Floor Statements

Mr. President, I begin by thanking the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Isakson, and really giving him immeasurable credit for his courage and his fortitude in addressing this bill that he could have allowed to languish on the agenda of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. In fact, he made it the very first agenda item--the very first issue--that we would confront on the Veterans' Affairs Committee at our very first meeting, and it passed unanimously through the Veterans' Affairs Committee because of his leadership--and I really mean his leadership in making it happen.

So on behalf of the veterans of America, he deserves due credit, and so do my colleagues on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Boozman and Senator Sanders, who championed this bill, along with Senator Burr.

During the last session I was pleased to argue for it on the floor in the closing days of the session, and unfortunately it failed to pass.

There is no reason to look back and try to blame others for that failure. What is important is to look forward and to give credit to both sides of the aisle--most especially to my colleague, Senator McCain, who, of course, dwarfs us in his service to our Nation in the Armed Forces. He literally is a giant in his service and sacrifice for our Nation while serving in the Navy. I have felt very privileged and proud to work with him and to introduce this measure, the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act or the Clay Hunt SAV Act, as it is called, that basically provides for suicide prevention

services and, even more importantly, pioneers and champions mental health care for our VA.

I thank all of our colleagues who have worked on this bill over the past year or so because this measure gives us a tremendous opportunity to set a direction for the VA and for the Senate. If I may be so bold and perhaps presumptuous, I say this measure is truly bipartisan. It provides a template for bipartisan action to help our veterans, our military men and women who serve now, and to set a real lodestar for action by this body.

Very fittingly, we are on the floor when the Democratic leader, Senator Reid has returned. I am tremendously heartened by his presence here and by the President's budget today, which provides a proposed increase in health care spending and, most especially, mental health care spending, to $7.4 billion from last year's expenditure of $6.7 billion. It is significant, again, in the context of a bipartisan approach to this issue.

This legislation is named for Clay Hunt, a marine, a patriot, a veteran who served bravely in Iraq. His mom, Susan Selke, is a real hero. She came before the Veterans' Affairs Committee during the last session.

Her testimony was not only as a patriot and an advocate of veterans but as a family member. There have been too many family members forced to grieve the loss of their loved ones who have succumbed to suicide, as did Clay Hunt in March of 2011, after struggling valiantly and courageously with post-traumatic stress and the inadequate care of his local VA hospital.

Far too many of Clay Hunt's fellow veterans, 22 per day, have succumbed to suicide, including a friend of mine, Justin Eldridge of southeastern Connecticut.

Justin braved mortar fire and sniper attacks in Afghanistan to return to southeastern Connecticut and to his family, his children, and his wife Joanna. Suffering from post-traumatic brain injury and post- traumatic stress, tragically, like so many others, Justin slipped through the cracks of his local VA facility and eventually succumbed in his fight against those inner demons and invisible wounds when he took his own life. As brave as Justin Eldridge was on the battlefield, he could not win that war at home.

How Justin and Clay fell into that black hole of depression and despair I certainly will never understand, but we grieve for them and we hope that their example of courage will inspire us to face this issue.

All too often, the response to suicide--whether it is among veterans or others--is denial. It is to turn away, to look in the other direction because sometimes it is too painful or there is stigma or shame in mental health needs.

We can conquer that stigma and shame. To its credit the military is doing more every day. The VA has raised awareness and is increasing its commitment.

This bill is a tremendous opportunity for the VA to be a pioneer and champion in mental health care, just as it has been in other areas of health care, such as amputee rehabilitation, prosthetics, and traumatic brain injury.

This bill is a downpayment. It is the beginning--not the end--of our commitment and our solutions to problems. It is a worthwhile measure to take limited, targeted steps--less than we must eventually do--to keep faith with our veterans and their mental health needs.

I hope the committee and this Congress will continue in this great, bipartisan spirit.

I look forward to a continuing partnership with my friend Senator Isakson, who is such a leader in this area, as we work on these issues and seek to make progress as quickly as possible. As we do so--remember all of our efforts from all of the years of conflict and war in this country--Senator Isakson is absolutely right that post-traumatic stress and mental health needs are hardly limited to the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have worked hard to help veterans of the Vietnam and Korea eras. In fact, I successfully championed the needs of our veterans of earlier eras when they have been burdened by less-than-honorable discharge resulting from post-traumatic stress, from an era when post-traumatic stress was nonexistent as a diagnosis.

Post-traumatic stress was unknown for our Vietnam and Korea veterans. It was not unknown as a condition. It was not nonexistent. It was simply unknown has a diagnosis. It was not called post-traumatic stress. It may have been called shell shock or battle fatigue. But the horror, the nightmares, the cold sweats, the headaches, and the crippling mental issues have plagued many of our veterans over many eras and many wars.

