveled to Mass General in Boston to receive care and when her coverage ran out she worked with her insurance agent to receive coverage that she could afford and that would allow her to continue with her subsequent treatments without any interruptions. She has now told me that what she has worked out in the plan she had has been canceled. She wrote me:

I liked my plan. And I not only liked my doctors, I

consider them my lifeline. If I purchase a plan under the

Exchange, I lose access to all my doctors in Boston, and I am

finding that I will also lose my oncologist in Nashua as

well. This can't be happening.

Lori in Littleton wrote me. She told me she and her husband recently were notified that their coverage will be canceled. When she learned about the new plan that was being offered to comply with ObamaCare, she said:

We were shocked that the cost would be $400 a month more

than we are currently paying. This is way beyond our budget.

So we began to explore the so-called Exchange to shop for all

of our choices. Once again, we were very frustrated to learn

that New Hampshire has a monopoly with only one carrier [on

the exchange].

What I have also heard from my constituents is concerns that they are receiving notices that their premiums are rising as a result of ObamaCare. Sara in New Castle wrote me that her premiums for a high- deductible plan that complies with ObamaCare will be double her current premium. Moreover, Sara said that she ``will no longer be able to go to Portsmouth Hospital. My primary physician, gynecologist, eye doctor, and children's pediatrician are all excluded from the ACA plan that I will be forced to purchase by the end of 2014.''

She finished the letter she wrote to me by saying: ``No, my family is not better off with the ACA.''

John in Pembroke wrote:

The new law is called the Affordable Care Act. What a

hurtful joke that is to hard-working Americans. My existing

policy is being canceled. After I called Anthem to inform

them they must have misheard the President and the other

supporters of the ACA, they told me that my existing policy

did not meet the standards for the new law. I was shocked.

The new higher plans from Anthem in the best case scenario

are more than double my existing plan.

David in Nashua wrote me that recently he saw his coverage canceled like too many others. He wrote:

When working with Anthem to get a plan that will have the

closest coverages and plan services with similar deductibles

and copays, I was disheartened to learn it will cost me an

additional $110 per month--about 40 percent more than I was

paying.

He continued:

To get comparable services to what I had it will cost an

additional $45 per month. All said, I am looking at an

increase of $155 per month.

David said he is looking at a 57-percent increase in costs and an additional $1,800 per year.

He said to me:

This is grossly unacceptable, has been misleading from the

words conveyed by the President and downright frustrating to

have to deal with such a problem.

A couple from Amherst, NH, wrote me and said:

. . . because of the Affordable Care Act our health

insurance plan is being canceled and

the least expensive plan, either within the exchange or

outside of it, will more than double our cost. The least

expensive plan we can obtain will increase our monthly

premium from $582 to $1,183 per month. Our annual premium

under the new health care law will increase from $6,984 to

$14,196--an increase of [over $7,000] per year.

They further wrote to me:

President Obama promised us that if we liked our plan, we

could keep it. But ours has been canceled. President Obama

promised us that if we liked our doctor we could keep our

doctor.

President Obama promised us that under the new health care

law we would save $2,500. But our premiums will be increasing

by over $7,000 a year.

A couple from Center Sandwich also contacted me. They said their rates will double and cost them an additional $7,000 per year.

They wrote:

We are both in our second careers and in our 50s, working

hard and doing two jobs. Blue collar couple who are very

healthy. Under this so-called Affordable Care law, our rates

are going to double!

Scott from Concord wrote:

I currently have a great family plan through my work. This

plan costs me $240 per month. On January 1st this plan will

cost me $600 per month. I can't afford to pay such a high

premium. Now I am forced to get a plan that has a 50% greater

deductible, and much higher co-pays.

I also heard from a mother from Manchester. She has a little girl who is scheduled to have surgery at the beginning of January. As any mother would be, she is worried, and now she has been told her plan has been canceled. She wrote:

I looked, and my current plan is not available through the

Exchange. I will have to purchase a plan with a high

deductible. The new plan will cost over $1,200 per month,

increasing my premium which is currently just over $1,000 per

month. The new plans, through the Exchange, have a smaller

network of doctors, so I could be losing my doctors too.

Finally, I am hearing frustration and concerns from my constituents about the Web site.

David in Bedford wrote:

My wife and I are semi-retired and have been trying since

October 1 to obtain health insurance through HealthCare.gov.

We have also used the telephone option but we were unable so

far to obtain coverage.

He finished this message to me by saying:

We are very concerned with being without coverage on

January 1, 2014.

I heard a similar concern from a resident in Greenfield who also expressed deep concern about private information put on the Web site. I heard the same from a registered nurse from Milford. She expressed frustrations about how the exchange is working.

There are many more pieces of correspondence I have received from my constituents. I will not share them all on the floor today, but their voices deserve to be heard. Because of this law, people in New Hampshire are losing the coverage they thought they could keep. They are getting premium increase notices, which they cannot afford to pay, that are attributed to ObamaCare. Finally, as I have previously said on the floor, some people are having their hours cut because it defines the workweek as a 30-hour workweek. Unfortunately, the people who do want to continue to work more hours are being harmed.

As I have done before, I come to the floor today to call for a timeout on ObamaCare. We need a timeout because we are seeing that the problems with this law are much deeper than a Web site. We hope those problems will be fixed. Of course, they have not yet been fixed. The Washington Post reported today that they may not even be fixed with what the administration has represented--at the end of this month.

That said, what about the canceled policies, the premium increases, and the lost hours? It is time to have a timeout where we do what should have been done in the beginning. Instead of passing a law of this magnitude on a partisan basis, people need to come together to address health care, rising costs, access, and the issues the American people want us to take on. This law is not the answer, and the American people--and the people of New Hampshire--deserve better.

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

Madam President, first of all, I want to thank my colleagues, and I will start by thanking my colleague, the senior Senator from Maine, Senator Susan Collins, for the important work she has been doing on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. I also want to thank my colleagues for supporting an amendment that was brought forward recently and passed by this body, the Portman-Ayotte-Heller- Hatch-McCain amendment, to strengthen the protections within the Employment Non-Discrimination Act for religious institutions.

I firmly believe people should be judged based upon the quality of their work. Discrimination has no place in the workplace. In my home State of New Hampshire, we have a long bipartisan tradition of working to advance commonsense policies, and New Hampshire already has in place a State law preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation. I appreciate that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is legislation that is important in terms of who we are, our values, and making sure people are only judged based on the quality of their work in the workplace. I also appreciate the legislation on the floor right now includes important protections for religious institutions.

I have long been a strong supporter of the rights of conscience, of the rights under the First Amendment of the Constitution to religious freedom, and so these protections are very important within this bill. I was pleased to work with Members on both sides of the aisle to strengthen those protections by passing an amendment that will help ensure religious organizations cannot be retaliated against for exercising their religious freedoms.

