Floor Statements

Madam President, 14 dead, 82 wounded--that grim statistic was reported this weekend. It was not from Baghdad. It was not from Damascus. It was not from Gaza. No, it was not from the Middle East. It was from the Midwest. It was from the city of Chicago--14 dead, 82 wounded over the Fourth of July weekend.

This morning the Chicago Tribune headline read: ``2 dead, 9 hurt in shootings on the South, West sides''--last night. A 17-year-old boy who would have started college orientation Thursday was shot to death Tuesday night in the Brainerd neighborhood, one of at least 11 people shot across the city since Tuesday afternoon. A boy was struck in the chest and back and died on the scene. Four minutes later, on the West Side, a 23-year-old man was fatally shot as he rode his bicycle in a Humboldt Park neighborhood.

The story goes on to recount each and every incident. These numbers cloak the grief that families are now going through as someone they love is either gone or seriously injured. When you listen to their voices, you understand what life is like in the mean streets on the South Side and West Side of Chicago.

Greg Baron, a 20-year-old from Chicago's South Side, has already been a victim of gun violence once. He spoke to the Chicago Tribune yesterday and said: ``I have to watch my back every day because I do not want to get killed or shot again.''

Marsha Lee, a Chicago mother, has already lost one son to gun violence. She recently described how she had to teach her three little girls how to take care of themselves when it came to the gunfire. She told National Public Radio: ``You have to get down low, get down on the ground, and stay on the ground until it's over, and when it's over you have to check yourself and check one another to see if anybody has been hit.''

Life in Chicago, life in America--I agree with Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago. This type of violence is absolutely unacceptable. While the number of murders in Chicago statistically is, thankfully, down compared to last year, there are still too many deaths from gun violence and too many people living in fear. Who pays the price? The families do, but all of us do.

The University of Chicago Crime Lab calculates the total cost of gun violence in America at around $100 billion a year--$100 billion. That is a staggering number. Cook County, which, of course, contains the city of Chicago, estimates the trauma care for each shooting victim costs $52,000 on average. So for last weekend, with 80 wounded Chicagoans, we just added $4 million in health care costs, assuming that they can be treated and released at some point in the near future.

It is time to do something about it. It is time to stop talking about it. I did some polls across our State, and even more important, as I visited the State, I asked questions from one end to the other. We are quite a diverse State. Southern Illinois is the South. As the late Paul Simon used to say: Southern Illinois is the land of grits and gospel music--small town America. It is rural. It is where my family roots are. I know what they think about guns. Guns are part of the culture. Guns are part of the family experience. A father taking his son or even his daughter out to hunt is an important moment in each of their lives.

They value the ownership of guns and overwhelmingly use them responsibly and legally for hunting and for target practice. Still, when you speak to those people about gun violence in the cities and ask them a very basic question, these proud gun owners respond in a way that I am proud of. They agree that no convicted felon and no person mentally unstable should be able to buy a gun, period.

We considered that on the floor of the Senate--the Manchin-Toomey amendment. Close the gun show loophole. Ask the question: Have you been convicted of a felony? Is there something in your background that suggests a mental instability that should prohibit you from owing a gun? We could not pass that measure.

But I offered another measure as well. It is one that relates to this basic issue. If we want to keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them, if we want to protect the rights of law-abiding, respectful citizens who own firearms and follow the law, then we should take care and make sure we do everything in our power to keep guns out of the hands of folks who will use them to hurt and kill innocent people.

The superintendent of police in Chicago is Gary McCarthy. I like Gary a lot. He came to Chicago from New York, hired by Mayor Emanuel. He really has rolled up his sleeves and gone out in the streets and tried to tackle this terrible issue of gun violence. They asked him about this weekend, with 14 dead and 82 wounded in Chicago.

He said: ``Something has to happen to slow down the straw purchasing that happens in this State.'' Let me explain

that. Here is what the Superintendent meant. The law says that if you are a convicted felon you cannot buy a gun. So how do they get their hands on guns? Many of them send someone else who does not have a history of criminal convictions to buy the guns. That so-called straw purchaser, a third-party purchaser, purchases the firearm, walks out the door, and either gives it or sells it to the person who can go use it in the commission of a crime. Superintendent McCarthy identifies that as one of the key problems in the city of Chicago. It is a problem across America. Mayor Emanuel pointed out yesterday we need tough Federal gun laws ``so that the guns of Indiana and Wisconsin are not flowing just into the streets.''

Well, I agree with him. We have a bill before us, pending before us in the Senate. It is not technically a bill about guns and firearms. It is about sportsmen. A lot of provisions in there are good provisions. Some I may question. But by and large, it is all about sportsmen. Now we are being told that colleagues are going to come forward and offer amendments related to firearms and guns.

I may be an exception, but I welcome this debate. I want this debate. I want an opportunity to raise important issues about gun violence and gun safety in America. I am going to offer an amendment, an amendment which stiffens the penalties for those who purchase guns to give them to another person or sell them to another person to commit a crime.

What I said in Chicago I will say on the floor of the Senate. Girlfriends, wake up. When that thug sends you in to buy a gun, under this amendment you run the risk of spending 15 years of your life in a Federal prison. So think about it. Is he really worth it? Are you willing to take that risk and give away 15 years of your life so some gang member or thug can have a gun to go out on the street and kill an innocent person--so that another 15-year-old child can be gunned down, killed in the streets of Chicago or any other city and see their dreams absolutely disappear in the blood on the sidewalk?