Today we take a step to recognize this Nation's obligation to Justin Eldridge, to Clay Hunt, to all of our veterans and to Joanna Eldridge, Susan Selke, and to the countless family members who have struggled and borne that burden side by side when their heroes have awakened at night with the nightmares and the battles they continue to fight against post-traumatic stress, the invisible wounds, and the inner demons that have come back with them from their service.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I am very pleased to be here today to speak to my colleagues about funding for the Department of Homeland Security and to be followed by one of my most valued colleagues, Senator Menendez, whose leadership on this issue has been extraordinarily important. I am also pleased to work with him on a letter he sent yesterday to the President concerning Iran sanctions, where his statesmanship-like path to a reasonable solution on this very complex and crucial issue will be enormously important to the future.

The Department of Homeland Security is one of the most significant departments in the U.S. Government. It has a mandate that is as complex and crucial as any in keeping American citizens and communities and capabilities safe and secure in a dangerous, complex, and threatening world.

In my family, when I was growing up, we had a saying: Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Unfortunately, that path is exactly what some of my colleagues are choosing to follow in threatening to stop funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

We are reminded of the importance of this Department not only as terrorism raises its ugly head repeatedly abroad but also as perhaps more benign threats exist at home--the most recent of them, the snowstorm that hit the Northeast within the past couple of days. The Department of Homeland Security is not only engaged in a fight against terrorism, not only engaged in keeping America safe from threats abroad but is engaged in a wide variety of other tasks that have to do with the Nation's security. That is the key word in its title--``security.''

Americans fear more deeply than ever before that their security is threatened--economic security by stagnating incomes, foreign security as the world becomes more volatile and unpredictable and more threatening, and domestic security as threats abroad metastasize within our own borders.

Many people equate the concept of security at home or homeland security with protection against extreme violence from abroad, violent extremism spawning from abroad and in fact stopping those threats. Finding the wrongdoers and stopping them is one of the major tasks the Department of Homeland Security has, but it has a myriad of additional responsibilities that include aiding the victims of natural disasters and extreme weather, citizenship and immigration, routinely handling matters that involve legitimate applications for visas for entry into the United States, and it fights the scourge of human trafficking. I am privileged to have a Caucus on Human Trafficking with my colleague Senator Rob Portman. So I know it forms a diverse collection of responsibilities that are crucial to security.

In fact, the Department of Homeland Security's responsibilities are comprehensive--so much so that it is simply unacceptable to play politics with its crucial mission. It is irresponsible to hold its funding hostage in a dangerous game of fiscal chicken and threaten daily activities that are vital to America's present and future security.

That is why we are here, because some of my friends across the aisle believe stopping the President from exercising discretion on certain immigration issues affecting specific individuals in this country is worth hamstringing and undercutting the entire Department of Homeland Security and forcing an enormous amount of its vital work to grind to a halt. That is the game of chicken we have. The President is expected to relent if the Department of Homeland Security is stopped from functioning, but it is a game that has no place in this Chamber or in this government.

We can agree or disagree with the President, and I disagree with the Department of Homeland Security on certain of its policies; for example, on detaining children which it has done routinely on a grandiose scale. I have included an amendment in the measure for immigration reform that passed the Senate. It would stop it from detaining children--a practice I consider shameful and unacceptable-- and I have a long list of other changes I would like to see made in DHS policies. But the way to effectuate those changes in my view is not to withhold funding to stop DHS in its tracks of providing security for the American people, it is to amend the laws to persuade our colleagues to undertake the legislative process and to appeal ultimately to the court of public opinion which can render a verdict far more powerful than the tactics involved here. Chipping away at the President's authority by not only undercutting him but stopping one of his departments is reprehensible. So I urge my colleagues to cease this tactic.

The President needs discretion. In fact, I know as a prosecutor, as a former attorney general, and as a one-time U.S. attorney for Connecticut that discretion is essential. There is no way any authority can prosecute every crime. So prosecutors need to select cases based on severity of offense and most important the danger to the public because ultimately protecting the public is what security requires. That is true as well for the Department of Homeland Security.

The President has exercised his discretion in a way I find laudable. The exigencies of the present immigration system require the exercise of discretion. The President has done it in a way that is responsible and upholds his duties as Commander in Chief. But even if I disagree with the President on that exercise of discretion with respect to immigration, I would never use this tactic of withholding funding for an entire department, affecting all of its activities and implicating and undercutting security in so dangerous a way.

My hope is we will debate immigration policy, that we will approve an immigration reform bill, that it will be on a bipartisan basis just as it was during the last session, that there will be a lot of good-faith disagreement on the floor of this Chamber about those policies and about the President's actions but that we will keep the lights on at the Department of Homeland Security, that we will shine the light on threats to our security that need to be exposed and pursued, that we will further the security of this Nation and protect the public by making sure the DHS funding as a clean bill is approved right away and that we move forward to make sure DHS continues its vital service to the American people.

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

Mr. President, as the 114th Congress begins, I would like to pay tribute to a Connecticut native who retired at the end of the last session. Sheila Dwyer, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Senate since 2007, will be deeply missed by many. She worked closely with former Majority Leader Harry Reid and with current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had passionate, strong praise for Sheila's dedication and devotion to this institution. Both recognized that she became known as the ``Mayor of Capitol Hill'' for the skill and poise she consistently demonstrated in handling the needs of 100 Senators at a time.