Specifically, the Portman-Ayotte amendment affirms the critical importance of protecting religious freedom in the Employment Non- Discrimination Act. It ensures that government cannot penalize a religious employer because it qualifies as exempt from nondiscrimination requirements of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The amendment protects religious institutions from adverse actions by the government on the basis of adhering to their religious tenets.

In practical terms, the government may not use activities protected by the religious exemption as a basis to deny a religious employer a government grant or tax-exempt status or any other benefit that may be conferred by the government.

I want to thank my colleagues for passing this amendment which will strengthen the protections for religious institutions within the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and I thank the Chair for the opportunity to speak today.

Madam President, I rise to talk about the impact ObamaCare is having on the people of my State, the State of New Hampshire. It has been over 1 month since the health care exchanges opened, and in that short time we have already seen so many problems with ObamaCare. Frankly, it is a mess.

The failure of healthcare.gov is a travesty that has revealed deeply troubling incompetence in terms of implementing a Web site that people can use and have access to and is secure and protects their private information. Frankly, we are in a position where the Web site is merely the canary in the coal mine. The flaws in this law are much deeper than the Web site.

Even former supporters of ObamaCare are telling me it is not working. I am hearing from my constituents about this, and frankly I feel very badly for them because so much of what is happening to them is as a result of how the law was drafted years ago.

For example, I heard from Maryanne in Lisbon, NH. She said:

We hope this would be a solution. But instead it will be

more of a financial drain.

The American people are the ones who are paying the price right now. They are getting cancellation notices, seeing their premiums go up, and losing their doctors.

Workers are suffering. Many of them have seen their hours cut to 29 hours because of an arbitrary mandate defining full-time workers as those who work 30 hours a week. Others are fearful they will lose their employer-sponsored coverage altogether. Business owners remain reluctant to expand--worried they will trigger the looming penalties from ObamaCare.

Most tragically, we now know that the law was sold to the American people under false pretenses. The President said: ``If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it.''

In fact, yesterday we checked the Web site and that claim is still on there. I am hearing every day from New Hampshire residents who are telling me they are seeing their health insurance policies canceled. In fact, in the newspaper this morning there was a headline in New Hampshire that announced that about 22,000 individuals will see coverage canceled at the end of the year.

Granite Staters have been writing to me. I wish to share their concerns with the entire country because I know this is not just happening to people in New Hampshire, but these are the real people who are being affected by ObamaCare.

Lynn in Greenland wrote:

The President was wrong. I can't keep my coverage if I like

it and I can't keep my preferred hospital and his plans are

the ones that are subpar . . . it's bringing me to tears on a

daily basis. Please help.

Edward in Marlow is self-employed. I feel so badly when I receive letters such as this. He has a rare disease and a high-deductible plan. He wrote:

I received a notice from Anthem last week that they will be

canceling this policy. Is this what President Obama meant

when he said no one who currently has their own policy and

likes it will lose it. . . . I am devastated that I will now

have to go out and secure another policy somewhere which

could cost me significantly more.

Jennifer in Canaan wrote:

I received a letter from Anthem Blue Cross stating that my

current health insurance plan was being discontinued because

it did not conform to the law under the Affordable Care Act.

In other words, the plan I was promised I could keep was made

illegal by Washington politicians.

Michael in Atkinson said:

Kelly, we have been told this would expand options. The

fact is we are now being told what we can and what we cannot

do and where we can go. To say that I am upset would not

begin to describe how I feel.

Richard in Alton Bay said:

I am a small business owner in New Hampshire and have been

with my health insurance provider for over 10 years. I was

recently informed that the policy I have had for all of these

years (and I like quite a bit) will be canceled due to the

provisions in Obamacare. When I contacted the company, they

said they are planning to transition me into a plan that

costs more and offers substantially less benefits and

protection than my original plan. . . . I am outraged at

this. . . .

Jamie in Littleton wrote:

Today we received a letter from Anthem Blue Cross stating

my husband's individual health care plan, which he's had for

15 years, will be changing to conform to ACA laws and will no

longer be in effect come September 1, 2014.

Louis in Sunapee wrote:

What just happened? I received a cancellation notice from

my insurance company . . . and the coverage I am eligible for

is MORE expensive? Help me!

President Obama has made the promise that ``if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.''

For those who are seeing their plans canceled, we know that is simply not the case. There is another issue that New Hampshire is facing, and that is a matter of choice in keeping not only the doctor you want to keep but also going to the hospital you want to go to. In New Hampshire, there is only one insurer who is going to participate on the exchanges at this point, and to keep costs down, the insurer has decided to limit its network, so 10 of our 26 acute care hospitals are not part of the exchange and are excluded.

For example, the capital of New Hampshire is Concord. One of the hospitals that has been excluded is Concord Hospital. I worked in Concord for years. Concord Hospital is going to be excluded. All the people in that area

who rely on that hospital and had their children and treatments there will now be excluded if they are on the exchanges. This is a real impact on people's lives, and I feel very badly for my constituents.

A doctor in Peterborough said he was once a supporter of ObamaCare. He described the consequences simply. In a letter to me he said his patients have one of three terrible options now, and that is because the hospital in his area has been excluded from the exchange.

First, they can switch doctors and drive a considerable distance to a hospital that Anthem does include in the exchange; two, they can purchase insurance outside of the exchange at considerably higher rates than they could this year; or, three, they can stick with their current doctor, risk having no insurance and pay the government a penalty for being uninsured.

With the hospital he is associated with excluded from the exchange, he said, it is the ``Less Affordable Care Act'' for his patients. This doctor gave me a troubling practical effect of what his hospital being left out would mean for his patients.

He used this example:

Consider the pregnant woman who has delivered all of her

current children at our hospital. She is now expecting in

February. She must now either drive our twisty New England

roads, in the dead of Winter, to a hospital 55 minutes from

her home to deliver her baby, or pay considerably higher

insurance premiums to stay where she is comfortable and safe.

He is one of numerous citizens across New Hampshire who has expressed similar concerns about local hospitals being excluded from the exchange. I wish to share some of the other concerns that have been written from my constituents.

Vicki in Seabrook wrote:

The list of doctors and medical facilities that will take

my insurance is limited and my Massachusetts doctors are not

on the list. . . . The one closest to me, Portsmouth

Hospital, is not on the list.

Kathleen in New Castle wrote:

The exchange choice will not allow me to use my docs,

including primary care who is affiliated with the Portsmouth

Hospital. All oncology physicians are located in Boston, not

covered.

Margaret in Strafford currently goes to Frisbie Memorial in Rochester, which is not part of the exchange.

