Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, funding for the Department of Homeland Security runs out in 17 days. Rather than working with Democrats to pass a clean Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, many Republicans are prioritizing politics over our national security.

With threats emerging every day both at home and abroad, casting doubt on future funding for the Department of Homeland Security is a terrible idea. Shutting down DHS has real consequences, especially in border States such as New Mexico. A DHS shutdown would threaten public safety, hinder interstate commerce, hurt our economy, and jeopardize critical funding for State, local, and tribal government activities.

Some of my Republican colleagues are willing to let these consequences happen because they have an immigration policy disagreement with the

President. That is no way to govern, and it is not real leadership.

As a border State, New Mexico plays a critical role in protecting our homeland. DHS Customs and Border Protection agents and officers at New Mexico's two ports of entry at Columbus and Santa Teresa are responsible for maintaining our security and for screening vehicles and would-be crossers. These public servants put in long hours in order to keep all of us safe. They apprehend drug smugglers, human traffickers, and gang members. They also play a direct role in facilitating critical trade and interstate commerce between the United States and Mexico. That impacts our economy in New Mexico, particularly in Hidalgo, Luna, and Dona Ana Counties.

New Mexico is a growing international trade center and the Columbus and Santa Teresa ports of entry are key to growing the diversity of my State's economy.

Recently, a House Republican said that if we run out of DHS funding, ``it's not the end of the world.'' I disagree, and so do many of my constituents.

Let me be clear about what a DHS shutdown would mean for New Mexico. It would impact our Southeast Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia. This facility trains our Customs and Border Protection agents and officers. It would also compromise sheriff and city police departments across the State who use DHS funding to increase personnel and purchase equipment. Moreover, DHS helps fund some of our most important security programs such as the New Mexico All Source Intelligence Center, a public safety partnership based out of Santa Fe that is designed to collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence.

A shutdown would also risk important DHS grant funding for New Mexico at the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. This agency works closely with DHS to aid communities after natural disasters. In times of crisis, DHS works hand-in-glove with the State of New Mexico.

For example, last year severe thunderstorms and floods caused disruption of oil and gas development, agricultural losses, and extensive damage to critical infrastructure across New Mexico, hitting counties such as Colfax, Eddy, Lea, Lincoln, Otero, San Miguel, Santa Fe, and Sierra.

FEMA, an agency under DHS, worked collaboratively to help these communities rebuild and recover. In fact, since 2002, New Mexico has received more than $238 million in DHS grant funds. These resources provide statewide hazard mitigation assistance and help repair damaged roads, bridges, and low-water crossings after these disasters.

As current cabinet secretary-designate for the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Mitchell Jay puts it, a DHS shutdown would:

. . . have a very negative effect. We'll lose our grant

funding for local and State emergency managers. We fund a

portion of their salaries through DHS grants, and we can't,

nor can the counties and municipalities, afford to absorb

those costs at this time. . . . We can't afford to lose our

emergency managers, they're key representatives in our

communities who help develop mitigation plans for all types

of emergencies. They're our first line of defense should any

emergencies occur at the local level.

These examples are just a glimpse at the security, economic, and emergency risks of allowing DHS funding to expire.

Former Department of Homeland Security Secretaries Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, and Janet Napolitano joined in a bipartisan call for Congress to act swiftly and remove uncertainty from an agency in charge of keeping us safe.

A Department of Homeland Security shutdown would also either furlough DHS employees or require many of them to work without a paycheck. That means men and women who work tirelessly to keep our Nation safe would have to live with the uncertainty of whether they are able to support their families.

DHS workers don't deserve that. They shouldn't be collateral damage in an ongoing ideological battle here in Washington, DC. I would like to believe a debate such as this would be about the merits of DHS funding and the DHS funding bill, but unfortunately that is not the case. This debate is about Republicans picking a political fight with the President over an immigration system we all recognize is broken. As a way to vent their frustrations, Republicans are unfairly targeting undocumented students known as DREAMers. At times such as this, one is forced to wonder if some on the far right fear DREAMers more than ISIL. But we are not a country that kicks out our best and brightest students. We are not a nation that separates families.

I have met many DREAMers over the past 10 years in New Mexico. They are smart, they are hardworking, and most of them don't know how to be anything but an American. They grew up here, and they want to give back. I have heard their stories. I have read their letters.

For example, there is a bright young New Mexican named Yuri. Her family emigrated from Mexico to the United States when she was 2 years old. As a student at Highland High School in my neighborhood in Albuquerque, Yuri volunteered in our community. She served as student body president. She graduated in the top 10 percent of her class, and she received the 2013 Sandia National Laboratories scholarship.

In 2013, she was approved for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals--known as DACA--and is currently studying chemical engineering at the University of New Mexico. She wants to use her degree to enter the medical field.

Less than 2 years ago, after much debate and compromise, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill. That bill would have modernized our immigration system to meet the needs of our economy. It would have provided an accountable pathway to earn citizenship for the undocumented workers currently living in the shadows in our country. It would have dramatically strengthened security at our borders.

Accountable immigration reform received 68 votes in this body and demonstrated the kind of legislation and the kind of leadership that is possible when we work together. The American people are frustrated with the gridlock here in Washington, DC. Frankly, I don't blame them. We need pragmatic solutions to fix our immigration system, but withholding DHS funding and jeopardizing our national security is not a solution. In fact, I would say it is emblematic of what is broken. Instead of focusing on deporting some of our country's brightest students, I would urge my Republican colleagues in the House and in the Senate to direct their attention to the real threats our country faces--the gang members, the drug traffickers, the cyber hackers, and the terrorists. Let's work together to make sure the Department of Homeland Security is adequately funded.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish to take a couple of minutes to talk about the pending business--the TransCanada tar sands pipeline. I think it is helpful to start out by recognizing that we actually haven't had a global energy bill in the Senate going back to 2005. So it has been about 10 years since we have truly looked at our entire energy policy in this country and set a new course for what we should be doing in the future.

Despite the fact I think bumper stickers are a little dangerous, I thought it would be helpful to at least try to encapsulate the general direction we should be going--the short and sweet of what lens we should be viewing our national energy policy through. I think if I had to boil that down to a simple and concise statement, what I would say is simply fewer imports and cleaner fuels. So as we look at different proposals over the course of this upcoming Congress, I think it will be very helpful, particularly on the energy committee and on the floor, to view these projects through that lens.

Oddly enough, we are not dealing with a major energy policy as the very first thing the Senate considers as its pending business. We are dealing with one single project put forward by TransCanada, an international corporation, that has spent millions and millions of dollars over the last few years lobbying Washington for this particular project.

A lot has been said about the tar sands and about oil sands, but one of the things I think would be helpful to talk about is the fundamental difference between the oil that is produced around the United States and tar sands production. At the end of the line we are talking about the energy that is produced, but at the front end there is an enormous difference between oil that is drilled in Southeast New Mexico, Northwest New Mexico, in West Texas, in North Dakota or Colorado and in the tar sands. If we look through that same lens of fewer imports and cleaner fuels, tar sands development fails on both of those fronts.

We talk about more dependency in the United States on importing energy, and here we are talking about a substantially dirtier fuel source. In fact, we aren't allowed props on the floor, but when having this conversation in caucus, I brought some tar sands with me so I could show people the difference between oil and tar sands and how just toxic and sticky it is and how it represents a step backward in our overall energy policy in this country.

When thinking of oil production, most people think of putting a well in place, you case the well, and there is a well pad. It has an impact, certainly, but it is substantially limited compared to what we are seeing going on in the boreal forest in northern Alberta right now.

This is a picture of northern Canada. For those of us in arid Southwestern States, I can't tell you how envious we are of the kind of water one finds in this part of Canada. Also, the fish and wildlife and the forest resources are substantial. If we look at this picture, some people would say: That is the kind of place one might want to see as a national wildlife refuge or a national park. This is what the boreal forest looks like before tar sands production.

The thing to remember is that tar sands are not drilled for. They are not produced the way oil and natural gas is produced. Tar sands are mined, and they are strip mined. Let us see a picture that exemplifies the boreal forest and then the tar sands production area in the back. This in the front is how it started out and the back is what you have once you are producing the tar sands.

We heard from our colleague from Wyoming in his statement recently on the floor that there is no significant environmental impact from this project. But when we look at tar sands production, I don't know how we can look at a photo such as this and say there is no significant environmental impact.

Let's look at the next picture, and we can take an even closer look at what the tar sands look like when it is in production. We are talking about an enormous area across northern Canada impacted in this way. As we can see, the tar sands is not oil, it is sand and bitumen together.

To be able to process tar sands, to send it through this tar sands pipeline--the Keystone or any other pipeline--to be able to produce it and refine it is a very complicated process. You start by removing the forest cover, then you scrape off the topsoil, and after that you dig up the remaining tar sands and then you have to heat those up and process it to get the energy-bearing oil portion out. Just to be able to move it through a pipeline you have to heat it up, you have to pressurize it and you have to add caustic solvents.