I want to offer this amendment. I hope my colleagues, whatever their views on guns, will agree with me. This is no violation of a basic right under the second amendment to the Constitution. This just says that if you are going to buy a gun to give it to a thug to commit a crime, we are going to put you in jail for 15 years. Think about it. It is the only way that we can address this in a manner that will start to shut down this pipeline of guns flowing into the city of Chicago and cities across America.

Some of my friends in Illinois see this issue a lot differently. They think if everybody carried a gun then good people would shoot down the bad people. I am skeptical. History tells us that most of the time the guns that good people carry are not used as effectively as they hoped they would be used and sometimes even injure the person carrying it. I still trust law enforcement as a first line of defense for families and neighborhoods all across my State. Law enforcement has told us loudly and clearly: Stop wasting your time in Washington. Address the issues that make a difference in the neighborhoods and lives of families of Chicago and Illinois and this Nation. Make this a safer Nation--14 dead, 82 wounded over the weekend in Chicago.

I guess the question to be answered by the Senate is: Do we care? Will we do anything? This Senator is going to offer this amendment. I hope I get my chance. I hope the filibusters on the other side and from other people do not stop me. Is this a guarantee that this will become law? No, but it is a guarantee this week will not go by without an effort from this Senator and I hope from others to address this issue of gun violence.

I hope it is evidence that many of us believe the Senate is still an important part of American government that can address the problems that threaten good, decent law-abiding families all across America.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object--I am not going to object because we have an understanding, but I would like to have a similar amount of time to reflect on Senator Alan Dixon, who passed away over the weekend, after the Senators from Tennessee have paid homage to Senator Baker.

Madam President, yesterday at 6 p.m. on Capitol Hill there was a gathering at a nearby restaurant known as The Monocle. It was a gathering of former staffers of U.S. Senator Alan Dixon of Illinois. They picked The Monocle because he would have picked it. It was his favorite place on Capitol Hill. And it was a sad day, because Senator Dixon passed away Sunday morning in Fairview Heights, IL.

His staff gathered at The Monocle the next day, which would have been his birthday, to toast him and to pay tribute to a great boss, a great friend, and a great Senator from the State of Illinois.

Senator Dixon passed away in his sleep in the early hours on Sunday morning. His son Jeff had dropped him off at home, and he was there with his wife Jody when he passed away. So instead of celebrating his birthday on Monday, we had a day of remembrance of an extraordinary public servant for the State of Illinois.

Alan Dixon used to be known in political circles as Al the Pal, and he loved it. It really described him. For him, friendship and loyalty were everything. It showed in his life and, I think, was a great part of his success.

He was a person who gloried in representing Illinois. He never harbored any national ambitions. Being a Senator from Illinois was his goal in life. He reached it and performed so well as Senator that he is fondly remembered by many who served with him in the House and in the Senate.

He represented an old-school style of politics. He believed in his heart that people of good will could find common ground if they worked at it. He knew how to make this government work, how to make this Senate work, and work for the State of Illinois.

In his memoir, which he published last year, he wrote:

Generally speaking, my political career was built on good

will and accommodation.

He was known by Senators on both sides of the aisle as a friendly, helpful, articulate, and effective colleague.

He was a downstate guy in our State. He grew up in Belleview and St. Claire County, not too far away from my hometown of East St. Louis. He grew up just across the river from the great city of St. Louis. His dad owned and ran the Dixon Wine and Liquor Company in Belleview.

Alan served in World War II, in the U.S. Navy Air Corps. After the war, he went to the University of Illinois where they had a special arrangement for vets to earn a bachelor's degree. He went for a short time to the University of Illinois Law School and then, when his dad's business was struggling, he transferred to Washington University Law School where he graduated second in his class.

In 1948, at the age of 21, a neighbor said: Alan, I have been watching you and I think you ought to consider running for police magistrate in Belleview, IL. Alan hadn't even graduated from law school, and his friend reminded him you didn't have to be a lawyer to be a police magistrate in those days. So he ran and he won.

Two years later, after getting out of law school and passing the bar, both in Missouri and Illinois, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives--the youngest member ever elected to the Illinois General Assembly. His starting salary: $3,000.

He went on to become one of the most successful vote-getters in the history of the State of Illinois. He won 29 consecutive bids for public office, for State representative, State senator, secretary of state, and state treasurer. During one of those races, he carried all 102 counties in Illinois, all 30 townships in Cook County, and all 50 wards. That is a record I don't think anybody will ever break.

When he served in Springfield, IL, as a State representative and a State senator, he did a lot of things, but he pointed with pride to his passage of a constitutional change in Illinois to finally modernize our judiciary. He remembered his days as police magistrate and thought our system of justice had to be brought into the 20th century. Alan Dixon of Belleview, IL, led that effort--an enormous political lift. He got it done. He was effective. People trusted him and they respected him.

He led an unpopular fight against loyalty oaths during the McCarthy era, and he helped create the Illinois college system.

In 1980, the people of Illinois chose Alan Dixon to represent them here in the Senate. He teamed up with his old friend a couple years later who had joined him in the Illinois General Assembly, his seatmate in the Assembly, a man named Paul Simon. Senator Dixon and then- Congressman Paul Simon, soon to be Senator Paul Simon, were colleagues and buddies and business partners. What an unlikely duo. There was Paul Simon who might be persuaded once in a blue moon to drink a little glass of wine, and there was Alan Dixon who loved that cold beer that he grew up with in Belleview, IL. But the two of them were fast friends. I witnessed that friendship over the years. I didn't see the early days when they owned newspapers together--Paul was a newspaper man and Alan more an investor--but I did witness the political part of that friendship, and it was amazing to see.