She explained the impact in this way:

I would no longer be able to go to Frisbie Memorial

Hospital, which is four miles away. I could no longer see the

gynecologist whom I trust. I could no longer use the surgeon

who saved my life when emergency surgery was required. I

could no longer visit the same internist. If I were to

develop heart problems, I could no longer go to Portsmouth

Regional Hospital.

Gregory in Rochester said his primary care physician is at Frisbie. He said that means he will have to go to another hospital, he said, ``I do not know and does not know my health condition.''

Robert in Strafford said he has gone to Frisbie for 40 years. He wrote:

I've had multiple different insurance companies but have

always been able to keep the same doctors. Now because of

ObamaCare, Frisbie is out of the loop. This is totally unfair

to all the people who live in the area. What gives?

Teresa in Peterborough said that none of her current physicians, including her primary care physician and her OB/GYN, are in the exchange. She wrote:

The nearest providers in this network are 45 minutes west,

60 minutes east or 90 minutes north. This will be very costly

to me in terms of time taken off to attend appointments at

these distant offices/hospitals. And since I am self-

employed, a day off to go to the doctor is one day without

income.

A single mother also from Peterborough wrote:

If my 17-year-old son does get sick this winter, I will be

required to take a minimum of \1/2\ day off to bring my son

to Keene or Manchester to find a primary care physician who

will accept the insurance through affordable care (not that I

can even afford that route).

I am also hearing heart-wrenching stories from New Hampshire citizens about how their premiums are going up. As you know, when this law was being sold, it was sold as premiums going down, but that is not what I am hearing from my constituents.

Christopher in Rindge wrote:

My insurance is going to double on January 1, 2014. Even

the options that conform to the health act are double the

amount I am paying today. It doesn't make any sense that my

insurance would go up by double when this is called

``affordable'' health care.

Rick in Pembroke wrote:

Last year, the sum total of my family's health care cost

$2,300. . . . I have been looking at health insurance for my

family. The lowest insurance will cost $566.40 per month. The

family deductible will be $11,500. Even if I spend the same

as last year on actual health care, I will have to pay an

additional $6,800. This isn't fair and it isn't

affordable. I don't know many people who can budget for an

additional $6,800 a year.

Brendan in Sanbornton said:

I am self-employed and my wife and I pay for our health

insurance through Anthem that provides coverage for us and

our 15 month old daughter. Presently, we pay about $580 per

month for a major deductible plan with a total family

deductible of $7,500. A couple of weeks ago, we received a

letter from Anthem informing us that our ``old'' policies

don't meet the requirements of the new ACA and therefore, we

were going to be canceled. When researching new options on

Anthem's Web site, we found that our deductible was now going

to be $12,000 per year at an increased cost of about $150 per

month! We feel as though the country has been misled about

being able to `keep their current coverage.'

Holly in Charleston wrote me:

I buy an individual policy to cover myself, but my policy

went up 25 percent on October 1st and one of the reasons

stated in the letter I received from Blue Cross was to cover

the implementation of ACA. As a result, I dropped down to a

less expensive plan and guess what? I got a letter telling me

I was okay until 2014 when that plan will no longer be

available because it doesn't comply with the new rules and

regs.

I heard from Patty in New Ipswich and she said that after her insurance company told her to find a plan, she signed up for the least expensive bronze plan available. She says:

Still not only will my premium be $75 a month higher for a

total of just under $600 per month for me, but in addition to

that, I have a $5,400 annual deductible. Also, the

prescription plan that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi mandated

also has a $5,400 deductible, so effectively that is not a

prescription plan at all. In fact, this plan is basically a

very expensive catastrophic plan and nothing more. It is not

affordable and I am disgusted.

Barbara in Merrimack and her husband don't yet qualify for Medicare. Their existing plan is being phased out, so she checked the exchange. She wrote:

The product that was closest to what we currently have is

Silver and is just too expensive. The cheapest coverage we

could find is in the Bronze category and will cost $1,228.32

per month and will have a deductible of $5,950/individual and

$11,900/family. That means that all basic services and

medications will be out of pocket. Medications will be

covered at 40 percent of the copay. $1,228.32 equals

$14,739.84 per year and it is more than my mortgage!. . . .

Unlike the government, I can't raise my debt ceiling.

Anita in Sutton wrote:

What was supposed to help people like my husband and I who

are self-employed--and he has a chronic illness--only hurts

us. Our premium went up $2,287.70 per month and this is now

with a $4,000 single/$8,000 family deductible . . . nothing

like a 30 percent increase for one year . . . Having to hoist

yourself up each day and go to work and try to carry on is

hard enough with this chronic illness, now we have to pick

and choose what bills we can afford to pay . . .

Jane in Troy said she tried to enroll her son in the Federal program, and this is what she wrote to me:

The quote was $600 a month! Do you know of any 20 year old

who can afford $600 a month?

Tim in Merrimack wrote me:

Contrary to the original intent of the Affordable Care Act,

individuals who obtain insurance on their own are paying

radically escalating costs based on individual coverage for a

healthy, non-smoking 51-year old male available for January

1, 2014, on the healthcare exchange in NH, the results are as

follows: Premium--25 percent increase from $4,200 to $5,300.

Deductible--20 percent increase from $5,000 to $6,000. 82

percent increase in less than 2 years--$2,900 in June of 2012

to $5,300 in January 2014.

Then I heard from Erik in Hancock. He said he has seen a 46-percent premium hike. He wrote to me:

What has been done to our health care system? This is the

Unaffordable Care Act.

In some cases, the cost of insurance is rising because plans must include coverage for services that consumers don't want based on their individual situation or don't need based on their individual situation. For example, Jeff in Hudson says that his premiums will go up nearly 40 percent because of ObamaCare. He said:

It seems that some of the cost drivers are for coverages

which my wife and I do not need or want, but are required to

have due to the law. For instance, we must have maternity

coverage even though we do not plan

on having more children. (We are in our early 50s.) We

must have pediatric dental insurance, even though we have

no children under the age of 18.

Doug in Bedford wrote me:

The maternity issue is a trap for seniors.

Carol in Newport wrote:

Can anyone please explain to me why at 60 years of age I

need an insurance plan that requires maternity provisions?

Can anyone explain to me why I would be required to pay for

pediatric standalone dental when I have no children? Since

this is mandated by the government, why would I have to pay

an insurer fee, exchange fee, and reinsurance fee?

She said the most affordable plan she has seen has been $504.15 a month--which she can't afford--and a $6,350 out-of-pocket deductible. Carol asks:

If I cannot afford the premium, how can I afford the

deductible?

Others I have heard from are worried that their employers will drop their coverage, finding it cheaper to pay the fine than to provide coverage for their workers.

Benjamin in Greenville wrote:

My portion, currently about $5,000 a year will jump to

$20,000+ per year to maintain my current coverage. I make

``too much'' money to be subsidized. Tell me senator, where

do I find $15,000 a year, $1,250 a month, $288 a week in my

already tight budget?