Sheila was born in Waterbury, CT, and she has remained very proud of her roots in our great State throughout her career. While still in high school, she served a semester as a Senate Page, and she later returned to spend her career here. After working for such luminaries as Senator Chuck Robb of Virginia, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, and Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, she joined Senator Reid's office.

Along the way, Sheila amassed an impressive record of accomplishments that included overseeing logistics for two national Democratic conventions, assisting in Presidential inaugurations and countless ceremonial events, and coordinating the myriad departments and behind- the-scenes operations that keep the Senate running. Throughout, she has built and maintained friendships with Senators and staff from all corners of the Capitol and the country. Leader Reid spoke quite movingly about how, in addition to her professional achievements, she has been a strong source of personal support for his family and others.

My wife Cynthia and I are honored to know Sheila, and we wish her all the best as she begins the next chapter of her life. I know that all of Connecticut joins me in congratulating her on her exemplary achievements here in the Senate.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to be here today to speak on behalf of President Obama's eminently qualified nominee to be Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy.

I request that I be permitted to yield to my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, at the end of my remarks.

The Surgeon General of the United States is a person of public trust in this country who has a long and eminent record of informing the Nation and fighting on behalf of the public health of Americans. He has addressed some of the Nation's most pressing public health problems. Over time, there have been a variety of people in that position of public trust to address some of the most pressing public health problems in this Nation. Those challenges have included nicotine addiction, the menaces of Big Tobacco, AIDS, and other emerging diseases, nutrition and food labeling. These challenges require someone of courage and expertise, indeed eminence as a public health warrior.

In just a few months, the Nation has faced a public health crisis that caused many to question who would be that warrior, that fighter, that eminent and expert physician, and who would defend this Nation at a time of public health crisis.

Many decried President Obama's appointment of an Ebola czar to fill that position when no one could step forward as Surgeon General, and the reason is that there was no Surgeon General. We lacked someone who could fulfill that role because of a misplaced and misguided opposition. That position has been vacant for far too long. Hopefully today we will confirm Dr. Murthy and allow him to get on the job and get to work on this and other pressing problems facing our country.

Ebola cases continue to present a dire threat to our Nation because in parts of Africa they are still spreading. Just last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that there are serious doubts about whether the Nation's supply of flu vaccine will be effective against the strain of flu that is circulating this winter. We need a Surgeon General to handle that potential public health crisis as well. We are not out of the woods, to quote what Dr. Frieden told me in a conversation just last week on Ebola. We are about to go into the woods in the flu season, and the Surgeon General, as a leader, is needed right now.

The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, under the leadership of the Attorney General, was deployed to field hospitals and emergency clinics in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon oilspill, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. They are fighters and warriors for public health as well.

Dr. Murthy's credentials are without question. They are impeccable, unquestionable, and indisputable. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale School of Medicine. He completed his residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He is one of our country's most respected medical professionals. He now works and teaches at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He also earned an MBA, also from Yale. He has been a leader of business and nonprofit organizations that work on many aspects of medical practice, biotechnology and domestic and international public health issues.

If the question were only about his qualifications, he would be in that position right now, confirmed by the Senate, but unfortunately he has been blocked. The only point raised against him, unconscionably and unnecessarily, is a political smokescreen, essentially, going to comments he has made about gun violence as a public health issue.

The simple fact is gun violence impacts far too many people. It destroys far too many lives. It is the second leading cause of death in this country after car crashes. Gun violence kills twice as many children as cancer, 5 times as many children as heart disease, and 15 times as many children as infection. Between 2000 and 2010, more than 335,000 people died as a result of gun violence.

Pointing out these facts and asking whether there are strategies we could apply to bring that number down is exactly what a person tasked to keep Americans healthy ought to be doing. But he has said he is going to focus on issues that concern the American public health and will be a fighter for American children, for Americans, against heart disease and cancer and other kinds of issues that affect public health, especially of children, and that is to be valued.

That smokescreen about gun violence should not have blocked him and should not impede this body voting for him today, approving him as Surgeon General because of his qualifications and because he will contribute enormously to make Americans healthier and safer in this country.

I am enthusiastically and proudly a supporter of him, and I ask my colleagues to approve him as Surgeon General of the United States to make America safer and healthier and to reject the slick smokescreen that has tried to stop him.

I yield to my colleague from Connecticut.

Mr. President, I am honored and proud to follow the majority leader, and I thank him for his remarks. I will make my remarks in support of my request for unanimous consent.

If there is an objection, in deference to the Senator from Oklahoma, I will withhold the body of my remarks until after there is an objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 5059, the Clay Hunt SAV Act, which was received from House and is at the desk; and further, that the bill be read three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

I will proceed at the conclusion of any remarks by the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. President, I wish to respond to the Senator from Oklahoma by, first of all, expressing my deep respect and appreciation for the work he has done to hold accountable the Veterans' Administration and many other agencies of our U.S. Government. In fact, he leaves a legacy of oversight that I will be honored to continue and I hope will continue through the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

The efforts of the Senator from Oklahoma to scrutinize government spending through individual and independent assessments, in fact, are addressed in this bill in section 2, which requires, in fact, an independent third party to annually evaluate the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish metrics, to identify the cost-effectiveness of programs, and to propose best practices. Holding the VA accountable is one of the core purposes of this bill.