One of the reasons it has been so incredibly difficult to clean up the existing tar sands spills in places such as Michigan and Arkansas is because--unlike oil, where we have a fair amount

of experience, though it is not easy to clean up--there are additional solvents and because the very sticky nature of this substance makes it almost impossible to clean up. We have had very little luck cleaning up tar sands spills to date.

We see in the front of this picture the boreal forest--or what is left of it--and then we see acres and acres and acres, thousands upon thousands of acres of tar sands production. So I think the first thing that is important for people to know is that this simply is not traditional oil and gas development. It is not clear a well pad, drill a hole, and produce oil. It is the kind of impact that if it were proposed for New Mexico or New York or California or even Texas we would have enormous outcry. We don't have the kind of open-pit mining and strip mining we once had in this country, but that is what it is most analogous to.

That said, another one of the claims that has been made repeatedly about this particular project is that the emissions it would create are inconsequential. So it is helpful to look at the emissions to understand that, because tar sands are fundamentally not only harder to handle but fundamentally dirtier from a pollution point of view than traditional oil resources. It is instructive to look at the difference between if we created the same amount of energy from domestic New Mexico, Texas, Colorado or North Dakota crude oil versus if we produced that energy from tar sands.

Once again, we get an idea of the emissions just at the source of the tar sands development here, but if we were to build this tar sands pipeline and we burned all of that produced tar sands that will move through it, the incremental pollution impact of that, the incremental carbon pollution--not the base pollution of whether we created the same amount of energy from oil sources or from some other sources of energy, if we used oil from the United States to create this energy--not looking at that but just the increment of burning tar sands oil instead of conventional crude oil, it is the equivalent of putting 285 million cars on the road for 1 year.

So the addition of carbon pollution to the atmosphere is anything but inconsequential if we look at it from the point of view that it is the equivalent of doubling Pennsylvania's cars--putting another Pennsylvania's worth of auto traffic on the road every year for 50 years.

What that doesn't take into account is the additional carbon released simply because we are cutting down all the forests, eliminating the peat bogs, and fundamentally industrializing an enormous portion of Alberta and Canada. That increment is another 6 million cars' worth of carbon pollution on the road for 1 year.

So that brings me to: What difference does this make?

We may have seen in the news a few days ago how 2014 was the hottest year on record. I wish I could say that was an anomaly. Unfortunately, it is not. Fourteen of the last 15 years have been record-setting years. And if there is something we know from our geologic records-- from ice cores, from the science that has been done at NASA and NOAA and analyzed by our national labs and our university scientists--it is that over time the amount of carbon pollution in the atmosphere--the parts per million of carbon dioxide at any given time--tends to correlate with temperature. It doesn't matter if it comes from a volcano, it doesn't matter if it comes from the exhaust of a car. But because we have added such an enormous increment in recent years, since 1880 and the Industrial Revolution, we can see that as the parts per million of particles go up over time--this is the CO2 concentration over that time period from the Industrial Revolution to today. It is actually not quite up to date because, unfortunately, we are now up here above 400 parts per million. Over that same time period, the average temperature has gone up year in and year out, with fluctuations, but the trendline continues to go up to a very dangerous level.

Adding an additional increment of carbon pollution is simply not something we can afford at a time when we need to be showing real leadership in terms of cleaning up our energy sources, moving forward to a clean energy future, and putting Americans to work here, domestically, with that approach.

The temporary jobs this tar sands pipeline will create are not inconsequential. But since this has been sold as a jobs program, it is worth stepping back and talking about how much of a permanent impact this is going to make. I would make the argument that if we were truly serious here in the U.S. Senate about the type of temporary construction jobs this pipeline would create, we would get serious about passing a transportation bill--and not only passing a transportation bill, but financing transportation in this country, financing infrastructure in this country the way we have historically.

We have a deficit of trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure at this point in this country because we won't pay to maintain it. In fact, our parents' generation built an infrastructure that is the envy of the world. With the current approach in the Congress, we haven't even had the decency to maintain the infrastructure they built and pass it on to our children unimpaired, much less create additional infrastructure of the type we saw from previous generations.

So if we look at the permanent jobs, as articulated in the environmental impact statement, we are talking about 30 to 50 permanent jobs from Keystone. That is slightly less than a single McDonald's, although I would argue that construction jobs are usually higher paying than McDonald's. But it gives us a sense of the kind of scale we are talking about in terms of permanent jobs. If we compare that to just regional projects in individual States--a transmission line in the Southwest, three times as many jobs as that; an electric vehicle plant in the West in Nevada, substantially many, many increments of permanent jobs more, which once again brings us to the fact that in this recovery, just in the third quarter of 2014, we saw 18,000 in clean energy jobs created in this country.

We need jobs in this country. We need energy in this country. And I would argue that the sooner we commit ourselves to a clean energy job- intensive future, the sooner we will address the real challenges that are in front of us.

I continue to urge the President to exercise his discretion and his veto of this. I suspect it will pass the U.S. Senate. But the sooner we get through this process, my hope is that we can return to a real debate about how we address the science that all the scientists have said is out there. We did make a big step forward yesterday in that the Senate for the first time--and the Republicans in the Senate in particular for the first time--accepted the reality of climate change. Unfortunately, right now the policy prescription is to make that climate change worse.

It is time we had an Apollo project for clean energy in this country. That will take transition. That means we are going to continue to produce fossil fuels as a part of that transition. But the sooner we get serious about investing in research and development, the sooner we get serious in terms of scaling the very real and economically competitive technologies we already have, the sooner we get serious about building infrastructure, such as transmission lines to carry renewable energy from parts of the country where it can be produced today to parts of the country where it will be consumed, the sooner we will lead the world and put this country back on track to be the world leader in not only energy but in clean energy.

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

Madam President, I rise in strong opposition to the motion to refer, which would remove the public lands title from the Defense authorization bill.

Like some of my colleagues, I think an appropriate place to start today is to thank Chair Landrieu and Ranking Member Murkowski for their efforts on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. They worked so hard to come up with a package that could actually move in this divided Congress.

The bills in this package have been the subject of incredibly long debate. Many of them, such as the bill we just heard about from my colleague in Maryland, have been under consideration for years. Almost all the bills included in the public lands package have received hearings in either the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee or the House Natural Resources Committee, and almost all of the bills were favorably reported by these committees. For example, every provision in the lands package relating to a national park designation or expansion and every provision designating Federal land as wilderness in this package was closely considered by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and cleared the committee with bipartisan support.

I should note that many of these provisions were not only the subject of committee hearings in this Congress and markups in this Congress but in previous years as well.

The public lands title is the product of lengthy negotiations with the House, with both Republican and Democratic priorities included. Some Senate provisions were modified to address concerns raised by the House of Representatives, and other House provisions were modified to address Senate concerns. This package is a compromise. There is a lot in it that I love but a few things that I absolutely don't support. There are also things that I had hoped would be in this package that will not be in this package. But that is the nature of compromise and

governance. Frankly, that is something we need a lot more of around here.

This package conserves our Nation's resources, our water resources, and our wildlife habitat. It preserves our Nation's culture and history and allows for the smart and responsible development of our public lands as well. We have a responsibility to future generations to be good stewards of our shared culture and the natural world.

Madam President, it will come as no surprise to you or to many of my colleagues that as I travel across New Mexico, what I hear time and again from people is that they are frustrated with Washington, that Congress can't get anything done, and that ``compromise'' sounds like a dirty word to some of our colleagues. We have an opportunity to change that today. Let's work together and be willing to compromise in order to get things done for our constituents and for the American people. Our constituents across this great Nation deserve no less.

I would urge my colleagues' support of the package and opposition to the motion to refer.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, as I start my comments on the land title legislation before us, I would be remiss if I did not mention the incredible work our chair Mary Landrieu has done on this legislation. As we just heard from the tribute to her service over the last few minutes, as the Presiding Officer said in his comments, if you Google ``bipartisan,'' there will be a picture of Mary Landrieu. I think this title sort of embodies that. We owe great gratitude to Chairman Landrieu and to Ranking Member Murkowski for the incredible negotiation and work they have put into this package.

We stand on the cusp of passing one of the most significant pieces of public land legislation since the omnibus bill of 2009. I stand here to speak on behalf of this well-balanced package which is absolutely critical for jobs across the Western United States and particularly from the perspective of my home State of New Mexico.

I want to say that absolutely none of this would be possible were it not for the years of effort and support from the local communities that helped to craft this legislation. Thanks to their work, New Mexico's critical public land-based economic engine will continue to grow and the energy, tourism, and sporting and recreation sectors. New wilderness and National Park Service units will continue to make New Mexico an unmatched destination for world travelers as well as to the local families who have known for centuries that New Mexico truly is the land of enchantment.