He wrote me:

No more vacations. No more dance lessons for my kids. No

more family date night once a month. No more Christmas

presents.

Another theme I have heard in the letters I have received from my constituents is a feeling that those in the middle are being squeezed the most.

Donna in Newport wrote:

My employer is now canceling the company sponsored health

plan as of January 2014, which costs me $2,288 per year. In

shopping for a new plan, I am seeing the possibility of a $22

subsidy to help me with a monthly cost of $400, an increase

in my health care costs I cannot afford. I am the middle

class, a tax paying and proud American that did not ask for

this Act and now suffering because of it.

Cheryl in Acworth wrote:

Not only do I have to pay twice the premium, but it will be

post-tax--a double hit. If I was poor, I would be okay or if

I worked for a large employer I would be okay but for those

of us trying to make a good living and be responsible

productive citizens, we end up carrying this . . . This is

not the American dream at all.

Joseph in Salem wrote to me:

On September 30th I received a letter from Anthem informing

me that my new payment to keep my current plan which I have

had for over 8 years will increase $212.47 on January 1st.

That is a $2,548.80 increase for 2014. This is what ObamaCare

is doing to the middle class.

Roberta in Nashua is like many of my constituents pleading for help. She wrote:

Please hear my plea and see what you can do to allow people

like me and my husband to keep our care and not be forced

into purchasing exchange insurance which is so costly and

will be a financial hardship for us. IT IS NOT AFFORDABLE!

In addition to canceled policies, patients losing their doctors, and higher premiums, I have also heard about another aspect and consequence of ObamaCare from people who are working hard, trying to make ends meet, and those are workers who are seeing their hours cut. Under the law, employers must provide coverage for employees who work 30 hours or more per week. Many of these employers, not surprisingly, have decided to reduce hours rather than comply with this new mandate. So this is what my constituents are writing me about--these hard-working people trying to make a living.

I heard from an EMT from the Monadnock region who wrote to me and said:

My employer notified the 75 of us who work there that

effective January 1st, our hours will be cut due to

ObamaCare. So our incomes will drop and make it harder for us

to buy our own insurance.

An educator from the Upper Valley wrote:

Our school district and surrounding ones are cutting back

para-professional jobs to 29 hours. Many of these people were

full time. Instead they hired several part-time people to

cover the once full-time positions . . . Now they are no

longer entitled to any benefits. Many of these individuals

have worked 15 or more years with a school district as full-

timers.

I have heard from business owners as well. They have told me that the looming mandates in the law are causing them to think about eliminating coverage for their employees even though they don't want to do it. They want to do what is right for their employees.

Steven in Nashua wrote me:

I am a small employer. I would be very tempted to dump my

plan for my employees, give them a few extra dollars and just

get out of the health care business.

I have also heard time and time again about how looming penalties under ObamaCare are causing businesses to think twice about growing and adding new workers.

I heard from Matt on the seacoast. He wrote to me and said:

On a business level, I don't know if I will expand because

I would not be able to pay the penalties or the health

insurance for my staff members.

These are just some of the stories I am receiving from New Hampshire about hardships ObamaCare is causing for people who are working hard, who want to make ends meet, who want to keep the health care plans they have now. I feel terribly bad for these people. It breaks my heart.

I have worked hard. I have sponsored many efforts and voted to repeal this law. I have called repeatedly over the last several days for a timeout from ObamaCare. We do need a timeout because of the concerns I just talked about in this Chamber that I am hearing from my constituents and that I know many Members in this Chamber are hearing. We need the President to call a timeout.

I came to the floor several times during the government shutdown and I said it was wrong to shut down the government to try to defund ObamaCare because of the harmful impact of a government shutdown. I even took the step of calling on Members of my own party: Please, do not go forward and shut the government down.

Now it is time for the President to see the impact of this law and understand from someone who in some instances has stood up to her own party on the government shutdown--I am asking the President of the United States to hear from the people of this country who are being impacted negatively by the health care law, and I say: Call a timeout, Mr. President. It is not working. They are having difficulties with the Web site. They are worried that their personal information will not be protected on the Web site.

But, as I talked about today, the problems are much deeper, with people receiving cancellation notices, with people receiving premium hikes they cannot afford, with hours being cut for workers who want to work and make a living in this great country.

I would ask the President to call a timeout, to bring people together. This law was passed out of this Chamber on party lines. I would argue the best way to address health care in this country and to address real concerns I know people had with the status quo as well is to bring a bipartisan group together because what we are seeing now is not working.

My constituents have also taken the time to point out to me--in addition to the major problems they see with ObamaCare, they have shared a few ideas with me as well about where they think we should go from here instead of ObamaCare. I want to share those ideas as well.

Many of them agree that competition in New Hampshire is effectively nonexistent. Let's face it. We have one insurer on the exchange. One suggestion I saw--and it is one I agree with--is to allow for the purchase of insurance across State lines. Why shouldn't insurance companies have to compete on a national basis?

I also agreed with a constituent who said we need to place our focus where it belongs: crafting legislation that reduces health care costs rather than trying to create an artificial health insurance marketplace.

Another constituent wisely pointed out that there should not be a cookie-cutter set of policies, such as the ones that result in seniors purchasing coverage that includes maternity care. Instead, people should be able to shop for coverage that suits their particular needs, and we should respect that different people have different needs in health care.

There are many other ideas that I know we could work on together. These are just some of the ones my constituents have written to me, and I know they have written me other great ideas as well.

Finally, an overarching theme I have heard is that Americans are tired of

being victims of partisan gamesmanship, and I agree with them. We have had too much partisan gamesmanship on so many issues in the Congress. They are tired of the politics. They want us to work together to solve tough problems, and I agree with them.

On behalf of the people of New Hampshire, I renew my call for a timeout on ObamaCare. Let's have both parties come to the table and find health care solutions that work for the American people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, today I wish to honor the remarkable service of a great New Hampshire statesman: Councilor Raymond S. Burton of Bath.

Councilor Burton has devoted his life to serving the people of New Hampshire--and it is been a labor of love. He has served with great distinction, remarkable diligence, Yankee wit and wisdom, and a deep and abiding love for the people of northern New Hampshire.

For 18 terms, he has represented District One on the State's Executive Council, distinguishing himself as a tireless champion for the North Country. Ray is the longest serving Executive Councilor in New Hampshire's history.

He has also served for 22 years as a Grafton County Commissioner, and is now the board's Clerk. His position as a county commissioner allows him to double his efforts to improve the lives of the people of northern New Hampshire, which is his life's work.

This past weekend, Councilor Burton made the very sad announcement that he will not seek reelection to either elected post next year. This was no doubt a difficult decision for Ray, given his decades of service. I look forward to being in Council District One on Friday to join with Ray's many friends and supporters to honor his unmatched record of service to our state.