There were moments in their lives when the two of them could have clashed over their political ambitions, but they always worked it out. They were always friends, and that made a big difference in both of their lives.

It was Alan Dixon as Senator who came up with an idea that had never been tried before in Illinois: He decided to try to get all of the members of the Illinois congressional delegation--Democrats and Republicans--together for lunch on a regular basis. Well, he had to persuade a few of the oldtimers who weren't really open to the idea, but it was his personality and his determination that got it done, a tradition which continues to this day.

In his 12 years in the Senate, Alan Dixon didn't forget where he came from. He remembered growing up in a family of modest means in Belleview. He remembered those tough summer jobs--and there were plenty of them. And he never forgot the working people he represented in St. Claire County and across the State of Illinois.

Alan was at the top of his game and in the strongest voice when it came to standing up for working people and the little guy. He fought for affordable housing and lending practices. He denounced wasteful spending and created a procurement czar to oversee spending at the Pentagon.

One of the things which he is remembered for as a Senator was deciding to personally test a new weapons system. They sent him down to test the Sergeant York gun. They put him in a helmet and sat him on the gun. He was going to test it and fire it, and he soon discovered the gun was a dud--it couldn't shoot straight. He came back and reported it to his colleagues in the Senate, including Senator Sam Nunn, and they went along with Senator Dixon and said: We are going to junk this project. It is a waste of taxpayers' money.

It was Alan Dixon who called for tougher oversight and vigorous prosecution of scam artists who defrauded S&Ls and left taxpayers holding the bag.

In 1992, Alan lost his bid for reelection to the Senate in a hotly contested three-way primary. It was the political upset of the year. It isn't often around here that a Senator would lose in a primary race for reelection--and a lot of people were wondering, his first political loss, how would it affect Alan Dixon.

Election night, Alan stood up and gave the most heartfelt, touching speech I can ever remember of a person who lost a campaign. It was repeated over and over that he was a real gentleman, and his words that he had to say even in defeat added to his reputation as a fine, honest, great public servant. A tearful crowd listened as he said he had ``loved every golden moment'' of his time in politics.

His fellow Democratic Senators had twice unanimously elected him to serve as chief deputy whip. After his loss in that election and then retirement, he was praised on the floor of the Senate by not only Ted Kennedy and George Mitchell but Bob Dole and Strom Thurmond as well.

In 1995, his public life was resumed when President Clinton appointed Alan

Dixon to chair the base closure commission known as the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission. It made sense. As a Senator, Alan Dixon had written the section of the Defense authorization bill that created the BRAC.

Here was a man who had spent his entire career making political friends, but now he took on a job that was bound to test some of those friendships. He accepted that assignment because the President asked, and Dixon knew it was right for America. It was the same decision he made when he enlisted to serve in World War II.

Last October, Alan Dixon published his memoirs with the appropriate title ``The Gentleman From Illinois.'' He returned to Washington briefly with Jody and members of the family to head on over to his favorite Capitol Hill restaurant, The Monocle. It is about a stone's throw from the Dirksen Senate Office Building where he used to have his old meetings in his office. The Monocle was the place where, afterwards, you joined for bipartisan dinners and a lot of good times.

Alan Dixon told his old friends gathered at The Monocle that evening:

What this country needs now is more friends on the Hill

working together and talking together, and working for

solutions that will serve the interest of the public.

Well, Alan Dixon was right about that. I hope that some day, in his memory, we will see the return of that spirit in this Senate Chamber. This country truly needs to work together.

Before Dixon left the Senate, then-Senator Paul Simon praised him with these words:

In generations to come, his children, his

grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren will look back and

say with pride, ``Alan Dixon was my father, my grandfather,

my great-grandfather,'' whatever that relationship will be.

Those words by Paul Simon about his lifelong political friend and colleague Alan Dixon ring true today as we reflect not only on his service as a Senator and public official but also as a person.

I lost a pal when Alan Dixon passed away. My wife and I extend our condolences to Alan's wife of 60 years, Jody. What a sweetheart of a woman. People don't realize what spouses put up with because of our public lives. She put up with it for many years. There were good times, but I am sure there were tough times too. Mothers have to work a little extra harder when the father happens to be in public life. She was his rock.

To Alan and Jody's three children Stephanie, Jeff, and Elizabeth, and to their families, to the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren-- you can be proud of Alan Dixon. He was truly ``the gentleman from Illinois.''

Madam President, this last weekend in Chicago was memorable--memorable for the wrong reasons. This last weekend in Chicago, gun violence took the lives of 14 people and wounded 82.

I am honored to represent Illinois. I am especially honored to represent a great city such as Chicago. But I am heartbroken to think about what happened this past weekend.

Mayor Emanuel and Superintendent Gary McCarthy anticipated the Fourth of July weekend would be a challenge, and they dispatched hundreds of police to the streets of Chicago in an effort to avert this violence. I wouldn't say they failed, but I would say the tragedy that followed tells us we have a lot of work to do.