I wish to start by talking a little bit about a place that is located in the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico.

This is a picture of Lobo Peak, which is part of this area called Columbine Hondo. Lobo Peak is 12,000 feet and change. It is quite a spectacular view--the kind of view most people associate with Montana or Colorado or Wyoming. The Sangre de Cristo mountains in northern New Mexico are unmatched or could match any of those mountain ranges in States found farther north in the Rockies.

Columbine Hondo has been managed as a wilderness study area since 1980. It is an area that is cherished by all who know it and is a key attraction for the local tourism and outdoor recreation economy.

When I was a young outfitter guide and the executive director of the Cottonwood Gulch Foundation, Columbine Hondo was one of the spectacular destinations where our students backpacked and slept under the stars and learned to navigate in the backcountry. This area has some of the best elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep habitat in New Mexico. People come from across the Nation to experience a true wilderness elk hunt in its aspen and fir forests.

Fishermen will tell you that it is home to some of the last, best habitat for our native Rio Grande cutthroat trout, which is, coincidentally, New Mexico's State fish as well.

Columbine Hondo is home to the headwaters of the Red River and the Rio Hondo. There is nothing more precious in a State such as New Mexico than our water. Those are major tributaries of the Rio Grande. The snowmelt from Lobo Peak, seen here, and from Gold Hill provide critical irrigation water to local acequia associations that carry on centuries- old agricultural traditions.

For millennia now, these mountains, rivers, and wildlife have supported New Mexico's traditional communities. The first evidence of human habitation here stretches back 11,000 years. Nearby Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for more than 1,000 years. Spanish settlers first came to the area in the 16th century. Hispanic families have relied on these mountains and their bounty for their way of life ever since.

Today Columbine Hondo is a central attraction to visitors to Taos County, where outdoor recreation and tourism drive the local economy and contribute to a 68,000-job-strong public land recreation industry in our State.

In addition to finally designating Columbine Hondo as a full-fledged wilderness area, this package would also expand the Wheeler Peak Wilderness by approximately 650 additional acres while modifying a boundary in order to create a loop trail accessible by mountain bikes along the Lost Lake Trail from Taos Ski Valley, to the East Fork Trail, to Red River.

This proposal has broad community support, including Taos Pueblo, many local government leaders, hunters, fishermen, business owners, land grant heirs, ranchers, acequia parcientes, conservationists, mountain bikers, veterans, and literally the list could go on and on.

In October, on my birthday--I could not have asked for a better birthday gift--I was able to join the Columbine Hondo Wilderness Coalition as well as regional stakeholders and local elected officials for a hike into the area to highlight the conservation and water initiatives they support. Local residents discussed why they support permanently protecting Columbine Hondo and what the area means to them and their livelihoods and their lives.

Esther Garcia, an acequia commissioner and the former mayor of Questa, expressed her support well when she said:

Columbine Hondo is very important to all of us. To preserve

this beautiful wilderness area, we preserve our hunting, our

pinon picking, our herb gathering.

I thank all of the residents of Taos County who have worked hard for decades--literally decades--to make this wilderness area a reality.

Also included in this public land package is a provision to transition the

Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico to new management to increase public access. This proposal was developed after extensive input from local residents, sportsmen, business owners, elected officials, and is supported by a number of local chambers of commerce. Together they decided that a national preserve, managed by the Park Service, with a mandate for hunting and fishing to remain central to the management of the area, was the best way to ensure expanded public access while preserving the incredible landscape for future generations.

As you can see from this photo, Valles Caldera is often called New Mexico's Yellowstone for a reason. It is literally an area that was created as a collapsed supervolcano, where cinder cones rise up out of the high-elevation grassland and where the cinder cones and the mountains that encircle this collapsed crater are covered in Douglas- fir and fir and aspen forests. It is a spectacular landscape. The Caldera is home to crystal-clear trout streams and some of the best elk habitat in the country.

Since this area was transitioned to public ownership, the preserve has been managed by a board of trustees charged with generating enough revenue from user fees and other sources to make the preserve financially self-sustaining--literally the same model used for the Presidio in San Francisco, but, as you can see, this is not San Francisco. This management regime has led to drastically limited public access, with relatively high entrance and permit fees, blocking many New Mexicans and other Americans out of this public land. By shifting to Park Service management, we can open the Valles Caldera to the public while conserving the incredible, really one-of-a-kind unique resources that are found here.

As someone who has been lucky enough to draw an elk tag in the Caldera, expanding hunting opportunities for the public is one of the primary reasons I am supporting this proposal. The preserve model ensures that hunting and fishing remain a central activity for the public to enjoy. National Park Service management will help balance expanded public access with conserving both the natural and the incredible cultural resources that are found in this area.

Park Service management will also help bring more visitors and will raise the national profile of the preserve for visitors from outside New Mexico. The increase in visitors at the preserve is expected to bring more than 200 jobs and $8 million in wages to the local communities in the region. That is great news for places such as Los Alamos, Espanola, and Jemez Springs.

We have seen elsewhere how protecting public lands spurs economic development. According to Headwaters Economics, rural counties with protected Federal lands such as national parks and preserves saw a 345- percent increase in jobs over the last four decades, whereas rural counties without commensurate protected public lands saw job increases of only 83 percent in the same period.

I thank the local communities and all the elected officials who have worked so hard for decades to make this proposal possible. I thank Senator Tom Udall and former Senator Jeff Bingaman for their leadership on this issue.

We all literally stand on the shoulders of giants in this community effort, as it was Senator Clinton P. Anderson of New Mexico who helped pass the Wilderness Act and who first proposed National Park Service management of the Valles Caldera in the early 1960s.

Additionally, as the son of a Navy sailor who literally saw the last of the aboveground atom bomb explosions and the first of the hydrogen bomb explosions firsthand, I am especially pleased to see that the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act, which was introduced by Senator Maria Cantwell, is also included in this title. It will establish three different educational sites--one in Los Alamos, NM, one at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, and one at Hanford in Washington. Los Alamos, NM, has made incredible contributions to our Nation's nuclear history. These parks will conserve historic sites and artifacts that played a key role in the dawn of the nuclear era, while telling the story of the creation of the world's first atomic bomb and exploring its consequences for our society and our world.

Finally, I would like to mention the provision in this package that will benefit New Mexico's energy economy. It is one that I know Senator Landrieu was very supportive and excited about. It is a bill that I cosponsored, but it was authored by my colleague Senator Tom Udall, who championed this effort to ensure that the Bureau of Land Management has the staff it needs to streamline the oil and gas drilling permit process, while at the same time strengthening the review system that helps them meet important environmental and safety standards.

Thousands of jobs and a sizable portion of our State's economy are supported in New Mexico by the oil and gas industry. Increasing cooperation among Federal agencies and business is an important way to boost job creation, while at the same time expanding domestic energy production.

Like other Americans who value our shared lands as assets to be utilized, to be enjoyed, and to be passed along to future generations, these are all things worth fighting for. I am committed to carry on my State's rich conservation history, and this legislation makes an enormous contribution to that ever-evolving story.

I yield the floor to my colleague the Senator from Montana.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Levin be permitted to follow my remarks and speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, torture is wrong, it is un-American, and it doesn't work. Recognizing these important realities, the President signed an Executive order in January of 2009 that limited interrogations by any American personnel to the guidelines that are in the Army Field Manual, and he reinforced U.S. commitment to the Geneva Conventions. This closed the book on the Bush administration's interrogation program. But make no mistake--these weren't enhanced interrogations. This was torture. I would challenge anyone to read this report and not be truly disturbed by some of these techniques.

Releasing the Intelligence Committee's study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program to the American people today will finally provide a thorough accounting of what happened and how it happened. In addition, like my colleague and friend from Maine

who spoke before me, I hope this process helps to ensure that it never ever happens again.

This was a grave chapter in our history, and the actions taken under this program cost our Nation global credibility, and--let's be blunt-- they put American lives at risk. Some have suggested that releasing this report could put American lives at risk. But let's be clear. It has been the use of torture that has unnecessarily put Americans in harm's way.

There is no question that there will never be a good time to release this study. We all know that for months, terrorists in the extremist group ISIS have been kidnapping and barbarically killing innocent Americans because of what we as a nation stand for. The response to their threats and terrorism should not be for us to change our American values; it should be to stand firm in our values and work with our allies to root out extremism and terrorism in all its forms.

The release of this study will finally let us face what was done in the name of the American people and allow for future generations to use these findings to learn from the mistakes made by the architects of this program. This is an objective, fact-based study. It is a fair study. And it is the only comprehensive study conducted of this program and the CIA's treatment of its detainees in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Today marks an enormous, albeit painful, step into our future.

It is important to know that these torture methods were the brainchild of a few CIA officials and their contractors. When I joined the Intelligence Committee two years ago, I began to read the classified report and was surprised to learn this. Frankly, it was not consistent with all of my assumptions. It wasn't what my prejudices told me to expect. But that is exactly why a fact-based study is so important.