I am confident that he will continue to give 110 percent to serving his constituents, just as he has done for decades.

But his announcement represents a tremendous loss, not just for the people of the North County, but for citizens across New Hampshire.

Daniel Webster once said, ``. . . in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.'' Webster was referring to our beloved Old Man of the Mountain. But he could have just as easily been talking about Councilor Ray Burton, a gold standard public official of unmatched stature.

No one brings the same level of dedication, commitment, and enthusiasm to public life as Ray Burton.

To him, public service is not just a privilege--it is a calling and a true joy. And no one is better at constituent service than Ray Burton.

District One is vast, stretching from Pittsburg on the Canadian border south to the Lakes Region, and from the Connecticut River Valley to the Mount Washington Valley.

He has logged countless miles traveling the villages, towns, cities and counties of his district, frequently behind the wheel of a classic car. And if he is not driving an antique car, you will frequently find him on a snowmobile.

Seventeen hour days are not unusual for Councilor Burton. He has been known to start days in Claremont and finish way up in northern Coos County, before returning to his cherished home in Bath.

No community gathering or meeting is too small for Councilor Burton. If it is important to his constituents, it is important to him.

He has said for many years that he always runs for office like he is three votes behind--a real statement, given that he has served on the Executive Council for nearly 4 decades, frequently was the nominee of both the Republicans and the Democrats, and comfortably wins reelection by double digit margins. It just goes to show you how seriously he takes the job and how eager he is to make a difference in the lives of his constituents.

The fruits of his labor can be found across Council District One, whether it is an improved bridge or road, or an initiative to strengthen the economy and create jobs.

It can also be found in quieter ways: the constituent he helped with a state agency, or the citizen who needed a hand with local or county government

In addition to handing out his trademark combs, Ray gladly gives out his office number, his home office number, his car phone number and his email address--and he encourages people to use them. They call for help in times of need--and he delivers results.

In fact, a former State commissioner once joked that when she switched on her computer on Monday mornings, she would find two dozen emails from Councilor Burton. That would not surprise me, given his view that the concerns of his constituents are of paramount importance and should go straight to the top. I can personally report having received dozens of inquiries from Ray--signed with his familiar line, ``May I hear from you?''

When not traveling his district, Ray is an enormously respected leader in Concord, where he first arrived in the late 1960s to work as a Sergeant at Arms in the State House of Representatives and the State Senate. Remarkably, he has served at the Statehouse during the administrations of 10 governors.

In 1976, he was first elected to New Hampshire's Executive Council, an executive branch panel that functions as a check on executive power and dates back to 1680. It is a position he has held since 1981, earning the honorary title of ``dean'' of the council.

When I served as New Hampshire's Attorney General, I saw up close that Councilor Burton is someone who does his homework, asks tough questions, and fights with every fiber of his being for what he believes is right. I also saw how deeply he loves our State--and how hard he fights for the people of northern New Hampshire.

Beyond his tremendous efforts on behalf of his constituents, Ray also deserves great credit for working to prepare future generations of leaders. After his election to the Executive Council, he initiated a student internship program, which has become legendary in New Hampshire. Over the years, 140 interns have served Councilor Burton. Many of these young men and women have gone on to great careers in politics and government, carrying on his proud tradition of excellence in public service. I know that Ray's interns are a source of tremendous pride to him, and I commend him

for continuing a program that has served so many so well.

I am pleased to join citizens across New Hampshire in thanking Councilor Burton for his decades of extraordinary service to our State. No one has fought harder for his constituents than Ray Burton. And for generations to come, public officials will look to Ray as a model-- striving to match his tremendous energy, his inherent decency, and his extraordinary commitment to strengthening our beloved state.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize and congratulate Director Sandra Matheson of the NH Attorney General's State Office of Victim/Witness Assistance, OVWA, for more than 30 years of dedicated service to the State of New Hampshire.

A former law enforcement officer and crisis center director, Ms. Matheson was on call to respond to homicides for over 12 years, where she learned first hand about the unique needs of victims. She coordinated New Hampshire's efforts to establish victim/witness services in all 10 counties and to establish the New Hampshire Victim Compensation Program in 1989.

During her long career, Ms. Matheson was responsible for founding and overseeing the OVWA homicide victim unit, which provides 24-hour statewide direct services in all of the State's homicide cases, from death notification throughout the judicial process. She has also developed and presented numerous trainings on traumatic grief and loss, homicide, and the extensive

impact these crimes have on the families left behind. She developed and presented the State's first death notification training curriculum and she is a regular instructor at the NH Police Standards and Training Academy. She is on the faculty of the ME/NH Victim Assistance Academy, where she teaches the sessions on homicide and drunk driving, among others.

Ms. Matheson was an instrumental part of numerous statewide initiatives aimed at standardizing the systemic response to crime victim issues, and has built a strong, effective, collaborative relationship with numerous State and community partners. She was a founder of the NH Domestic Violence, Child Fatality and Elder and Incapacitated Adult Fatality Review Committees, and served as chair of the Attorney General's Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, the NH Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, SANE, Advisory Board, the Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Protocol Projects, the Sexual Assault Domestic Violence Conference Committee, and is a partner of the New Hampshire AmeriCorps Victim Assistance Program. She has been a key player in getting legislation passed to help victims of crime, including drafting the NH Crime Victim Bill of Rights in 1991.

A recipient of numerous awards for her work with victims and families, in April of 1994 Director Matheson received a National Victim Services Award from President Clinton and was honored at a Rose Garden ceremony for ``outstanding service on behalf of victims of crime.'' Most recently in 2013, the National Association of Attorneys General selected Sandra for the ``President's Award'' for her extraordinary work over the years.

On a personal note, as New Hampshire's Attorney General, I was honored to work with Sandra. She is smart, passionate, and tireless in serving victims of crime and in making NH safer. She represents the very best of what it means to be a public servant.

As Director Matheson celebrates her retirement, I commend her on a job well done, and ask my colleagues to join me in wishing her well in all future endeavors.

Madam President, I have come to the floor a number of times during this government shutdown to say how absurd this has been for the American people, that we have found ourselves where we are, to have the government shut down, and those who brought forward a strategy to

defund ObamaCare--the exchanges have opened anyway. That is why I never supported this strategy, because I did not think it was smart for the country, or achievable.

We have been coming up against the debt ceiling issue, so I come to the floor today, after having come to the floor on several occasions, expressing my concerns and frustration.

I thank our leader Mitch McConnell and the majority leader Harry Reid for coming together around an agreement ending the shutdown, to address the debt ceiling, even if on a short-term basis, so we can get out of the hole we are in, and start to deal with the big-picture problems facing the Nation.