I am asking that the Senate take up a bill that was passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and that is supported on a bipartisan basis by 21 of our colleagues, that is blocked by a single Member, and that will make an impact on the spreading scourge of suicides among some of our very bravest and best warriors. We don't know--it remains a mystery--how some of our most courageous and steadfast warfighters can stare down death on the battlefield and succumb to it at home by their own hand. Those demons, those inner doubts, the invisible wounds of war, post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury are taking their toll at the rate of 22 a day.

This measure is actually scaled back. It is targeted and focused to provide incremental benefits to those veterans who are at risk by providing additional resources--psychiatrists and counselors--by mandating accountability in the use of those resources. That is more than we did 3\1/2\ months ago in another measure I strongly supported.

I express my appreciation to our 21 colleagues who have supported this measure but also to the IAVA and the VFW, to the survivors of veterans' suicides across the country and their families, and the families who came before

us in the committee such as Susan Selke's, whose son, Clay Hunt, is in the name of this bill. Susan Selke urged us to pass this legislation that will provide for an independent and strong source of accountability, because she believes it is necessary to help others such as her son before they succumb, as her son did.

That kind of outside review to impose discipline on the VA is, as my colleague has said, absolutely necessary not only for the VA but for VA clinics and hospitals around the country. But we need more psychiatrists in those VA clinics and hospitals, and this measure will provide those resources, along with accountability.

In one of his most recent reports, my colleague from Oklahoma highlighted the appalling case of Dr. Margaret Moxness, and I thank him for that report and others he has authored.

Dr. Margaret Moxness, a former physician at the Huntington

VA Medical Center in Charleston, West Virginia, said that

when she reported patients who needed immediate mental health

treatment, supervisors instructed her to delay care anyway.

She saw at least two patients commit suicide while waiting

for treatment between psychological appointments.

I share my colleagues' view that we cannot simply hire our way out of this problem. We have a nationwide shortage of mental health care professionals, and that is why this legislation, in section 4, grows a pool of psychiatrists through tuition assistance, and that is why in section 6 it requires the VA to collaborate with outside nonprofit mental health organizations to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of suicide prevention efforts.

This scaled-back bill is a down payment. It is not the end of solutions to this problem. It is a worthwhile measure that takes limited, targeted steps. Much more can and should be done. It has been championed by Chairman Sanders, and I thank him and Ranking Member Burr for their efforts in the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act. This job will not be done until we end every suicide--not just the 22 every day, but every one of those 22 every day in this country.

Every single one of us, if we are honest with ourselves, knows a family that has been touched by this problem--every single Member of this body. I know it all too well because a friend of mine, Justin Eldridge of southeastern Connecticut succumbed to suicide as well. He was deployed in combat in Afghanistan where he braved mortar fire and sniper fire, and he returned to his family, his children, and his wife--his very young family--suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. As brave as he had been on the battlefield, he could not win that war at home. He sought mental health care at the Connecticut VA facility. He had gone through a long battle for benefits. I helped him with it. But there was a significant gap in the continuity of his medical care. Basically, he slipped through the cracks and eventually took his life.

I knew him as the founder of the Marine Corps League in southeastern Connecticut, which I was proud to join as a member. How he fell into that black hole of depression and despair I certainly will never understand. But I hope someone could have understood it if we had provided the kinds of resources that are necessary in Connecticut and around the country. We have an obligation to leave none of these veterans behind, to hold the VA accountable, to make sure the resources are well spent, to avoid duplication, but to reach out to those brave and fearless warriors who fight on our battlefields and defend our Nation, and then are threatened and sometimes lose the war at home to post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries--medical conditions that can be overcome with the right care as soon as possible.

I hope my colleague from Oklahoma will withdraw his objection. I thank my colleagues for supporting this measure. If it fails this time, we will bring it back and we will win and leave no one behind.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, at this time of year, Thanksgiving and the holidays that are upcoming, a lot of Americans are on our roads. A lot of us know that Americans are on the roads because my colleagues and I travel using the highways of our States so frequently.

We know as parents, as family members, that in the back of our minds when a son or daughter is driving, there is a tiny bit of apprehension and anxiety about safety. It is safety not only concerning people on our roads but also on our railways. As a member of the commerce committee, where the Presiding Officer served, I know he has young children and he probably has the same apprehensions and anxieties that

all of us share when our family members are driving, particularly late at night, early in the morning, hours when weariness, fatigue, and tiredness are one of the main enemies--particularly when the weather is bad.