Furthermore, it is important to know that at every turn, CIA leadership avoided congressional oversight of these activities and, even worse, misled Congress. That leadership deliberately kept the vast majority of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees in the dark on the interrogation techniques until the day the President revealed the detention and interrogation program to the rest of the world in 2006--4 years after it began.

Even then, misrepresentations to the committee about the effectiveness of this program continued, in large part because the CIA had never performed any comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the interrogation techniques or the actions of its officers. Myths of the effectiveness of torture have been repeated, perpetuating the fable that this was a necessary program that somehow saved lives.

The committee examined the CIA's claims of plots thwarted and detainees captured as a result of intelligence gained through torture. In each and every case, the committee found that the intelligence was already available from other sources or provided by the detainees themselves before they were tortured.

However, we need to stop treating the issue of torture as one worthy of debate over its practical merits. This is about torture being immoral, being un-American. Reducing a human being to a state of despair through systematic subjugation, pain, and humiliation is unquestionably immoral. It should never happen again with the blessing of the Government of the United States of America.

As my colleague who spoke before me--Senator King of Maine--said so well in an interview this morning, ``This is not America. This is not who we are.'' I think that sums up how I view the revelations in that report.

The information in the study released today to the public will finally pull back the curtain on the terrible judgment that went into creating and implementing this interrogation program.

The decision to use these techniques and the defense of the program were the work of a relatively small number of people at the CIA. This study is in no way a condemnation of the thousands of patriotic men and women at this great Agency who work tirelessly every day to protect and defend our Nation from very real and imminent threats using lawful measures; using effective measures. In fact, the insistence that so many intelligence successes were the result of enhanced interrogations negates and marginalizes the effective work done by thousands of other CIA officers not involved in these activities.

What this study does is show that multiple levels of government were misled about the effectiveness of these techniques. If secretive government agencies want to operate in a democracy, there must be trust and transparency with those who are tasked with the oversight of those agencies.

As the committee carries out future oversight, we will benefit from the lessons in this study. I hope we never again let the challenges of difficult times be used as an excuse to frustrate and defer oversight the way it was in the early years described in this report.

Although President Obama ended the program by signing that Executive order in 2009, any future President could reverse it. It is worth remembering that years before this detention and interrogation program even began, the CIA had sworn off the harsh interrogations of its past. But in the wake of the terrorist attacks against the United States, it repeated those mistakes by once again engaging in brutal interrogations that undermined our Nation's credibility on the issue of human rights, produced information of dubious value, and wasted millions and millions of taxpayer dollars.

The public interest in this issue too often has centered on the personalities involved and the political battle waged in the release of this study, but those stories are reductive, and I hope they will soon be forgotten. Because the story of what happened in this detention and interrogation program--and how it happened--is too important, and it needs to be fully understood so that future generations will not make the same mistakes that our country made out of fear.

When America engages in these acts, with authorization from the highest levels of government, we invite others to treat our citizens and our soldiers the same way. This study should serve as a warning to those who would make similar choices in the future or argue about the efficacy of these techniques. Let us learn from the mistakes of the past, and let us never repeat these mistakes again.

Before I close, I wish to say how important it is to acknowledge that the Intelligence Committee's study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program represents many, many years of hard work by Members and staff who faced incredible obstacles in completing their work. The fact that this study is finished is a testament to their dedication, and it is a testament to the dedication and focus of Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Feinstein in deciding that oversight is our job, regardless of how long it takes.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, let me start out by righting a wrong. I hadn't realized Chairman Wyden, our chairman from Oregon, had not had a chance to visit the great State of New Mexico. I will fix that right now and

make sure he is not only invited, but we might seek to show him some of the incredible places the two programs we are talking about today have helped preserve, protect, and make as assets to our local economy in the State of New Mexico.

As we heard from our colleague Senator Udall and our colleague Chairman Wyden of Oregon as well, this month we celebrate two incredible milestones in our country's conservation history. We celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act and the 50th anniversary of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Both of these programs have been etched into the history of my home State by New Mexico conservationists with names such as Aldo Leopold, Senator Clinton P. Anderson, and Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall.

When Senator Anderson steered the passage of the Wilderness Act here on the floor of the Senate, he said on August 20, 1964:

In no area has this Congress more decisively served the

future well-being of the Nation than in passing legislation

to conserve natural resources and to provide the means by

which our people could enjoy them. . . . While we stretch out

the highways to carry ever-expanding traffic, while we build

whole new communities to house a growing population, and

while we consume more acreage for a burgeoning industry, we

have set aside part of our land as it was when human eye

first saw it--unscarred by man, primeval, a memorial to the

Creator who molded it.

Senator Anderson was also unquestionably one of the principal architects of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the 88th Congress, where so much of this work was done, was coined as the ``Conservation Congress.''

LWCF is the primary tool our Nation uses to fund the protection of our natural and cultural heritage, and I have worked diligently with my colleagues--including Senator Udall, his cousin Senator Udall of New Mexico, Senator Wyden of Oregon, and others--to secure full and permanent funding for this program.

But even 40 years before the enactment of the Wilderness Act or LWCF, conservationist Aldo Leopold had the vision and influence to help protect 500,000 acres of mountains, rivers, and mesas in New Mexico-- which eventually became the Gila Wilderness--in order to ensure a roadless and backcountry experience free of what Aldo Leopold called ``Ford dust'' for those hearty enough to saddle up or hike into the heart of this wild country. With the passage of the Wilderness Act, it became the National Forest System's very first designated wilderness area. New Mexico is also where the idea of tribally administered wilderness became a reality when Blue Lake was returned to Taos Pueblo.

Former Senator Jeff Bingaman's leadership was absolutely invaluable in conserving important public lands in New Mexico, such as the Rio Grande del Norte and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks regions, both of which were designated national monuments within the last 2 years.

But the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund is not just about the past, as we have heard from my colleagues. The future of public lands conservation will depend on the continued collaborative efforts of our elected officials, our business owners, tribal leaders, sportsmen, conservation organizations, outdoor retailers, and others to work together to protect America's most treasured natural landscapes.

Our efforts should continue our proud bipartisan history. After all, it was Representative John Saylor, a Republican from Pennsylvania, who was the lead sponsor and champion in the House of Representatives for the Wilderness Act. And it was former Republican Senator Pete Domenici of my home State who championed legislation to designate the Sandia Wilderness, a place I look upon every time I go home to Albuquerque, and who said at the time that the area ``forms a beautiful natural backdrop for the city which all the residents can enjoy.''

In New Mexico, hunters and anglers, campers and acequia parciantes, chili farmers and urban dwellers, all have a deep connection to the outdoors and benefit from the recreation, wildlife, and the water that wilderness provides. Many of my own most formative moments, decisions, memories, and turning points have occurred in these public wildlands.

I remember a trip with my wife Julie to the Irish Wilderness in Missouri, a trip that we made as we were leaving our college days behind in the Midwest and heading back west to New Mexico to start our new life together. In 2001, shortly after 9/11, I backpacked through 53 miles of the Gilo Wilderness and decided on that trip to run for a seat on the Albuquerque City Council.

I have many cherished memories from the trips my wife and I have made over the years along the spines of the American Rockies, the Sangre de Cristos, the Tetons, in places with names like the Pecos Wilderness, the South San Juan, Jedediah Smith, and canyons with names like Dark Canyon, Desolation Canyon, Gray, Grand Gulch, the Goosenecks, the San Juan, and of course the Chama River Canyon near my home.

Wilderness is in my blood, and I make no apologies for believing that some places are so very special that we will never improve upon them. These are the places worth fighting for.

I am committed to carry on my State's rich conservation history. Senator Tom Udall and I have introduced legislation to designate special places such as the Columbine-Hondo in Taos County, the San Antonio River and Ute Mountain in the new Rio Grande del Norte National Monument as new wilderness areas. It is clear that conservation and growing our economy are inextricably linked. Protected wild places contribute to the New Mexico economy in a robust and sustainable outdoor recreation community which generates $6.1 billion in consumer spending every year in the State, gives us 68,000 New Mexico jobs, and $1.7 billion in wages and salaries, according to the Outdoor Industry Association.

The new Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in northern New Mexico has already yielded economic benefits since its designation. After less than 1 year since it was designated a national monument, the local community saw a 40-percent increase in visitors.

As we look back on the last 50 years since the Wilderness Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund both became law, let us also look to the future. My children love wild places as much as I do. My son Carter will be backpack hunting for elk with me later this fall. My son Michael will join me on BLM land to chase mule deer. They have hiked the Columbine Hondo Wilderness Study Area and fished in Cruces Basin Wilderness.

It is up to all of us to ensure that their children have the same opportunities we had and that we have shared with their generation.