I am sure Mayor Emanuel and all of the elected officials in Chicago, including Superintendent McCarthy, are looking over what happened this past weekend trying to think of what they can do to bring peace to the city and end the violence which has taken so many lives. They will be working overtime, and a lot of people will point the finger of blame and say they could have done more. I think the mayor would acknowledge he could have done more. But let me add, we all could have done more. It isn't just the city's responsibility that this kind of violence has occurred. It isn't just the misfortune of the city of Chicago that these lives were lost and that gun violence continues to plague us. It is a responsibility that goes far beyond the city of Chicago. It is a responsibility we have visited on this Chamber, of the Senate.

How can we ignore gun violence in America wherever it occurs--in Chicago, in Washington, DC, across this country? What are we doing as Members of the Senate? What efforts are we making to make America a safer place to live? We have run away from it. We ran away from our responsibility when it comes to an honest, conscientious discussion about gun control.

Some people are frightened of this issue. They think when you get near the Second Amendment, it is the third rail of politics, and that there are gun lobby groups out there just waiting to pounce on any Member who comes to the floor of this Senate and talks about changing our gun laws. That has been the case for a long time, and yet the American people, when you ask them about the basics, get it. They understand you can protect our Second Amendment rights to own and use firearms legally and responsibly and still put reasonable limits in place to keep guns out of the hands of people who will misuse them.

Is there anyone who believes it is an infringement of constitutional rights to say that no one who has been convicted of a felony should be allowed to purchase a firearm in America? That makes sense.

This weekend in Chicago convicted felons were out on the street with firearms firing away. We should do everything in our power to stop that from occurring. After all of the senseless tragedies which we have seen over the last several years--in Connecticut, in so many different places, even in the State of Illinois--is there anyone who argues with the premise that people who are so mentally unstable they cannot accept the responsibility of a firearm should not be allowed to buy a firearm? Two categories: Convicted felons, mentally unstable people, should not be allowed to purchase firearms in America, period.

We had the vote--a bipartisan vote. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is no liberal. Senator Manchin is a real conservative and pro- gun. He joined up with Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is about as conservative a Republican as you can find. Both Senators Manchin and Toomey came to the floor and said let us do background checks to make sure convicted felons and people who are mentally unstable cannot purchase a firearm. It failed. It failed because it faced a filibuster we couldn't break. The majority of Senators voted for it, but that wasn't enough because we needed 60 and we didn't have it. We lost a handful of Democrats and we attracted only a few Republicans to support us.

To me, that is not the end of the debate. It is time for us to revisit that issue. It is time for us to have another vote on the floor of the Senate. I am not sure the outcome will be much different, but we owe it to the people of this country to continue this debate, and we owe it as fellow Senators, Democrats and Republicans, to search for solutions.

Let me tell you another measure that could have helped in Chicago and other cities across America. There is a term called straw purchaser. A straw purchaser is someone who will walk into a gun store, present their identification, and purchase a firearm because they are legally entitled to purchase it, and then turn around and give it or sell it to someone who could not legally buy that same gun. Many times it turns out to be the girlfriend who is sent in to make the purchase. It is time to change that law. It is time to send out an all-points bulletin to the girlfriends of thugs that they are going to be sent away to prison for a long time for that kind of irresponsible act. Straw purchasers pass these guns into the community, and when they do, we know what happens: Innocent people die. That is another provision we should vote on on the floor of the Senate.

If there are colleagues who want to stand and defend the right of straw purchasers to buy guns and turn them over to convicted felons, be my guest. I want to hear that debate. Tell me how that is an exercise of your constitutional right. It is not.

I have thousands and thousands of people across Illinois who own firearms, who store them safely, use them legally, and enjoy their rights under the Constitution. Well, what I am suggesting today is not going to change

that at all, but they live in communities where people will misuse these firearms.

We have a moral responsibility in the Senate to do everything we can to keep firearms out of the hands of people who misuse them. We have a legal and moral responsibility to accept this opportunity in the Senate to debate these issues. We cannot run away from them any more than we can run away from the violence in our streets. I am not alone in my feelings on this issue. There are other Senators who share them. It is time for us to stand up and speak up. We have a responsibility to the people we represent, to innocent people who are being threatened and killed across America.

What happened in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend is a wakeup call--another wakeup call--to the Senate to get about the business of our purpose here, the reason we were elected--to try to make America a better and safer place.

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

Will the Senator from Vermont yield for a question through the Chair?

I don't ask the Senator to yield the floor, but I would, through the Chair, address the Senator from Vermont.

First, I thank the Senator for his bipartisan effort with Senator John McCain which led to an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on the floor of the Senate to address what we consider to be a crisis in the Veterans' Administration. Press reports have suggested in the most extreme situation that some veterans' lives were being compromised because of the failure of providing timely care to these veterans. It resulted in an investigation of VA facilities all across the United States. It resulted in the resignation of the Secretary of the Veterans' Administration and promises for dramatic reform, but I have to say to the Senator from Vermont what he has accomplished with Senator McCain is tangible.

I would like to ask him two or three questions about the current state of affairs. How long ago was it that we passed on the floor of the Senate this bipartisan measure?

Secondly, did this measure involve emergency spending to deal with the emergency in the Veterans' Administration?

Third, did the House version of their VA reform include the resources the Senator from Vermont mentioned, the new doctors, the new nurses, the new facilities to accommodate this wave of veterans. Those are the three questions that I think are critical.

I close by saying thank you again and again, because as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Senator has reminded us of the real cost of war.

There are many people who vote quickly to go to war who will not vote quickly to pay for the care we promised our veterans when they come home. Thank you for caring.