The omnibus funding measure, soon to be under debate, has many good provisions, but it also has a provision that is antithetical and deeply destructive to the principle of road safety because it affects truck drivers who are on the roads for long periods of time. I am referring to section 133 of division K, one paragraph. I am here to talk about it, to ask that my colleagues oppose it. If there is any way to strip it from the bill, I urge that it be done. It is a provision that is virtually incomprehensible to the average American on the roads or in their homes as to what it means and what its ramifications are and what its consequences may be to their safety and the safety of others in their families on the road.

The fact is that nearly 4,000 people who are killed each year in truck crashes and the nearly 100,000 each year who are injured show the toll of fatigue and weariness of our truck drivers.

According to NHTSA, truck crash injuries in fact increased by 40 percent between 2009 to 2012. We all have seen the consequences of fatigue on the roads when we drive--the truck driver who may pull his rig in front of us or slide over into our side of the road, not because he is not well trained, experienced, able. In fact, the vast majority of truck drivers are experienced and able and well trained and extraordinarily prudent in the way they drive.

But fatigue is an enemy to them as it is to all of us who drive. Many of the headlines we have seen recently have concerned hours of service regulations governing truck drivers, as many truck crashes involve tired truck drivers. There are rules that have been enacted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, rules that have been implemented to curb the number of fatigued truck drivers on our roads, implemented after years of rulemaking and analysis and study and even litigation. They are fact-based rules. They are supported by science. They are rules that move American roads and drivers in the right direction, truly, literally on the right path.

I am not the only one who supports these rules. They are supported by the Secretary of Transportation. Secretary Foxx is to be commended for his steadfast, strong, courageous defense of these rules. His integrity and intellect in support of these rules I greatly appreciate. But he is not alone any more than I am alone. The folks who are most adamant and passionate about it are the truck drivers themselves.

The Teamsters and the United Transportation Union, they have inspired me to be as passionate and steadfast as I am on these rules. They are not alone either. Law enforcement, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Troopers Coalition, the National Sheriffs' Association, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association all support these rules.

They are also supported by consumer and public health groups and safety groups such as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, the Consumer Federation of America, the American Public Health Association, the John Lindsay Foundation, the Truck Safety Coalition, KidsAndCars.org, the Trauma Foundation, and Public Citizen. These are the preeminent public and safety consumer advocacy groups in this country. They all support these rules.

Tragically and unfortunately, there are organizations representing victims such as Parents Against Tired Truckers and Roadsafe America which also have been inspired to support these rules. I say tragically and unfortunately, because none of us welcome the fact that there are victims of crashes resulting from tired truckers. Most regretful are the truckers themselves, which is why they are supporting these rules. But the families and loved ones of victims of these crashes support the rules, and even many trucking companies like those represented by the Trucking Alliance support these rules.

The fact is there is good reason for the rules and there is good reason to strip the bill of a provision that negates, in effect, undercuts, and eviscerates these rules, section 133 of Division K. There is good reason. The 2005 study conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration demonstrated that before the current rules were implemented, 65 percent of drivers reported feeling drowsy while driving and 48 percent admitted to falling asleep while driving at some point the previous year.

But under the current rules, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says that it will save 19 lives, prevent about 1,400 crashes, 560 injuries each year, see an estimated $280 million in savings from fewer large truck crashes, and see $470 million in savings from improved driver health.

These are dry, abstract statistics, but they measure compelling losses in human lives and in dollars.

Unfortunately, the folks who want to stop these rules have found a home in the omnibus appropriations bill that may be coming over from the House later today. In addition, while the rules are blocked, the language in the House bill would also require that this issue be studied further.

The rules have been studied a lot. If there is a need for further study, fine. I am completely on board with study and factfinding. But in the meantime, let's keep the rules as they are, as prescribed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. They are in the business of safety. They have said these rules are necessary. Let's keep the rules implemented, but we can study them. If we are going to make any changes, it should be done with proper analysis and debate--not in a spending bill. It ought to be in the committee with jurisdiction, the commerce committee, where I serve.

That is why in late July my subcommittee held a hearing on truck safety and this issue featured prominently. We gave everyone a chance to testify, to debate all points of view. Until then, the only discussion was in the context of appropriations and spending bills, not in the context of real policy.

The hearing I held highlighted some real issues. First, with these changes, drivers will be able to drive nearly 80 hours a week. In other words, if this provision is adopted, if the rules are rolled back, drivers will be able to drive nearly 80 hours a week and hundreds more a year.

It is more likely that trucking companies will push their drivers to drive the maximum limit, which is about twice the average American workweek. That is exactly what the rules are designed to prevent, truck drivers being forced to work too many hours, getting exhausted, and then endangering themselves and other drivers on the road.

All we are trying to do with the rules is take tired truckers off the roads--not tell them when they must sleep or what they must do while they are off the roads. It is about taking tired trucker drivers off the road. The changes in the omnibus would enable drivers to drive nearly 80 hours a week and hundreds more hours a year and would really impede truck drivers' resting, which they should be doing instead of driving more.

The rules implemented by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration were the result of compromise. To roll them back further undermines that compromise. If anything, we ought to be instituting greater safeguards.