I close with a quote from Aldo Leopold's book, ``A Sand County Almanac'':

When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may

begin to use it with love and respect.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I say to my colleague from Oregon, his leadership, along with Senator Crapo, on this firefighting budgeting and fire borrowing issue--that is really what it is--is critical to all of us in Western States. Every single one of us has seen communities touched by these catastrophic wildfires as our climate is changing and we see fires get bigger and bigger. But we have solutions, and the solutions are bipartisan and common sense.

I can only hope that we are able to move quickly to make these budget changes. They will make a real difference for all of us up and down in the Intermountain West.

Border Crisis

Mr. President, I thank all of my colleagues who have been vocal about their commitment to address the Central American refugee crisis along our southern border.

We have heard the stories of unimaginable violence, of corruption, of instability in places such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala-- factors that are driving many children to the United States and to other neighboring countries in Central America. In some cases these children are literally fleeing for their lives.

Our Nation has responded with a spectrum of attitudes toward immigrants ranging from hostile to downright hospitable. It is my hope that our attitude as a nation continues to be defined by the image of the Statue of Liberty and not by shouting protesters holding signs labeled ``Return to Sender'' as they stand in front of buses full of Central American children.

I recently received a letter from a constituent in my home State of New Mexico whose grandmother, as a result of extreme poverty, left her family and emigrated by herself to the United States from Ireland at the age of 14 at the end of World War I. Brendan said that when he was growing up, his grandmother frequently shared this Irish proverb with him. She said, ``Courage is the trust that your feet will bring you to where your heart is.'' Brendan asked that I continue to remind my colleagues that the immigrants who arrive at our borders come by foot following their hearts and do so in the hope of building a better life.

Last week I sat down with Ambassadors from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and we discussed how our Nation's approach to stemming the influx of unaccompanied children to the United States must be collaborative and get at the root cause of the dire situation in these countries. With out-of-control drug cartels and nearly 90 murders for every 100,000 persons annually, Honduras now has the highest murder rate in the world. Similarly, El Salvador and Guatemala have the world's fourth and fifth highest murder rates. There is no easy solution to these problems, but Congress has an opportunity and a responsibility to act on pragmatic measures before time and resources run out.

Secretary Johnson has warned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will run out of money in August and Customs and Border Protection will run out of money in mid-September if nothing is done. With resources already running scarcer by the day, Customs and Border Protection won't have any other choice but to direct border agents away from other sectors of our southern border and into the Rio Grande Valley.

So let's be clear. Those who would choose not to support this emergency supplemental are putting our border security at risk. New Mexico, California, Arizona, and West Texas will all see fewer agents and fewer resources on our border if the House and Senate do not act.

This is no way to address a crisis. We must pass the Senate's emergency supplemental funding bill introduced by Senate Appropriations Committee chairwoman Barbara Mikulski. This emergency funding bill includes important resources to help stem the current refugee crisis while continuing to treat these refugee children humanely as required by the law. This situation is an emergency, and we need emergency funding.

Passing the emergency supplemental would also allow the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to deploy additional enforcement resources, including immigration judges, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys, and asylum officers, as well as expanding the use of the alternatives to detention program.

Instead of ensuring that we provide these necessary resources to address this crisis on our border, some of our colleagues are actually proposing that the solution is to actually weaken Federal child trafficking law and to roll back protections for unaccompanied child refugees seeking asylum. The proposal introduced by our colleague from Texas Senator Cornyn would weaken the 2008 William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act and short-circuit justice in order to deport refugee children faster and without the due process afforded under our law.

According to a poll released Tuesday by the Public Relations Research Institute, 69 percent of those surveyed believe that U.S. authorities should treat the children as refugees and allow them to stay in the country if it is determined it is not safe for them to return to their home country.

Some would use this crisis to eliminate crucial child trafficking protection, punish some of our Nation's brightest DREAM Act students, and promote a narrow border-enforcement-only agenda. I believe we are a better nation than that, frankly.

Let's step back and remember that just 1 year ago the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that included provisions to further strengthen the border but that would also protect refugee children and crack down on smugglers and transnational criminal organizations. Notably, the bill was widely supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. Public support and good economics have not been enough to convince House Republican leaders to hold a vote on immigration reform, but they cannot turn a blind eye to the current humanitarian crisis along our southern border.

The bipartisan Senate bill that passed more than a year ago includes provisions for family reunification and for the protection of children who have been the victims of human trafficking. The bill also includes measures that would address refugee and asylum laws.

The public, including faith-based organizations, educators, local elected officials, small businesses, and many others, overwhelmingly supports this balanced approach to immigration reform. However, here we are more than 1 year later, and House Republicans are still unwilling to even hold an up-or-down vote on the Senate's proposal. Each day the House fails to act on serious solutions to our broken immigration system is another day our Nation and our economy suffer.

The Congressional Budget Office reported that last year's bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed this body would reduce the budget deficit by $197 billion--billion with a ``b''--over the next decade and about $700 billion in the second decade. In a companion analysis, CBO also estimated

that fixing our broken immigration system would increase our country's GDP--our economic output--by 3.3 percent in 10 years and 5.4 percent after 20 years.

The evidence is clear. Immigration reform is good for our economy, good for our workforce, and it is good for the future of the American middle class.

I am familiar with the promise America represents to its families. My father fled from Nazi Germany in the 1930s as a young boy. As the son of an immigrant, I know how hard immigrants work and how much they believe in this country and how much they are willing to give back to our Nation. Those of us who represent border communities understand the difficult challenges we face, but there are solutions before us that are pragmatic, bipartisan, and that uphold rather than compromise our American values.

In the short term we must approve the Senate's emergency supplemental bill, and in the long-term we should partner with Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to stabilize their nations and end the cycle of gang violence we see there. A key part of our long-term solution is for House Republicans to finally put the Senate's immigration reform bill on the floor for an up-or-down vote.

We in Congress have a historic opportunity to pass comprehensive immigration reform and to address root causes rather than just symptoms for a change. I believe we will have failed if the only immigration legislation we pass as a body in this Congress is to weaken legal protections for refugee children. With this in mind, I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that we address this humanitarian crisis and fix our immigration system once and for all. Let's seize this opportunity.

Mr. President, I see that I have been joined on the floor by the Senator from Florida, and I would ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with Senator Nelson.

Mr. President, I am aware of the testimony of General Kelly, but given his role at SOUTHCOM and in particular its location in Florida and the fact that the Senator from Florida was there for the testimony, I would ask him to remind us exactly what General Kelly had to say about how we are or in some cases are not interdicting and dealing with the flow of narcotics and particularly cocaine that has been at the root of so much of the instability and violence we see in these three Central American countries today.

If I understand the Senator from Florida correctly, General Kelly simply does not have the resources to do the job we have done historically in terms of interdicting cocaine moving north for the market that, frankly, is in North America--

--in the United States and Canada. They have to literally sit there and watch these narcotics go by without having the resources to stop them in their tracks.

My understanding is that the resource situation in Southern Command has changed so dramatically in recent years that not only is this interagency task force limited, but they have literally canceled more than 200 engagement activities and multilateral exercises with our partners in the region who can multiply that effect and interdict even more narcotics as they are moving forward.

The Senator from Florida also brought up another issue that I think is worth exploring. It is my understanding that he was recently briefed on the relationship that exists between these drug cartels and the entities that are actually engaging in human trafficking and moving people, for a fee, through Central America and Mexico and to the U.S. border. Can the Senator tell us a little bit about the nature of that relationship?

If the Senator from Florida will yield for a minute, the sad thing is it didn't used to be that way in this part of Central America, and I know that for a fact because my wife and I traveled there 15, 16 years ago. We traveled extensively in Honduras, and at that time these gangs simply did not have the influence. They did not have this level of destabilization and they did not have this murder rate.

I always joke about trying to drive into Tegucigalpa, and I would not recommend it to anybody who has not had time to acclimate to the speed and crush of cars in that capital city, but it was a completely different country at the time. We traveled extensively in urban areas in San Pedro Sula and rural areas such as Santa Rosa de Copan, and it was an economically challenged country.

For those folks who have claimed that all of these immigrants are simply heading north out of economic desperation, the economic situation has not changed all that much. It is worth looking at the rest of Central America. The surrounding countries, such as Belize and Costa Rica and other countries in Central America, are also seeing refugees from these countries.

Nicaragua, which has substantial economic challenges right now, is losing economic immigrants, and those immigrants are not making it to our southern border in any substantial numbers. In fact, less than a year ago, I was in Costa Rica and many Nicaraguans are working in Costa Rica because the economy is better there. Yet we don't see them showing up--especially the unaccompanied minors, 7, 8, 12-year-olds--at our border by themselves. They are not being driven out by the extreme violence we have seen in these three nations where the drug cartels have such a disproportionate influence on their country's stability.