Through the Chair, I would answer the Senator, without asking him to yield the floor, and say this: When we decided to embark on the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan, it was with at least the understanding of then-President Bush that these would be costs that would be added to the deficit of the United States. We would not be paying as we fought. We would be waging a war, spending the money necessary to wage it successfully, and we would deal with the cost of it at a later moment in time. Many of us, even those of us who voted against the invasion of Iraq--and I was 1 of 23 on the floor of the Senate voting against it--voted for the resources to wage the war, saying if our men and women in uniform are risking their lives, we will stand by them, equip them, and bring them home safely. I also believed and understood that I had an obligation to every one of those men and women in uniform, having promised them that if they would risk their lives for America and come home needing our help, whether it is health care or education or the basics of life, we would be there.

I say to the Senator from Vermont thank you for reminding us of the pledge made by America to these veterans and I believe the pledge made by Republicans and Democrats in Congress to stand by them when they came home.

I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I voted in support of cloture on the motion to proceed to the Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2014. This is a procedural vote to begin debate on this bill, which has been introduced by Senator Hagan of North Carolina and is cosponsored by 45 Senators, including 26 Republicans.

Senator Hagan's bill seeks to enhance opportunities for outdoor recreation, including hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting. It also reauthorizes key conservation programs that support outdoor recreation. It is no secret that I strongly support efforts to combat violent gun crime and to reduce the high number of gun deaths and injuries that occur each year, but I recognize the distinction between legitimate hunting and target shooting activity, as opposed to irresponsible or criminal gun use. I believe there are ways to support the former without undermining efforts to reduce the latter.

If, during debate on this bill, Senators try to add provisions to weaken the laws on the books when it comes to keeping our citizens safe from gun violence, I will strongly oppose those provisions, but for purposes of today's procedural vote, I support moving forward on this bipartisan legislation.

I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich) and the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Udall) are necessarily absent.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Through the Chair, I would like to ask the Senator from Texas a question. He said repeatedly that the President is not enforcing the existing law. We all acknowledge that there is a humanitarian crisis on our border, and I think we agree more than we disagree, but I do want to question the Senator's premise. Will the Senator from Texas tell me which existing law the President is not enforcing that has created this crisis?

Will the Senator yield for a further question?

Does the Senator know the origin of the law which requires that an unaccompanied child be turned over within 72 hours by the Department of Homeland Security to the Department of Health and Human Services, specifically the Office of Refugee Resettlement? Does the Senator from Texas know who introduced that bill and who signed it into law?

I say through the Presiding Officer that the bill was introduced by the Senator's former colleague from Texas, Richard Armey, and signed into law by President George W. Bush, which required what is currently taking place--that within 72 hours, unaccompanied children need to be taken out of the Department of Homeland Security--a law enforcement agency--and placed, through the Department of Health and Human Services, into some protective situation. The President is enforcing a law signed by President Bush and authored by the Congressman from Texas, Congressman Army.

I ask the Senator from Texas through the Chair, on what basis is he saying the President is not enforcing the law?

If the Senator would yield for a question.

If I understand what he said, the law governing this situation is a law that was authored by a Republican Congressman from Texas, signed into law by a Republican President, George W. Bush, and is currently enforced by this President. And what the Senator from Texas is suggesting is that the law in and of itself has at least a loophole or an opening that if the person doesn't appear in court--the young child or the parent with the child--then they could be lost in our system. The Senator from Texas seems to be suggesting we need to change the law or at least address the law.

I have two questions. Will the Senator concede the fact that President Obama is enforcing the law as it is written? Secondly, what would the Senator do with these children once they show up in the United States?

Let's assume you had a 12-year-old child--which is a case I heard last

night--on top of a freight train for 4 days; finally made it into the United States, possibly at the hands of a coyote or smuggler--I make no excuse for them--pushed across the river, or Rio Grande, in a raft and told to report to the first person in uniform? What would the Senator have us do with the child at that point?

Madam President, I went to the White House last night. The President invited Democratic Members of the Senate, and we met with Cabinet and staff members. One of the President's close advisers I met with described what she had seen in McCallum, TX, and there were tears in her eyes when she told heartbreaking stories of babies, children, and infants who are coming to this country. Many of them are in the hands of smugglers and coyotes who have gotten money from their parents or family to transport them to the border of the United States.

She told me the story of a 12-year-old boy, whom I mentioned earlier, from Guatemala. He was put on the top of a freight train and told to hang on for 4 days. For 4 days this 12-year-old boy, scared to death, was on top of this freight train as it barreled through Central America on its way to the United States. He had with him the name of a relative in the United States, and that is it. He was told that as soon as he got across the border, look for somebody in a uniform, don't show any resistance, and present yourself, which he did. He now sits in a facility in Texas.

This is a horrible humanitarian situation. The numbers that are involved here--I will give for the record the numbers that have been reported, which are worth noting. Some people may think we are talking about hundreds of children. This year, and this year alone, as of June 15, unaccompanied children apprehended by the Border Patrol: Honduras, 15,000; Guatemala, 12,000; El Salvador, 11,000; and Mexico, 12,000. Almost 80 percent of these kids come from the countries Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Why are they coming here? They are coming here for a number of reasons: No. 1, there is this criminal network that gets money to transport children. They promise the families they will get them to the border. God only knows what will happen to those kids on their way. Some of them will die, some of the girls will be raped, and their lives may never be the same. It is a desperate, awful, tragic situation, and there is no getting around the fact that it is occurring.