If there is factfinding that justifies stronger precaution and protection, we welcome that study. But in the meantime, allow the rules to work and protect drivers, truck drivers and other drivers on the road. Americans are in favor of these rules. They are in favor of truck safety.

Polling data released in October shows why so many Americans are concerned about allowing drivers to be on the roads while they are fatigued. Americans simply don't want these large trucks, which in many respects operate like missiles zooming down the road. A missile out of control can do huge, humongous, enduring damage to life and limb and to the futures of people whose lives may be transformed by a fatal or serious crash.

Let's make sure we have a real conversation about this issue in the commerce committee. Let's make sure we do the factfinding and have the rules in place while that factfinding takes place. Let's make sure that Americans are protected against weary and tired

truckdrivers. Let's give them the same attention and care as we would want for our families during this season, on the roads, while they are driving late at night, maybe in bad weather, because there are going to be storms as there are, inevitably, in December, January, and February.

But every day, every season, these rules deserve to be in place. That is why this provision, which would roll back those rules--making changes endangering the lives of ordinary Americans on the road--is so antithetical to safety and such an anathema to the values of saving and preserving life and increasing the safety of our drivers on the road.

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

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

Mr. President, I wish to inform my colleagues, although the hour is late, that the Clay Hunt bill, H.R. 5059, has been cleared on the Democratic side and I hope we will have unanimous consent to move it tomorrow in the session that we have on Friday.

This bill is of tremendous importance to not only me as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and my colleagues--many of them including, I believe, Senator McCain, who introduced an updated and improved version of the Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, but also to the families who have been affected, I want to say in particular to Susan Selke, who testified before the Veterans' Affairs Committee--and I was there for her testimony, speaking on behalf of herself and her husband, Richard, as the mother of Clay Hunt, a marine combat victim who died by suicide in March of 2011 at the age of 28.

I am not going to speak at length about the reasons of why we need more assistance and support to prevent more wonderful young men and women like Clay Hunt, who served and sacrificed for our Nation, the kind of resources and support that are necessary to prevent them from becoming victims at this time of tragic circumstances.

We owe it to Susan Selke, Clay Hunt's mom, and all the families who lose loved ones to suicide, to do better, to do more, and do it now.

The reforms and programs directed by this legislation hopefully will enable the VA to better serve and treat veterans suffering from the hidden or invisible injuries of war, and the mental health and other conditions that ought to be addressed to save young men and women such as Clay Hunt.

I will seek to move this bill tomorrow by unanimous consent, and I hope my colleagues will enable me to do so.

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

Mr. President, on December 14, 2012, we saw evil, but we also saw good. We saw tragedy, but we also saw actions that should continue to inspire us.

The evil was in a deranged young man who committed unspeakable and unimaginable horrific acts, but the good was exemplified by the police, the emergency responders, and the teachers who not only risked their lives but saved other ones. The good was something that came forward in the days and months and in the past 2 years.

Often I visit the playgrounds that have been built throughout the State of Connecticut in memory of those children, in memory of Charlotte Bacon in West Haven and Ana Grace Marquez-Greene in Hartford, Jessica Rekos in Fairfield, and Dylon Hockley in Westfork, and Victoria Soto in Stratford. I visit them to watch children playing, children often the same age as the wonderful, beautiful children who perished on that day, and parents about the same age as the teachers who lost their lives, sixth-grade educators.

On that day parents in Newtown took their children to school, kissed them goodbye and went about their days, went to work to plan play dates and snack breaks and holiday parties, and just hours into that morning many parents were standing at the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Station where I also went that day. What I saw was through the eyes of a parent, not just a public official, the cries of grief, the faces, and voices filled with tears and longing. Those images I will never forget, and they have redoubled my own determination to try to make America safer and better, to keep faith with those 26 wonderful people whose lives were lost that day, and more than 30,000 people who perished in the United States as a result of violence simply because many of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time--on the street or in neighborhoods or in their own home.

The good that is done every day by our police and firemen and emergency responders to try to stem and stop this epidemic of violence cannot overcome the flood of guns in our Nation and cannot compensate for the lack of effective measures to make America safer and better by making our laws against gun violence more effective.

I will never forget that day or any of the victims or their families, and I hope America never forgets them as well. We are memorializing now their wonderful lives by acts of kindness, but the best and truest way to memorialize them in history is to approve effective, commonsense, sensible measures against gun violence.

In the aftermath of those horrific events of December 14, all of Connecticut, certainly in Newtown, and our State came together to lift those who were so devastatingly impacted, and those families have shown incredible strength. They sat in the gallery, they came to visit us and our colleagues urging action. Congress's failure to act is contemptible and unconscionable and a betrayal of those individuals. The action that is ultimately truest and best as a memorial to them will be for this Congress to act.

In Newtown and around the Nation, every community in some way was affected in those days and in some way came together with Newtown. So my hope is still that that spirit will be an inspiration to action, that it will be an impetus to the Congress for effective, commonsense measures that will protect countless others who are in danger and who will die if Congress does not act.