Around this, I was very heartened that a bipartisan group of Senators came together to solve this problem, led by Senator Collins from Maine, and seven Republicans and seven Democrats. Let me say among the 7 Democrats was my colleague from New Hampshire Senator Shaheen, who I see in the Chamber. If the Chair would recognize Senator Shaheen, I want to thank her, because what we have been able to do in New Hampshire is that she and I, even though we come from opposite sides of the aisle, have been able to find ways to work together on behalf of our State and on behalf of the country.

She was in this group of seven Senators as a Democrat, I was there as a Republican, both representing the State of New Hampshire, ready with an agreement to solve this crisis. So I want to recognize my colleague and thank her for being part of a group that wanted to solve these problems for the Nation.

Let me say to my colleague from New Hampshire, the senior Senator from New Hampshire, I agree with that. We cannot go through this again. It is incumbent on all of us to work together even though we come from different parties so that we do not go from crisis to crisis in managing this Nation.

I do hope with this agreement we are able to come to a longer term budget for the Nation, a longer term fiscal agreement for the Nation to address our $17 trillion debt, to address the challenges facing our economy, to work together to show people we can solve problems on behalf of this country, and that we can make sure we are not continuing to go from crisis to crisis as we represent New Hampshire and this Nation.

I know both of us joined that group because we had had it with what was happening here and we were ready to solve the problems together.

Madam President, I want to continue to thank the Senators on both sides of the aisle. We were working together with our leadership. I mentioned this was an effort led by Senator Collins, Senator Murkowski from Alaska, Senator McCain, Senator Johanns, Senator Kirk, Senator Flake, on the Republican side of the aisle, and on the Democratic side of the aisle, Senator Manchin, Senator Begich, Senator Pryor, Senator Shaheen, Senator Klobuchar, Senator Donnelly, Senator Heitkamp, and we were even tripartisan because we had Senator King with us as well in these efforts.

I think what we demonstrated is we can come together as a core group. When things break down here, there are many of us who desire to solve the problems facing the Nation. We know we cannot do it with one party alone. It took two parties to get us $17 trillion in debt; it is going to take two to get us out of this hole. Just like this fiscal crisis, it takes two parties to get us out and solve the Nation's problems. I think that is what we learned from this experience. I want to thank those who have worked so hard on it.

Let me say: I am blessed to be a mother. My children just turned 6 and 9 years old during this whole crisis situation. It has been hard to get home during this time. My family is still in New Hampshire. I still live in New Hampshire. My daughter Kate asked me: Mom, why can't you just get the government open? What is wrong? Well, why can't you get this solved?

It is a such a commonsense question that I got from her and from our son Jacob. Think about the lessons we try to teach our children. Are we not always trying to teach them that when they get into a conflict, you have to work it out? That, yes, you do not get to get everything your way, that it is not always your way.

Well, those are the lessons I think all of us, regardless if we are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, try to teach our children. So I found myself in a hard position here where she is asking me the tough question. I had to say to her: You are right, Kate, we have to work together; otherwise, we are not going to get this solved.

Even though I feel very strongly about my principles, I know my Democratic colleagues do also. What kind of lesson am I showing if I cannot help get this resolved? That is why I was proud to be part of a bipartisan agreement.

Let me bring us back to why we got into this government shutdown for a moment, because the other thing, being a mother of two children, when something goes wrong, I always ask my children when they make a mistake: What did you learn from this? What was the lesson you learned from the mistake?

I did not believe the defunding ObamaCare strategy was going to succeed from the beginning, not because I am not a strong opponent of ObamaCare. I absolutely am. But the fact of the matter was that the government shut down and the exchanges opened anyway. Yet the government was shut down, and we put all of those people who were worried about whether they were going to get their paychecks, veterans worried about what is going to happen--we can go on and on. I have heard the impact in my State.

By the way, all the flaws those of us believe that do exist in ObamaCare were all overshadowed by the fact that the government was shut down.

I do want to fix this law. I want to repeal it. I want to replace it with commonsense reform. But this was not a strategy to make that happen.

I guess I would ask the question that I ask to my children: What did we learn from all of this? What we learned is this was not a successful strategy from the beginning. That, yes, you can be against ObamaCare, as I am. I am for repealing it and replacing it. But shutting down the government was not a smart strategy and not the right direction. I hope we never do this again. I hope we learned our lessons. I ask my children to do that, I am going to ask myself to do it, and I am going to ask others to do it.

Let's move forward. Let's work together. Let's find ways--as we get to January when the funding for the government expires again, and February, let's take on the big challenges facing this Nation, the $17 trillion in debt.

Let's get a budget for the Nation. Let's move forward from here, learn our lessons, work together, and get it done for the American people.

Mr. President, I ask that the senior Senator from South Carolina, the senior Senator from Georgia, if he comes to the floor, as well, and I be permitted to enter into a colloquy for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about something that is fundamental to all of us, and that is the safety and security of our country.

On October 5, our special forces did an excellent job in conjunction with our intelligence community, and I commend the administration for ordering the raid that captured a key Al Qaeda terrorist whose name is Abu Anas al-Libi. When they captured him, they put him on a ship.

About a week ago, my colleague from South Carolina and my colleague from Georgia, who is the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, stood up and we said: After successfully capturing one of the most important Al Qaeda members--which is a result of the great work done by our special forces and our intelligence agents--why are we putting him on a ship for purposes of interrogation instead of bringing him to Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which is a top-rated detention facility? At Guantanamo Bay we could do a lengthy interrogation of this person who has been associated with Osama bin Laden and the current head of Al Qaeda, Anwar al-Awlaki.

He is also charged with participating and being involved in the 1998 Kenya and Tanzania bombings at the embassies that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. He has been described as a potential treasure trove of information about the activities of Al Qaeda and their plans. The information we have, which has been released publicly, is that he is someone Anwar al-Awlaki may have sent to Libya to try to make sure that they could have the Al Qaeda network in Libya.

Let's not forget what happened on September 11, a year ago, in Libya where our ambassador and three brave Americans were murdered. Does Mr. al-Libi know anything about that?

We will never fully know what Mr. al-Libi knows because after a week on the ship where our intelligence officials were given an opportunity to speak to him, he was transferred to a Federal district court, and today in Federal district court he pled not guilty to the 1998 bombings at the embassy. He was given a lawyer. We know

that when these terrorists are given a lawyer, it gives them an opportunity to say: I will not talk to anyone anymore because I have a lawyer. They are told they have the right to remain silent.

It is irresponsible for our Nation to capture a top Al Qaeda terrorist and tell them a week later: Here is your lawyer and your right to remain silent because the most important piece we have to protect our country is information to prevent future attacks and information that our intelligence officials can use about the Al Qaeda network to protect Americans and our allies. That information was given up because this administration is so worried and concerned about political points and closing Guantanamo Bay that they would rather transfer someone who is a key Al Qaeda operative to the Federal district court in New York and give him a lawyer a week later, instead of a lengthy interrogation designed to find out everything he knows.