Why are the families doing this? Why would you turn a fourth or fifth grader in your household loose to make that awful, deadly journey? Well, part of the reason is those three countries--Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala--are virtually lawless. They are three of the top five countries in the world when it comes to murder rates. There is a fear that the gangs in these countries will kill their kids anyway.

A young girl from one of these countries said: I ran. I didn't know what else to do because I was told one of the members of the gang wanted to take me on as a girlfriend. I know what happens to girls who become girlfriends. They are raped, killed, and left in a plastic bag on the side of the road.

Sadly, that is the reality of life for those children in some of these countries.

The United States is at the end of this journey and trying to decide the humane thing to do when an infant, a toddler, a 10-year-old, or a 12-year-old, shows up.

There is no easy answer.

The one point I wish to make and clarify--and I hope I did it in the course of my colloquy with my friend and colleague from Texas--this is not a question about whether President Obama has dreamed up a new law or is not enforcing an existing law. The President is enforcing the existing law in America, and here is what it says: When an unaccompanied child shows up on our border and our Border Patrol takes this child into custody, within 72 hours--we give them some time because it is not easy--we need to put this child in a different place outside of a law enforcement agency. Technically, we need to take them out of the police station part of the world and put them in some part of the world that is best for a child. That is what they are required to do under a law introduced by a Republican Texas Congressman, Dick Armey, and signed into law by a Republican President, George W. Bush. What President Obama is doing is enforcing a law which President Bush signed and was supported by Republicans.

So, please, for a second, can we stop the partisanship on this? Let's view this not as a political crisis but a humanitarian crisis, and let's acknowledge the obvious. The President has tried in his capacity to deal with the immigration issue. He has done more than he wanted to do as President. Last night at a gathering the President said: Does anyone think I believe Executive orders are the best way to govern America? No. It is better to do it by law. But let me tell my colleagues why he is forced into Executive orders.

It was 365 days ago, on the floor of this Senate, that we passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill. It was one of my prouder moments as a Senator. There were eight of us who wrote the bill and it took us months: four Republicans, including John McCain, who was just on the floor, my friend Marco Rubio of Florida, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and--I am thinking for a second; I blanked on it, but I will think of the other one in just a second--Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. So the four Republicans, and on our side of the table we had Chuck Schumer of New York, myself, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

We went at it for months and we wrote the bill. We brought the bill to the floor, and we covered virtually every aspect of our broken immigration system, start to finish. It wasn't easy, but we covered it all. The bill passed on the floor of the Senate. It got 68 votes. We had 14 Republicans joining the Democrats in passing the bill. It was supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It was supported by the labor unions, the faith community. Grover Norquist, one of the most conservative Republicans in our country, supported it publicly and said it was a good idea, and we passed it.

We sent it to the House of Representatives 1 year ago. What has happened to comprehensive immigration reform since we sent it 1 year ago to the House of Representatives? Nothing. Nothing. They refuse to call up the bill for consideration.

So when Members come to the floor and talk about how broken our immigration system is, I agree. Many of us tried to fix it, and we did it the way we

should have--in a bipartisan fashion, give and take, compromise.

We are sending, under this new bill, more enforcement to the border between Texas and Mexico than we have ever seen before. I said somewhat jokingly that the people at the border can reach out and touch hands, there will be so many of them--figuratively--at our border. That was the price the Republicans insisted on: border enforcement. All right. What we insisted on was to take the 11 million undocumented in America today, and if they have been here for at least 2 years, give them a chance. Let them come forward, register with the United States who they are, where they live, where they work, who is in their household. Let them pay their taxes, let them pay a fine, and let them learn English. If they do those things, we will do a criminal background check to make sure they are no threat to anyone in this country, and we will watch them. We will watch them for 13 years--13 years. Then they have a chance at legalization.

That is what our bill says. They go to the back of the line and they wait 13 years while they pay their fines. It is tough. Some of them will not make it to the end of the road, but it is there. It gives them a chance.

So when Members come to the floornd criticize our current immigration system, I say to them, there was a repair to that system, there was a fix to that system. It passed the Senate 1 year ago and Speaker Boehner refuses to call it to the floor of the House. I don't know why.

Well, I do know why: Because it would pass. There would be enough Republicans joining Democrats to pass it and we would finally have done something on the issue of immigration.

Now we have before us a resolution by the senior Senator from Texas and he suggests we should take it up. The first part of the resolution says the President has to make it clear the DACA Executive order does not apply to the new people coming across the border. Well, that is a fact. Those who are coming across the border today can't qualify to become legal in the United States--not under any existing Executive order or under the proposed comprehensive immigration reform we passed in the Senate. They can't become citizens. The President saying it personally? I am sure the President would say it personally because he sent the Vice President out to Central America to visit the countries and tell the leaders there: There is a mistake if your people believe they can stay in this country legally. They cannot.

Secondly, he said we have to discourage this migration. I am for that. Who isn't for that? We need to discourage the exploitation of these children and their families and do it in every manner possible. So there is nothing in that suggestion that I think isn't already being done.

The third thing is to fully enforce existing law. The point I tried to make to the Senator from Texas is the President is fully enforcing existing laws. If people want to change the laws, let's have that debate, but to argue the President is not enforcing existing laws is not correct. He is. Those laws may need to be changed or addressed, but he is dealing with them.