More than 60,000 firearm deaths have occurred since December 14, 2012. There are 32,000 firearm deaths per year. Those families have demonstrated unrelenting resolve, and so should we, and we will. It took more than 10 years for the Brady law to be approved, even after a President of the United States was almost assassinated and his Press Secretary, Jim Brady, was severely injured and paralyzed.

I hope it will not take 10 years for action to be taken by Congress, but we need the persistence and perseverance that will carry us through whatever it takes to achieve lasting reform.

I have been proud to serve as a member of the Judiciary Committee and to have worked hard for this measure, helping to lead the effort to approve the ban on high-capacity magazines as well as assault weapons and background checks. But a mental health initiative and school safety initiative have also been part of what we need do. I will continue my work on those efforts--mental health and school safety bills I have introduced, including the Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act.

Lori Jackson was estranged from her husband. She obtained a court order against him because of the real evidence of danger from him. Unfortunately, that court order failed to save her life because it was only temporary, and it failed to take away the guns her husband had. The Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act will fill that gap in our laws now.

Women are five times as likely to die as a result of domestic violence when there is a gun in the home. One in five women are victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. That is the reason we need to continue this fight on many fronts. Since that day or about then, on December 14, I have worn a bracelet and I still do. The writing has faded and is no longer visible, but the one thing it said was, ``Love wins.'' I truly believe that love won in Newtown, that love won when Connecticut's legislature passed a strong and effective measure. It was the next step. It is not the end of the work, but the next step. I believe that love won through the grace and courage and strength of the families of those children and the loved ones of the teachers who lost their lives.

I believe love wins every day in our classrooms around the Nation when teachers work hard--and they work hard--and resolve to keep their children safe. Love wins every day when someone stands up and speaks out against gun violence. Love will win, eventually. Honor will win. We will honor those children, and we will celebrate the love they felt so deeply and unconditionally--as only children can--unqualifiedly for their parents and their community. I believe that love will win eventually as long as we keep working.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. President, we have recently returned from the Thanksgiving holiday, when Americans from all walks of life come together with family and friends to express gratitude for our good fortune and great blessings. The weekend following Thanksgiving was devoted by many to holiday shopping--a good opportunity to support local businesses but also too often a spectacle of commercialization that threatens to obscure the true meaning of the holiday season.

Today, I would like to honor the work of two Connecticut community leaders for their laudable efforts to remind us of the holiday's true meaning. Rabbi Daniel Cohen of Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford and Pastor Greg Doll of Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien have together launched the Elijah Moment Campaign. Named after a figure in Jewish tradition who appears spontaneously to help those in need, this interfaith campaign seeks to encourage simple acts of kindness between friends and strangers alike. Each recipient of an act of generosity goes on to ``pay it forward'' by helping someone else. Even seemingly minor gifts like buying a stranger's cup of coffee, as occurred en masse during a campaign-organized kindness event at a Stamford Starbucks last week, can motivate significant acts of charity and promote a prevailing spirit of benevolence.

I am grateful to Rabbi Cohen and Pastor Doll for coming together to remind us, in their words, that ``an act of generosity as simple as a kind word can transform a fleeting moment into an eternal one.'' The simplest acts of giving highlights the strong connections we all share, even as divisive rhetoric at home and violent acts abroad threaten our solidarity and safety. I honor and admire the spirit of the Elijah Moment Campaign, and I encourage all to do the same.

Mr. President, I am honored to be joined with my distinguished friend and extraordinary colleague Senator Harkin of Iowa to support continued funding of the Prevention and Public Health Fund.

He has been a leader in this area, so I am particularly privileged to stand with him on behalf of a fund that is absolutely necessary to address prevention of serious and chronic diseases. It is fiscally and morally and absolutely essential that we approach health care in this way.

I am going to ask for permission to continue to speak. I am not sure what the allotted time is. If there is no objection, I ask unanimous consent for the time through 5 o'clock for myself, Senator Harkin, and others who may join us in this colloquy.

Our Nation currently spends 75 cents of every $1 on health care for the treatment of preventable conditions.

These diseases can be stopped and prevented in people through simple, commonsense measures. Yet a meager 3 cents of every $1 goes toward those treatments, therapies, and practices that can help prevent the diseases that are so wasteful to our economy, to individuals, and their livelihoods.

Our young people are on track to be the first generation of Americans to live a shorter, unhealthier life than their parents. The responsibility to change the course of this history is in our hands.

One step this body--led by Senator Harkin--has taken is to establish the Prevention and Public Health Fund. It is the only dedicated Federal fund for the prevention and improvement of our Nation's public health. Prevention is the most effective way to improve the health of Americans while reducing health care costs in the United States. This funding supports efforts to reduce our Nation's rate of infant death, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and tobacco use. They are the killers and they kill unnecessarily and avoidably.

Sadly, many Connecticut residents suffer from those very same chronic diseases I mentioned. Thirty percent of Connecticut residents have high blood pressure, 9 percent have diabetes, 21,000 residents of Connecticut are diagnosed with cancer annually, and 16 percent still use tobacco.