If the Senator from Florida will yield for a moment, having formerly served on the House Armed Services Committee, I know the Department of Defense budget is somewhere in the order of $550 billion. Surely SOUTHCOM must have a substantial amount of resources to be able to meet this, right?

Of that $550 billion, does the Senator from Florida know how much actually goes to Southern Command?

I thank the Senator from Florida for continuing to be an advocate for this cause. I know that Southern Command's annual budget now is about $1 billion--literally $1 billion out of $550 billion in the Department of Defense. Given the necessity of engaging with Central and South America on these issues, I think it is time to reevaluate, in terms of resources but also in terms of priorities, how we look at Central and South America, to reengage with our neighbors and try to address some of these issues at the root level instead of always at the symptom level.

I see we have been joined by our esteemed chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Mikulski of Maryland. So I thank the Chair for allowing the Senator from Florida and I to indulge in this colloquy. And, once again, I wish to say how much I hope we take this opportunity to do something, not just about the symptoms of the current crisis which has to be dealt with, but also the underlying causes of this crisis.

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

Mr. President, when Congress unanimously passed the bipartisan William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act back in 2008 to strengthen Federal trafficking laws and ensure that unaccompanied and undocumented children receive humane treatment, it was welcomed by the Bush administration as a priority issue in preventing the trafficking of persons around the world.

At the time Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission president Richard Land said that:

It shows a broad coalition all the way from the left to the

right and in between when it comes to significant human

rights issues.

The law itself was named for William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian who led the effort in Britain's Parliament to end the slave trade in Britain in the 19th century. But now, 6 years later, too many of my Republican colleagues are calling to roll back the very protections that just a few years ago were rightfully lauded as a tremendous victory for human rights.

Many of us believe the current Central American refugee crisis requires an immediate and compassionate response. Yet the proposals put forth by Senate Republicans have been to reverse critical child refugee protections, and deport DREAMers who have absolutely nothing to do with this current crisis.

The proposal introduced by my colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn, and similar proposals from my Republican colleagues would weaken the 2008 trafficking law and implement expedited deportation that denies children the chance to go through an orderly process to determine if they need protection--and it applies to all unaccompanied children who cross the border. I believe we are a better nation than that.

My Republican colleagues keep saying they want a humane process, but these proposals would trade the safety of children for expediency and eliminate the very protections unanimously set forth by Congress back in 2008.

As a father, I have to say I believe this debate can't just be about the efficiency with which we can deport refugees. It should take into account the situation these boys and girls are seeking to escape in the first place.

Both the United Nations High Commission on Refugees and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services in two separate reviews recently found that approximately 60 percent of unaccompanied children from Central America suffered or faced harms that indicated a potential or actual need for international protection.

To understand how these proposals could adversely harm the children involved, one can read a recent article in the New York Times by Julia Preston. It tells the story of Andrea, a young woman from Honduras who was forced by her own family--associates with the Mexican drug cartel-- into prostitution at age 13, if you can imagine that. After 2 years she ran away, hoping to seek safety in the United States. She tried twice to flee abuse, crossing the Rio Grande, and was apprehended by the Border Patrol in both attempts.

When agents questioned her, Andrea did not tell them why she fled. She said:

I was just trying to protect myself . . . I was just afraid

of everything, after all those things those guys had been

doing to my body.

Andrea, a victim of sex trafficking, was sent back into harm's way to live with relatives in Mexico.

Andrea is not alone. Many more children could also be sent back into a dangerous environment if proposals to overturn the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act are passed.

Unaccompanied children such as Andrea need a safe place to talk about violence and abuse. A Border Patrol station holding cell is no place for an interview that literally will impact the rest of their lives, especially while they are still recovering from a dangerous journey. Subjecting Central American children to this screening process would be a retreat from our Nation's commitment as a humanitarian leader, and, frankly, undercuts our American values of putting children ahead of politics.

A coalition of more than 100 nongovernmental organizations--such as First Focus, Women's Refugee Commission, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association--all wrote a letter to President Obama earlier this month to share their thoughts on this humanitarian crisis. They wrote:

Congress gave consideration to the unique circumstances of

children when it enacted the [Trafficking Victims Protection

Reauthorization Act].

Undermining due process and protection under the law is not the right answer, and certainly will not appease the criticisms of those who have been calling for more punitive and aggressive enforcement.

Yesterday, in an open letter to Congress, the Evangelical Immigration Table warned against weakening the protections afforded by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, stating that the law:

. . . ensures that victims of trafficking are not only

identified and screened properly but that traffickers are

penalized and brought to justice.

I have also heard from the Southern Baptist Convention, the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, anti-trafficking groups, and children's lawyers who have all sent the same message to us: Don't weaken this anti-trafficking law. Congress should focus on strengthening safeguards for children rather than weakening their protections.

Last week one of my colleagues from Texas proposed that the only way to stop the rise of unaccompanied children is to punish DREAMers and introduce legislation to defund the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program--or DACA, as it is called. DACA has helped more than 550,000 undocumented students across the country who came to the United States as children to have an opportunity to pursue a higher education. DREAMers in the DACA Program are not the cause of the current Central American refugee crisis. And the notion that any legislation to address this issue must also end DACA is, frankly, out of touch. DREAMers are bright, they are hard-working, and most of them don't know how to be anything but an American.

I have met many DREAMers from New Mexico. I have heard their stories. I have read their letters. They have never given up on this country, and, frankly, I am not giving up on them.

Last year I had the pleasure of meeting a young woman named Laura in Las Cruces, NM. She arrived in the United States from Mexico when she was 7 years old. She learned English. She earned good grades in school. It wasn't actually until she was 13 years old that she even found out she was undocumented.

She said:

I couldn't believe it. All my dreams, all my hard work, it

felt like it was all for nothing. . . . Don't leave anyone

behind on the American dream.

Laura wants to be a doctor.

There is the story from a young woman named Yuri. Her family immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was 2 years old back in 1996. While in high school in Albuquerque, NM, Yuri volunteered in her community, graduated in the top 10 percent of her class. She even received the 2013 Sandia Laboratory scholarship. Recently, she was approved for DACA and is currently a student at the University of New Mexico.

There are literally countless stories just like these of young people who love this country and have only known it as their home. We are not going to let Republicans use this current humanitarian crisis as an opportunity to punish DREAMers.

I am happy to end President Obama's deferred action program, but we will only do that by passing the DREAM Act as part of comprehensive immigration reform.

If we really want to help solve this crisis and make our policies crystal clear, it is all the more reason to pass the Senate's bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The reality is, our Nation is facing a refugee crisis at our southern border. Children from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have fled to the United States and to other neighboring Central American countries to escape unimaginable violence, corruption, extreme poverty, and instability in their home countries. In some cases, these children are literally fleeing for their lives. Many of these children are turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents.

This little boy's name is Alejandro. He is 8 years old. He traveled alone from Honduras, with nothing but his birth certificate in his pocket. I thought about that. I can't imagine my 7-year-old traveling across Washington, DC, or Albuquerque, NM, or any major metropolitan city in the United States by himself.

It took him 3 weeks to make that dangerous journey from Central America to the banks of the Rio Grande. After being asked where his parents were, Alejandro said they were in San Antonio. He came to the United States because he wanted to reunite with his family. He didn't run, he didn't hide when an agent approached him. Alejandro wanted to turn himself in--just as many mothers and children have done over the course of the last year. Yet we have heard this week calls from some who would militarize our border and send in the National Guard.

I would say we need more resources for our Border Patrol agents. They have been taxed. They have certainly been putting in long hours since these numbers started to crest. But I don't think sending soldiers to meet people like Alejandro is the right solution to this crisis. The notion that lax border policies are somehow responsible for this latest crisis is not just a myth, it is a willful misrepresentation driven by politicians who would rather create a political issue than solve a real problem.

In a recent interview when asked to discuss whether sending in the National Guard would be an appropriate response to these problems at the core of the current crisis, Steven Blum--who was the former Chief of the National Guard Bureau under President George W. Bush--told the Washington Post:

There may be many other organizations that might more

appropriately be called upon. If you're talking about search

and rescue, maintaining the rule of law or restoring

conditions back to normal after a natural disaster or

catastrophe, the Guard is superbly suited to that. I'm not so

sure that what we're dealing with in scope and causation

right now would make it the ideal choice.

That is a very polite statement. The fact is there are more Border Patrol agents today and more technology and resources at the border than any time in our Nation's entire history, and our Border Patrol is better prepared to deal with this issue than the National Guard.

Border Patrol apprehensions are today less than one-third of what they were at their peak, and this is because we have worked so hard and so effectively to secure the border. Those of us who represent border communities understand the challenges we face, but there are solutions before us that are pragmatic and bipartisan; that uphold our American values; that don't compromise them. Republican leaders should demand that their colleagues in the House of Representatives act to fix our broken immigration system. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill more than a year ago now, and passing that bill would make our immigration policies crystal clear to the world.