I wish to say a word, if I can, about an issue which has come up on the floor and one that is near and dear to my heart. It was 13 years ago when I got a call to my Chicago office. There was a Korean-American mother who had an 18-year-old daughter who was a musical prodigy. She played classical piano in high school and she had been offered a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music. Her family was a poor immigrant family and this was the chance of a lifetime. When the mother and daughter sat down to fill out the application to go to the Manhattan School of Music, there was a question which asked, What is your citizenship? She turned to her mother and asked, What do I put there? And her mother said, I don't know. We brought you here under a visitor's visa when you were 2 years old and we never filed any papers. The daughter said, What are we going to do? The mother said, We will call Durbin. So they called our office.

We looked into the law and the law was clear. The law was clear. This 18-year-old girl under our law had to leave the United States for 10 years and then apply to come back in. Where was she going to go? Her family was here. So the mother said to me, What can we do? I told her, Under the law, almost nothing. So that is when I introduced the DREAM Act.

The DREAM Act says if a person is brought here as a child, an infant, under the age of 16, and they completed high school and had no criminal record of any substance at all, if they served in our military or went 2 years to college, they had a chance to become an American citizen. That was the DREAM Act. I introduced it 13 years ago--13 years ago. It has passed the House, but it didn't pass the Senate that year. It has passed the Senate as part of comprehensive immigration reform, but it hasn't passed the House.

So several years ago I wrote to the President. I said to the President, with 22 other Senators, Would you consider issuing an Executive order saying you will not deport these DREAM children, these DREAMers--because they are eligible under bills that have passed both the House and Senate--give them a suspension of deportation and allow them to stay in the United States without fear of being deported? He signed the Executive order. So almost 600,000 have stepped forward and they have agreed they will submit the information to our government and, in turn, they will be spared deportation.

They are getting on with their lives. They are going to school and getting jobs. Amazing things are happening for them. There are great stories, and I come to the floor and tell them all the time, but we still don't have the final law. We have the President's Executive order which gives them a break now, but we still don't have the final law to resolve it.

I wish to tell a story about one of those DREAMers today. This is Marie Gonzalez Deel and her parents Marvin and Marina Gonzalez. Marvin and Marina brought Marie from Costa Rica to the United States in 1991 when Maria was 5 years old. They came to the United States legally on temporary visas and settled in Jefferson City, MO. A lawyer said to them, Put down roots, get a job, and you have a chance to become a citizen.

The Gonzalez family bought a house, paid their taxes, and were active members of their church. Marvin was a mail courier for the Missouri Governor. Marina taught Spanish at a local school, and Maria was at the top of her high school class. They thought they had done everything right, but then Maria's family was placed in deportation proceedings. The community of Jefferson City was angry that a good family such as this who was part of their community was facing deportation. They rallied around them.

I first met Marie in 2005. She was one of the first DREAMers to tell her story publicly. Back then it was a pretty courageous thing to do. It still is. At my request, the Department of Homeland Security granted her a stay of deportation, but 9 years ago Maria's parents were deported back to Costa Rica.

In 2008, Marie graduated from Westminster College in Missouri with a degree in political science and business, but her parents couldn't be there to see her. They had been deported back to Costa Rica. In 2009, Marie married her college sweetheart and planned a second ceremony in Costa Rica so her parents could be a part of it. On Thanksgiving, 2010, she and her husband flew to Costa Rica. As my colleagues can see from this picture, they were elated to see one another for the first time in 5 years.

Just a few hours later, Marvin, her father, who had prostate cancer, collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital. He passed away later that same day--the day this photograph was taken. Luckily, they got to see him before he passed away. The family held a funeral the next day and carried on with the Costa Rica wedding the following day with an empty chair at the head of the table where Marie's father would have been seated.

Today Marie is the proud mother of an 11-month-old baby girl, Araceli. In March 2014, Marie became a citizen of the United States. Here is what she wrote to me in a letter:

I was very blessed and thankful to get the opportunity to

stay in the United States on a temporary visa to be able to

finish my education, get a job, find my soul mate, and

eventually become a citizen, though at the cost of not

spending that time with my family and feeling alone for so

long. My family was torn apart when I was 18 and will never

be able to be reunited. My immigration

struggle continues until the day I can once again have my mom

at my side. I hope other families don't have to endure this

pain.

There are 11 million stories in America, many of them just like this. Hard-working men and women, law-abiding families, viable parts of our churches and our communities, who had the courage to leave everything behind and come to this great Nation. Those of us who are immigrants to this country, which includes the Presiding Officer and myself--at least my mother--thank our lucky stars we were given this chance. My mother was an immigrant to this country and her son is a U.S. Senator from Illinois. She was brought here at the age of 2. Her naturalization certificate is in my office upstairs. I am very proud of it. It is a reminder to me and a reminder to anyone who visits me that this is a nation of immigrants. We are a nation that thrives with the diversity of our immigration and the energy they bring, the courage they bring, leaving everything behind to come to this country. That is the family of the Presiding Officer, and that was my family. That is our story, but that is America's story. That is who we are.

Have we reached the point where we cannot even discuss future immigration in the House of Representatives? Have we reached a point where we cannot even bring the matter to the floor for a vote? Are we going to ignore what that means to this family and millions just like them, what it means to the thousands of kids presenting themselves at the border?

We are better than that. America is better than that. When we embrace our diversity, when we embrace immigration as part of who we are in America, we will be stronger for it and not just in the creation of new businesses and jobs. These immigrants are some of the hardest working people in America. They take the toughest jobs that a lot of Americans would not touch, but they know that is what an immigrant does.