The Prevention and Public Health Fund invests in a broad range of evidence-based activities--not speculative, not abstract, conceptual, theoretical--including community and clinical prevention initiatives that can help stop all Americans from developing debilitating and chronic disease in the future.

So far grants from this fund were awarded to support four Connecticut projects, including mental health and addiction, diabetes management in older and disabled adults, and the establishment of an electronic birth registration system to improve the ability to track the health and well-being of infants. It sounds pretty rudimentary--and it is--using technology to track the health and well-being of infants.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a hard-hitting anti-tobacco media campaign--funded from this fund--focused on the destructive health effects of smoking. It is not only effective, but it is supported by the efforts that we have advocated on prevention in health management.

Over the next 3 years this campaign is expected to save the country $170 million in nonincurred health costs and lowered productivity that results from smoking. The CDC has estimated that this campaign will assist 50,000 tobacco users to quit smoking.

I know from my own work in suing the tobacco companies and establishing the fund to support exactly these kinds of efforts, that millions of Americans across the United States want to quit. They have tried repeatedly. Ninety-nine percent of all smokers want to quit and also try to quit, but quitting is hard because nicotine is one of the most powerfully addictive drugs known to man and cigarettes are a powerfully effective nicotine delivery tool.

These 50,000 tobacco users who quit smoking are better off, not only in their health but their pocketbooks. They save countless dollars that they would otherwise squander on unhealthy tobacco products. They are healthier, their families are happier, and they save themselves from a lifetime of addiction and disease. The preventive efforts of the CDC as a result of this fund are preventive in stopping young people from beginning to smoke as well.

It is monumental, it is historic, and it is a fund that should be fully supported by Congress. The fund accorded the CDC the ability to run another tobacco education campaign called ``Tips from Former Smokers.''

According to a recent study, this campaign led 1.64 million Americans to attempt to quit smoking. Those who have completely quit smoking as a result of the campaign added half a million quality-adjusted life years to the population of the United States.

I know these numbers sound abstract and obtuse. They are real lives, and they have been saved from the evils of tobacco addiction and smoking, which in turn could cause cancer, heart disease, and all kinds of preventive diseases.

This funding is essential to running the local departments of health in many areas of our Nation. Workers at those departments of public health are in the forefront of preventing infectious diseases, an issue that most recently came into focus as part of the domestic Ebola response.

Without adequate funding for these departments, the people most closely tasked and most immediately responsible for providing services and information to people in the time of a crisis may be unable to respond when communities are most in need.

We must change the focus of our health care from sickness and disease to wellness and prevention.

We grew up, many of us, with our mothers telling us that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That is not only an adage that is commonly repeated, it is commonly proved in everyday life.

I strongly encourage my fellow Members to support the Prevention and Public Health Fund to help ensure the future well-being of our fellow citizens.

I yield to my colleague Senator Harkin, one of the leaders in this effort.

I want, again, to thank my great friend, Senator Harkin, for the legacy of public health advocacy that he will leave for all of us. I pledge to him that I will carry on, among many others, I am sure, that legacy and advocacy.

The Senator mentioned that it is easy to be unhealthy and harder to be healthy. Part of the reason is lack of awareness and education, and perhaps, in some instances, even a lack of income and wherewithal. Just let me pose the question to him of whether that impression is true.

My impression also is--and perhaps the Senator has some views on this--that, in a way, we have a responsibility in this body to create that awareness and to spend the money on what should be regarded as an investment. It is spending, and it involves funding. But really the way to look at it is as an investment in education, in the clinics and the doctors and the services that can make Americans healthier and save us dollars over the long term--not only in the money spent on truly preventable diseases but also avoiding the suffering and the pain that is involved in many of those diseases, whether it is cancer or heart disease or diabetes, which are connected to so many preventable conditions.

Mr. President, I certainly will pledge to do so and will

think of the Senator from Iowa when we do, hopefully, consider the next such highway bill. But let me just say, in conclusion, for myself, I was not going to mention the ``R'' word--the retirement word--because it seems almost impossible to imagine this body without the Senator from Iowa not only because of his advocacy of the Prevention and Public Health Fund but also his constant reminding us and his unceasing advocacy for better public health, for championing the interests of ordinary working men and women. So I thank him for that legacy to me and for so many others.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 5681, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 609, S. 2759.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Veterans Affairs' Committee be discharged from the consideration of and the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following measures, which are VA facility-naming bills, en bloc: H.R. 3682, H.R. 3375, S. 2921, and S. 229.

I ask unanimous consent that the bills be read a third time and passed, en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following measures, which are post office-naming bills, en bloc: Calendar No. 585, H.R. 43; Calendar No. 586, H.R. 451; Calendar No. 587, H.R. 1391; Calendar No. 589, H.R. 3085; Calendar No. 590, H.R. 3957; Calendar No. 591, H.R. 4189; Calendar No. 592, H.R. 4443; Calendar No. 593, H.R. 4919; Calendar No. 595, H.R. 5106; and Calendar No. 584, S. 2523.

I ask unanimous consent that the bills be read a third time and passed, en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.