Additionally, passing the Senate's supplemental funding bill to address this crisis sends a clear signal that we are aggressively stemming the flow of children and families from Central America while continuing to treat those refugee children humanely under the law. This situation is an emergency and frankly we need emergency funding.

Passing the emergency supplemental would allow the Departments Of Homeland Security and Justice to deploy additional enforcement resources, including immigration judges, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys, asylum officers, as well as expand the use of the alternatives to detention program. We are not arguing that every child should stay. Many, in fact, will be returned, but it will be after a Department of Justice judge has evaluated his or her case for asylum.

The supplemental would also help governments in Central America better control their borders and address the root causes of migration, including criminal gangs causing and profiting from this refugee crisis. A number of us today met with the Ambassadors from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and it was very clear what was driving these issues. Without getting to those root causes, we won't be able to solve this crisis permanently.

The supplemental would provide much needed resources for U.S. Health and Human Services to ensure that these children receive medical screenings, housing, and counseling. Yet, instead of supporting this funding which seeks to meet these challenges head-on and protects these children, Republicans want to use the crisis to eliminate crucial child protection, punish some of our Nation's brightest students, and promote their border-enforcement-only agenda.

Before I close and hand the floor off to some of my colleagues, I would like to highlight some of the humanitarian work that is being done in my home

State of New Mexico to address this crisis by telling the story of Project Oak Tree volunteer Orlando Antonio Jimenez.

Project Oak Tree is a short-term-stay shelter for Central American undocumented immigrants in Las Cruces run by the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces. The shelter opened earlier this month after DHS established a temporary facility for undocumented parents and their children at FLETC--the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center campus--in Artesia,

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during

the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 10:30 a.m., in room SD- 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Leveraging America's Resources as a Revenue Generator and Job Creator: A View from State and Local Partners.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 9:45 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The U.S. Tax Code: Love It, Leave It, or Reform It!''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 22, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Coal Miners' Struggle for Justice: How Unethical Legal and Medical Practices Stack the Deck Against Black Lung Claimants.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 3 p.m. in room SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Abuse of Structured Financial Products: Misusing Barrier Options to Avoid Taxes and Leverage Limits.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Building Economically Resilient Communities: Local and Regional Approaches.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 22, 2014, at 3 p.m., to hold an International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, International Environmental Protection, and Peace Corps subcommittee hearing entitled, ``U.S. Security Implications of International Energy and Climate Policies Issues.''

Mr. President, for the next hour a number of us from the Democratic Caucus will be talking about the Central American refugee crisis. We are lucky to be joined by Senator Mikulski, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to get us started today. So I look forward very much to hearing what she has to say and you will be hearing from me in a little bit.

Mr. President, let me start by thanking my colleague from Maryland for her leadership on the Appropriations Committee and her leadership on this difficult issue. She said something in caucus the other day that really struck me. She said: Every Senator has an opinion on this, but not every Senator has the facts. Facts matter. They make for good policy.

Last week I had the opportunity, along with Secretary Johnson, to visit a temporary facility for refugee mothers and their children that is in my home State of New Mexico. The holding area at this facility in Artesia, NM, is one of several ways that DHS is increasing its capacity to process the increasing number of families with children from Central America who are crossing our southwest border.

On Monday, 40 individuals were repatriated back to Honduras. It is reported that more mothers and their children will be sent back to their countries of origin.

While I was at this facility, I saw firsthand the remarkable interagency effort that it took to take a Federal law enforcement training center, a campus, and turn it into a safe and humane place for families to stay while their cases are being processed.

But that is not all I saw while I was there. I watched a young boy play soccer with his little brother, both of them clearly happy to be in the kind of secure environment where they could just be kids. I saw a lot of mothers. I saw mothers whose faces were worried, who reflected the clear concern about what the future would be for them and for their children. What I did not see at that facility--I did not see cartel mules. I did not see drug runners. I did not see criminals or gang members. Those were mothers and little kids. Most of those families come from one of the most violent regions in the world today.

This current crisis is of grave concern to all of us. I know I have heard from a number of my constituents who wanted to know what they can do to help. I have to give great credit to our local chamber of commerce in Artesia, NM, as they worked hard as they received hundreds of donations from compassionate New Mexicans across the State hoping to make a difference in these people's lives. They understand that this is first a humanitarian crisis. They also understand that we are a nation of laws, that our immigration system has been broken for a long time and needs to be fixed.

The Senate worked for months to address this, but the Republican-led House of Representatives refuses to even debate immigration reform, much less allow a vote on it. Instead, Republicans claim that the President's immigration policies, including deferred action for childhood arrivals--or DACA, as it is known--caused a crisis at the border. That could not be further from the truth. The increase in unaccompanied children started before President Obama created the DACA program 2 years ago. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has documented an increased number of asylum seekers from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala since 2009--a full 5 years ago. What is more, children crossing the border would not be eligible for DACA. In fact, they would not be eligible for the Senate version of immigration reform.

These asylum seekers are not only fleeing to the United States but also to the other neighboring countries in the region. They are fleeing to Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize. In fact, those countries saw a 712-percent spike in asylum cases from El Salvador, from Honduras, and Guatemala from 2008 to 2013, further demonstrating that children are not coming to the United States to apply for DACA. They are coming because their lives are at risk back home.

In interviews with over 400 children, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees found that no less than 58 percent of them were forcibly displaced because they suffered or faced harm that indicated a potential or actual need for international protection--an increase of more than 400 percent from 2006.

Less than 1 percent of these kids spoke of immigration reform or some new program or policy as the basis for coming to the United States. In fact, out of the 404 children who were interviewed, there were only 4-- 4 children who expressed a reason for coming that related to some part of the U.S. immigration system.

The reality is, as we heard from Senator Mikulski, what is driving children to our borders is unimaginable violence, corruption, extreme poverty, and instability in their home countries.

This picture was taken in Tegucigalpa in Honduras. This is frankly an all-too-common sight in Honduras today. Not only is the poverty unimaginable, but the violence we have seen is like nothing in recent history. Honduras has now the world's highest murder rate, with over 90 murders per 100,000 persons annually. Last year approximately 1,000 young people under the age of 23 in Honduras were murdered--murdered in a nation of only 8 million, 1,000 young people.

In a report published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, they found that 93 percent of crimes perpetrated against youth in Honduras go unpunished--completely unpunished.

The National Observatory of Violence reported that violent deaths of women increased by 246 percent between 2005 and 2012.

This is all the more unsettling to me because I know firsthand that Honduras did not always look this way. In the 1990s I traveled to Honduras with my wife Julie. We were on our honeymoon. We flew into San Pedro Sula. The only time I felt any fear was trying to drive in a city that moves a lot faster than I do when I try to drive on country roads in New Mexico. But we never had any fear for violence when we were in Honduras. We traveled around the country. We went to many places off the beaten path.

That is very different today. Today San Pedro Sula is a city synonymous with murder.

To understand just how bad it is, you can look at pictures like this one of literally body bags getting ready to go to mass graves from murders happening in these neighborhoods in San Pedro Sula. You can read a recent article in the New York Times by Frances Robles that tells the chilling story of Cristian, an 11-year-old sixth grader from Honduras who lost his father in March after he was robbed and murdered by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. It is kind of hard to imagine needing a security guard to protect a pastry truck. Three people he knows were murdered this year alone, and four others were gunned down on a nearby corner in the span of 2 weeks at the beginning of the year. A girl his age resisted being robbed of the sum of $5. She was clubbed over the head, dragged off by two men who cut a hole in her throat and stuffed her underwear in it and left her body in a ravine across the street from Cristian's house.

Then there is Anthony, a 13-year-old from Honduras, who disappeared from his gang-ridden neighborhood. His younger brother Kenneth hopped on his green bike to search for him, starting his hunt at a notorious gang hangout in the neighborhood. They were found within days of each other, both dead. Anthony, 13, and a friend had been shot in the head.

Kenneth, age 7, had been tortured and beaten with sticks and rocks. They were among seven children murdered in the La Pradera neighborhood of San Pedro Sula in April alone--in 1 month.

El Salvador and Guatemala are the world's fourth and fifth highest in murders. The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies found that in 2011, El Salvador had the highest rate of gender-motivated killings of women in the entire world. In Guatemala, the Department of State reports widespread human rights problems, including institutional corruption, particularly in the police, in judicial sectors, kidnapping, drug trafficking, execution, and often lethal violence against women.

We have a human crisis at our southern border that requires an immediate but compassionate response. Yet instead of supporting the supplemental which seeks to address the root causes of the crisis and protect these vulnerable children, Republicans are trying to use the crisis to promote fear and their border-enforcement-only agenda.

Recently, a Republican Governor suggested that the President send the National Guard to ``secure the border once and for all'' and that ``the border between the U.S. and Mexico is less secure today than at any time in the recent past.'' As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, facts are stubborn. This is simply not the case. In fact, the notion that lax border policies are somehow responsible for this latest crisis is not just a myth; it is a, well, full misrepresentation driven by politicians who would rather create a political issue than to solve a very real problem.