It took years to get the information that led to the bin Laden raid that captured and killed Osama bin Laden. Yet we only had a week of interrogation with a key Al Qaeda operative because they are so worried about adding more people to those who are present at Guantanamo Bay that they would rather put that political goal above gathering information to make sure America is protected. It is wrong, and we will never know what information we lost that could have protected Americans by only allowing this interrogation to go a week in military custody instead of a lengthy interrogation in a top-rated detention facility.

One of the reasons that the administration has given is that he had medical issues. If he did have medical issues, guess what. Guantanamo Bay actually has top-rated medical facilities. Had we captured him and brought him right there--in fact, these are the same types of medical services that our own men and women in uniform are able to receive. He could have been treated there, and we also could have kept him there and made sure that we prioritized getting information about Al Qaeda from him to prevent future attacks against America and to stop the terrorists with this information. The more information we have, the better we can protect our country.

Since I have been a member of the Armed Services Committee, I have been repeatedly asking the administration: What is your detention and interrogation policy? What if you capture the head of Al Qaeda tomorrow? And you know what I get from the top military leaders? I have gotten answers such as this: I would need lawyerly help on that one. We are still working on our detention and interrogation policy.

While they have had years to work on this, we are left where we are: A top Al Qaeda terrorist who was captured in Libya and after only a week of interrogation was given a lawyer so they can accomplish their political goals instead of prioritizing and gathering information from someone who has known and been involved with Osama bin Laden and knows the current head of Al Qaeda, and finding out what that individual knows so we can keep America safe.

I hope that the administration will stop doing this. We can't put politics above intelligence gathering to protect our country.

I ask the Senator from South Carolina, through the Chair, if he still believes we are still at war with Al Qaeda? Also, how important is it that we gather information from terrorists who are captured, and that those interrogations be done on a lengthy basis instead of a short period such as a week?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from South Carolina.

Let me make a correction for the Record. I used the name al-Maliki. It is Ayman al-Zawahiri who is the current head of Al Qaeda, and that is whose name I meant to say.

The point is this: If we capture al-Zawahiri tomorrow, are we going to put him on the ship, and is he only going to be on the ship for a week when we gather information from him to ask him what future attacks he is planning against America and our allies? Does that make any sense? And then we are going to give him a lawyer and tell him he has the right to remain silent? No. What makes the most sense is that we have a detention and interrogation policy so that with people such as al-Libi, we take as much time as we need to make sure we find out everything they know about Al Qaeda to protect America, and if we capture Zawahiri tomorrow, we make sure we protect America by finding out everything he knows. That is what we are worried about and that is what we need to do for our country.

Yes, I will.

Right.

Mr. al-Libi is someone who is alleged to have been involved in Al Qaeda for decades. He is someone who as early as the 1990s was working with Osama bin Laden. He is alleged to have been involved with--and that is what he is charged with in Federal court, as I mentioned--the 1998 bombings of the Kenya and Tanzania Embassies that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

He reportedly played a critical role as the intermediary between al- Zawahiri, whom we just discussed, who took over for Osama bin Laden as the head of Al Qaeda in an effort to establish an Al Qaeda-affiliated operation network in Libya where our Ambassador, of course, was murdered, along with three brave Americans, last September 11. He has been reported to be an Al Qaeda computer intelligence and operations security expert, and he is alleged to have been involved in Al Qaeda strategic planning.

This is one of the most important captures we have had in years of Al Qaeda.

Yes.

Right.

That is right.

I thank the Chair.

I agree. We need to protect our country. That means a lot longer than a week interrogation.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that 10 minutes be divided between myself and the senior Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn.

Absolutely, I modify the request to reflect what the senior the Senator from Michigan said.

Madam President, I think it is time for us to end this government shutdown. I said on the floor twice last week, and prior to that, that I didn't think the strategy of defunding ObamaCare was a strategy which would be successful. While I support repealing and replacing ObamaCare, because I have seen the negative impact in my own State of New Hampshire, we have already seen the government is shut down and yet the ObamaCare exchanges have opened--showing already many of the problems with those exchanges, with the computer system, what are called glitches but are major flaws at this point. So it is time for

both sides to come together and resolve this on behalf of the American people.

Let me say it is appalling that we have soldiers who have been killed in the line of duty and their families aren't receiving death benefits. It is wrong. It is outrageous. We need to solve this right away and we need to solve this overall government shutdown.

In New Hampshire, we have private campgrounds which contract with the White Mountain National Forest which are closed, despite the fact that they actually bring revenue into the Treasury. They are run privately and actually make money for the Federal Government. I think the administration is playing games with things like that, and they should open those campgrounds. But ultimately we have to get this government open.

I wish to praise my colleague, the senior Senator from Maine Senator Collins, who came to the floor earlier today with an idea she has drawn not only from Members in this Chamber but in the House of Representatives of a way we could resolve this impasse, and that is taking something we have already voted on in this Chamber on the budget resolution. There was a vote in this Chamber on the medical device tax repeal, and that vote got on the budget resolution 79 to 20. We voted on a bipartisan basis to repeal this tax. I have been against this tax since I campaigned, because in New Hampshire we see the impact on our companies. It is going to increase health care costs. Many companies in New Hampshire, such as Smiths Medical and Corflex, are negatively impacted by this tax. Their workers are put in a difficult place when these companies can't expand or they have to reduce their workforce because of this onerous tax--which, by the way, is a 2.3-percent tax on revenue, a tax on innovation and new ideas in health care, rather than a tax on profit. But ultimately we should repeal this tax. It is wrong.

I wish to support what my colleague from Maine came to the floor on today as something we should take up and discuss in this Chamber; that is, a repeal of the medical device tax with a pay-for, a CR proposed for a longer period of time within the Budget Control Act numbers. She has proposed 6 months, and flexibility for the agencies to address the sequester in a way that is best and most sensible for the American people.

I thank my colleague from Maine. We can come together and resolve this. I hope that along with Members on the other side of the aisle who voted for the repeal, we can work together with Members of the House of Representatives, we can work this out, get the government open, and also address concerns that we have with ObamaCare which is impacting an important industry, the medical device industry that provides innovation and important lifesaving devices for people in this country.

Madam President, I want to first thank the Capitol Police for their bravery and for the important work they do in protecting all of us in the Capitol. Yesterday really showed how important they are. So I want to thank them for everything they did yesterday to make sure people were protected.

This is day 4 of the government shutdown--a shutdown that did not need to happen. I had hoped when I came to the floor a couple of days ago, and when I heard congressional leaders were meeting with the President, at his request, that they would emerge from that meeting with a plan to end this impasse and get the government open again, to come to an agreement as to how we can responsibly fund the government and address the challenges we face as a Nation. But coming out of that meeting, what we got, of course, was a President who said he will not negotiate.

From the beginning, I have said this strategy was an ill-conceived strategy by some Members of my own party who thought that defunding ObamaCare--therefore, shutting down the government--would, No. 1, stop the exchanges from opening. But we knew that was not going to happen. In fact, it has already happened, even though we shut down the government. It was ill conceived because, again, we knew that with the President and the Senate Democrats in charge, they were not going to defund their signature piece of legislation.

As much as I support repealing that piece of legislation--because I have seen the impact already in my own State of New Hampshire, in terms of premiums and in terms of less choice for individuals, and I do believe there is a better way to address health care in this country-- where we find ourselves right now is unacceptable for America. It is unacceptable as leaders elected by the people of this country. We owe it to our constituents to resolve this now. Both sides need to get together and we need to resolve this.

I would say to my Republican colleagues in the House and to some in this Chamber, it is time for a reality check. Defunding ObamaCare did not work as a strategy, so let's find common ground and work together, yes, to address the very legitimate concerns we have with this health care bill, but also to get this government funded. I would say to my Democratic colleagues here in the Senate and to the President, come to the table and negotiate. Let's work this out on behalf of the American people. I will say it again: I think where we are is the result of an ill-conceived strategy by many in my party, leading to an immature response that says we will not negotiate and talk and try to work this out on behalf of the American people.

We all know the American people are the ones suffering the most from this shutdown. I have heard it from our guardsmen in New Hampshire who have been forced to go to the unemployment office, Federal employees who wonder whether they will be able to pay their mortgages, furloughed civilian workers in New Hampshire at one of our proudest military installations in this country, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and small business owners who can't get the help they need from the Small Business Administration. They deserve better than this.

I hope, as we head into this weekend, the President, the leaders of the House, the leaders of the Senate will get together, and that we will get behind them on behalf of the American people, to get this government open, to resolve our differences, to find common ground and do the people's business.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the Senator from Iowa needs a couple of minutes to wrap up, I don't think I will take my whole 10 minutes so I would be happy to cede to him a couple of minutes.

Mr. President, as I said before--and I said certainly as I came to this floor last week--governing by crisis is no way to run a government. We simply have to get our act together and work together to get the government funded again, to not lose the forest for the trees in terms of addressing the fiscal challenges our country faces, to come up with a fiscally responsible plan that puts our Nation first and puts us on a path to economic security. And, frankly, we have wasted too much time and energy on political brinkmanship and self-inflicted fiscal crises that also keep us from focusing on the real challenges we face, including our $17 trillion in debt, an economy that could be much stronger than it is right now to create the best climate for jobs in this country.

As I came to this floor last week, I reiterated my strongly held opposition to ObamaCare because I have seen the impact, hearing from businesses and individuals in New Hampshire concerned about rising health care costs. In New Hampshire, we only have one insurer that will be on the exchange, and 10 of our 26 hospitals will be excluded from the exchange.

But I also said last week that shutting down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare was not a winning strategy for success. Why? We have already seen exhibit A why it was not a winning strategy for success--because the government shut down yesterday and the ObamaCare exchanges opened and continued anyway. Why is that? We knew in advance that the Congressional Research Service had told us that the mandatory funding piece that was put in ObamaCare would continue even if the government were to shut down. We have seen that happen.

While I continue to believe this law is wrong for America because it is causing rising health care costs, because of the notion--in fact, I think it was well said recently by the chairman of the board of trustees of the Frisbie Memorial Hospital, who originally supported the Affordable Care Act but recently came to say: I supported it because we were told we could keep our doctor, and that has turned out to be a lie.

I certainly want to work with my colleagues to do whatever I can to come up with ways that we can repeal ObamaCare, replace it with reforms that are actually going to drive down health care costs, allow people to keep their physicians, and foster more competition in the insurance sector to give people more choice, but we need to end where we are right now. We need to come to a resolution to keep this government funded in a fiscally responsible way.

I am glad congressional leaders are going to speak to the President tonight. We do not need another photo op. What we need is results. We need both sides of the aisle working together to negotiate, to come up with a plan to fund the government, to move forward, to find common ground.

I know there is some common ground in areas of ObamaCare that both sides of the aisle are concerned about--for example, the medical device tax. When we had the budget votes earlier this year, the vote was 79 to 20 to repeal the medical device tax. Members on both sides of the aisle decided that tax was not good for innovation, for jobs, and that it drives up health care costs. That is an area where we have had some common ground in how we can affect this health care law--a health care law I still deeply oppose, but it is time for us to make sure we can get the government funded again.

Why? In my home State of New Hampshire right now, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard--one of our Nation's four public shipyards--the skilled workers there are being put in jeopardy. They have a very important function to defend our Nation, to maintain our Virginia-class submarines. Yet, due to the government shutdown, more than 1,700 workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard are being furloughed. Instead of maintaining our submarine fleet and defending our Nation, they are worried about their paychecks. It is wrong.

For our National Guard, more than 330 of our New Hampshire National Guard military technicians are being furloughed. These individuals lost 25 to 30 percent of their pay this summer when they were furloughed because of sequestration. This is no way to treat Americans who are helping defend our country. They play a critical role in the operations of our Guard. Yet we are also being told that the New Hampshire Air National Guard--if they do

not receive more furlough exceptions, they may have to shut down their air-refueling and air-bridge operations to Europe and the Middle East. This is about the defense of our Nation. Many of them canceled their civilian job days at work to come to their drill weekend this weekend, which is now being canceled, so they are losing those days of pay as well.

Yesterday I was answering my phones. I had a constituent call me saying that his family had saved for years for a vacation, that it was going to cost them $25,000 to $30,000, and they were at the Grand Canyon. They said: Senator Ayotte, what is going on? We took our kids out of school for 2 weeks, we saved for years for this vacation, and we cannot go down into the canyon.

We must get this resolved, and we must look for common ground on both sides of the aisle to negotiate this, to get a responsible fiscal plan for the Nation.

By the way, we are fighting about 6 weeks of a continuing resolution right now. Give me a break. We should be looking at long-term funding for this Nation, not 6 weeks. To have this kind of impasse over 6 weeks? I can understand why the American people are frustrated and angry.

All I can say is that tonight, as congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle meet with the President of the United States, we do not need any more posturing. Let's give up the blame game on both sides. No more photo ops. You have all seen enough photo ops at this point. Come out of that meeting with results. Yes, results means that both sides are going to have to negotiate. Both sides are not going to get everything they want, but that is what people do in their daily lives. That is what I know people in New Hampshire do to resolve their differences. That is what the American people expect of us.

I hope this ends soon so we can move forward on behalf of this great Nation.