The border today is more secure than it has ever been. There are more Border Patrol agents on the ground. There are more resources. There is more technology deployed on the border than at any time in our Nation's history--at any time. In fiscal year 2012, the Federal Government spent almost $18 billion--$17.9 billion--on immigration enforcement. That is $3.5 billion more than the budgets of all the other Federal law enforcement agencies combined--$3.5 billion more than the FBI's budget, plus the DEA's budget, the ATF budget, plus the Secret Service, plus the U.S. Marshals Service. These resources have made a difference. From fiscal year 2009 to 2012, the Department of Homeland Security seized 71 percent more currency, 39 percent more narcotics, 189 percent more weapons along the southwest border as compared to the last 4 years of the Bush administration.

It is important to remember that this crisis from refugees in Central America is not about children and families sneaking across our border like criminals. As we heard from the Senator from Maryland, many of these refugees seek out the first Border Patrol agent they can find in order to turn themselves in. Many of these children have walked across the border or across the Rio Grande with identification literally safety-pinned to their shirts. But that image does not serve the political interests of those who prefer a border crisis to a refugee crisis.

Let's step back and remember that the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill more than a year ago now--a bill that included incredibly important provisions to further strengthen our border but that would also protect refugee children and crack down on the smugglers and the transnational criminal organizations that are at the root of the current crisis.

Notably, this bill was widely supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Chamber.

Public support and good economics have not been enough to convince the House leaders to hold a vote on immigration reform, but they cannot turn a blind eye to the current humanitarian crisis along our Nation's southern border.

Instead of attacking the President, Senate Republicans should work with them to address the issue, and they should demand that their colleagues in the House act to fix our broken immigration system.

Additionally, passing the $3.7 billion supplemental sends a clear signal that we are aggressively stemming the flow of children and families from Central America while continuing to treat these refugee children humanely and as required under the law. This situation is an emergency and we need emergency funding.

Our immigrant communities have helped to write the economic, social, and cultural history of America. I know this firsthand. My own father is an immigrant who came to this country as a boy from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

As a nation we value the twin promises of both freedom and opportunity. Those ideals are important no matter where you are born.

The fact is, our immigration system is broken. Those of us who represent border communities understand the challenge we face, but there are solutions--solutions before us that are pragmatic, bipartisan, and uphold our American values.

I am familiar with the promise America represents for families. I know how hard immigrants work, how much they believe in this country, and how much they are willing to give back to this country.

A small group of faith leaders from New Mexico penned an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal over the weekend. In sharing their thoughts on this humanitarian crisis they wrote:

While the current situation raises the issues in powerful

ways, expressing hatred toward, fear of, or anger with women

and children serves nothing to resolve national debate.

Rather, it engenders a destructive spirit of mistrust. Let us

seek to understand the immigrant's reasons for coming and to

work collaboratively for just and reasonable immigration

reform.

I could not agree more with these faith leaders.

It is time to fix our broken immigration system once and for all. Our short-term solution is to approve the President's emergency supplemental request now, and as part of our long-term solution we need House Republicans to put the Senate's immigration reform bill on the floor for a vote.

Our Nation will be the better for it.

I rise to speak on the pending nominations.

I appreciate the majority leader scheduling this vote to confirm Mr. Norman Bay to be a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

FERC is one of the lesser known but perhaps one of the most important independent agencies in the Federal Government. It has jurisdiction over interstate transmission of electricity, oil, and natural gas, as well as licensing of hydroelectric power.

I believe Mr. Bay will be an outstanding member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. I urge all of my colleagues to support his nomination today.

Since 2009 Mr. Bay has been the Director of the Office of Enforcement at FERC, where he has gained extensive experience in the regulation of energy markets. The Office of Enforcement is responsible for market oversight and surveillance and for implementing the antimanipulation authority Congress enacted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This authority provided FERC new tools to combat the type of market manipulation that produced the devastating power crisis a decade ago across the West.

Under Mr. Bay's leadership, FERC has increased transparency in its work, while bringing a number of enforcement actions that have helped protect the integrity of the energy markets and provided $300 million in relief to consumers--$300 million back into the pockets of energy consumers.

He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School and has had a long and distinguished career of public service. Before joining FERC, he taught law at the University of New Mexico. He also served as an assistant U.S. attorney and in 2000 was nominated by the President to be the U.S. attorney for the District of New Mexico. He was confirmed in that position by the full Senate by unanimous consent.

Mr. Bay is an outstanding public servant with extensive experience in the field of energy markets. I am confident he will judiciously implement FERC's statutory responsibility of oversight of our Nation's energy infrastructure, competitive markets, and reliability.

At his confirmation hearing in May, members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee had a chance to question Mr. Bay extensively on his work at the FERC and his views on regulatory policy. Senator Pete Domenici, a former chairman and longtime member of the energy committee from my home State of New Mexico, spoke at the hearing in strong support of Mr. Bay's nomination. Senator Jeff Bingaman, another former chairman of the energy committee from New Mexico, wrote a letter in support of his nomination.

The Senate must give consent to the President's nominees to be members of the FERC. The Senate is fulfilling that responsibility with this vote today. However, there should be no misunderstanding--Congress gave the President alone the responsibility of designating a member of the Commission to be the Chairman of the Commission. The law enacted by Congress in 1977 remains very clear: The President, and not the Senate, determines who will serve as Chairman of the Commission.

I believe Mr. Bay will be fair, balanced, pragmatic, and a consensus- oriented member of the FERC. He will decide cases on the merits, based on the facts, based on the law and on the record.

I am pleased to support the nominations of both Commissioner LaFleur and Mr. Bay to be members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. I hope the Senate will vote today to confirm them both.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for the first time in our Nation's history the total amount of student loan debt has exceeded the total amount of credit card debt. This very real problem weighs heavily on families in my home State of New Mexico.

Last year Congress narrowly stopped the student loan interest rate hike from going into effect--a rate hike that would have doubled student loan interest rates. As a result, undergraduate students borrowing this year are able to take advantage of reasonable student loan rates. But students who borrowed before this agreement could be paying rates as high as 9 percent. Those who pursued an education to get ahead are literally starting out from behind.

Student loan debt is proving to be a debilitating impediment to achieving the American dream.

Recently, I met a working mother in southern New Mexico who told me about her family's struggle to raise their children while paying her husband's student loans from a degree he had earned more than two decades ago.

Another woman shared her story of going back to school to become a teacher. She is a single mom who wanted to make a better life for herself and her daughter. She got a degree but not without acquiring more than $40,000 in student loan debt. She worries that she will be paying her loans off well into retirement. As a parent, she worries for her daughter who will be entering college and fears that she has no choice but to take out loans to pay for her education.

Unfortunately, these stories are all too common today. Outstanding student loan debt in America totals more than $1.2 trillion--trillion with a ``t.'' In New Mexico, students are graduating with an average of nearly $18,000 in debt.

Outstanding balances not only affect families working to pay those loans, it affects the entire American economy as well. Because of this debt, many are unable to buy a home, to start a business, to save for retirement or even start a family. In today's economy we should be eliminating the obstacles that keep Americans from earning the education they need to get ahead. College should not be a luxury; it should be an opportunity all Americans can at least afford to pursue.

The student loan refinancing legislation that was on the floor this week would have helped address this problem of skyrocketing student loan debt by allowing graduates to refinance and put more money into productive use and strengthen our economy as a whole. However, our colleagues across the aisle decided to filibuster this legislation. They don't seem to understand that crushing student loan debt is a serious issue that forces many Americans to put their American dreams on hold.

Higher education is one of the most important investments any person can make in their own future. From my perspective, making college affordable is an investment in America's future. Republicans should know this and even recently helped to do something about it. Just last year Democrats and Republicans came together in Congress to prevent a student loan interest rate hike that would have doubled student loan rates. This was a great money-saving piece of news for students taking out new loans. However, there are still approximately 134,000 New Mexicans--just in my small State of 2 million people, there are 134,000 New Mexicans who would benefit from passing this newest legislation which would allow them to access those same student loan rates.

We had an opportunity to come together to address skyrocketing student loan debt, and instead our colleagues on the other side of the aisle chose to leave families, students, and really the American economy behind.

A college education opens the doors of opportunity. It provides an avenue into the middle class for families. College graduates are nearly twice as likely to find work as those with only a high school diploma, and they will earn nearly $1 million more over the course of a lifetime.

We should be willing to give our aspiring college students a fair shot. Senate Republicans should reconsider their priorities and allow us to at least debate this student loan refinancing legislation, to end their filibuster so that we can move forward, so that we can provide immediate relief to student loan borrowers and put that money to work in growing the American economy.

I would yield back the rest of my time.

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