What is their dream? That their babies, their sons and daughters, are going to have a better life. Thank goodness that story has been repeated over and over and over. That defines who we are in America.

Now--1 year later--the House of Representatives is about to throw up its hands and walk away from even addressing immigration issues. What a heartbreaking situation. What an abdication of responsibility.

I know there is a partisan difference between the House and the Senate, but I honestly believe that if the Speaker had the political courage to call the comprehensive immigration bill--the bipartisan bill that passed the Senate--we would find enough Republican House Members who would stand and vote with the Democrats and pass it. Sure, there will be critics of the Speaker--he shouldn't have done it--but that is what leadership calls for, for the Speaker to have that courage and get it done. I hope he will.

One year is long time to wait--and for these families, years and years, some of them with broken dreams that will never be fulfilled, families who have been split up and try to survive. But that is our responsibility, not just for DREAMers but for our country, to make sure we renew this commitment to our diversity and to immigration.

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

I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich) and the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Udall) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, a year ago today on the floor of the Senate we passed the comprehensive immigration reform bill, and 68 Senators--14 Republicans and all of the Democrats--voted for it. We sent it to the House of Representatives. Included in that bill was a requirement that all employers use a mandatory electronic employment verification system to verify that all their employees were legal. Job applicants were required to show identifying documents, such as passport, driver's license, biometric work authorization card, including a photo ID. Any employer who continued to employ undocumented immigrants faced serious penalties. That would end the hiring of undocumented workers, which the Senator from Alabama has spoken to. E-Verify, though, has to be part of comprehensive immigration reform; otherwise, it would devastate the economy and hurt innocent workers. This was included in the bill, and we said there would be no path to citizenship until we have established this as a nationwide standard to verify that workers truly were not undocumented.

That bill came to the floor a year ago. The Senator from Alabama voted against it. It passed. It went to the House of Representatives. It has languished for 1 solid year. House Speaker John Boehner will not call that bill because he knows it will pass. We are not going to take that bill apart piece by piece, as the Senator from Alabama suggests.

I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the circumstance is this: If a person is legally required to pay income taxes in America, a person is legally entitled to some deductions and credits. One of those credits which a person is entitled to is a child tax credit. If a person has a minor child, that person pays less in taxes in America.

What the Senator from Alabama and this bill try to do is restrict the availability of this child tax credit to some workers in America. I think they have gone too far. I want to make sure working families with small children have the helping hand of our Tax Code. I want to stop any fraud in any program in our Tax Code, but I don't believe this bill is a balanced approach to solving the problem, and I object.

Madam President, I rise to mark the 5-year anniversary of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This legislation was a landmark in the decades-long fight against the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States--tobacco use.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act passed in 2009--15 years after Dr. Kessler, the FDA Commissioner, began trying to regulate tobacco and 45 years after the Surgeon General's landmark report on tobacco use and lung cancer. For the first time in history, this law gave the FDA the authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and sale of tobacco products.

One express aim of the law was to reduce rates of tobacco use among children. The law achieved this by restricting sales to minors, banning flavored cigarettes, banning tobacco-brand sponsorships of sport and entertainment events, banning free samples, restricting advertisements to children, and more.

The results speak for themselves. Just this month, the CDC reported that cigarette smoking among U.S. high school students has dropped to the lowest level in 22 years. According to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the percentage of students who reported smoking a cigarette in the last 30 days fell from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 15.7 percent in 2013. In Illinois, the percentage of students who are current smokers dropped by more than half between 1993 and 2013.

The FDA's implementation of this law is incomplete, and it needs to act now to reverse worrying trends. The CDC reports that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students more than doubled in 1 year, from 2011 to 2012. The same study found that one in five middle school students who reported using e-cigarettes had never tried conventional cigarettes. E-cigarettes could be a gateway to nicotine addiction and smoking. A new study released in the JAMA Pediatrics goes even further. This study found that middle and high school students who used e- cigarettes were more likely to smoke traditional cigarettes and less likely to quit smoking. If current smoking trends continue, 5.6 million American kids will die prematurely from a smoking-related illness.

I commend FDA for its most recent efforts to bring e-cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and other forms of tobacco under its authority. However, FDA's proposed regulations remain dangerously silent on one of the most pressing questions of all--the marketing of these addictive products to children.

In April, ten of my congressional colleagues and I released a report documenting how leading e-cigarette manufacturers are marketing e- cigarettes to young people. The industry is deploying the same advertising techniques it used to hook previous generations of cigarette smokers. Many of these companies hired glamorous celebrities to push their brands through TV and radio ads, and sponsored events with heavy social media promotion. For example, NJOY advertised its products during the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, and on ESPN--all programs with substantial children and teen viewership. In just 2 years, from 2012 to 2013, 6 of the surveyed companies sponsored or provided free samples at 348 events--many geared toward youth audiences.

These e-cigarette companies have even revived cartoon characters in a way that calls to mind Joe Camel--the deadliest cartoon of the 20th century. While many of these companies argue that they do not market to children, a robust analysis recently published in the journal Pediatrics suggests otherwise. Between 2011 and 2013, exposure to e- cigarette marketing by children aged 12 to 17 rose 256 percent. Mr. President, 24 million children saw these ads. Not only is the marketing and packaging intended to appeal to young people, so is the product itself. Let me read a list of e-cigarette flavors being marketed today--vivid vanilla, gummy bears, chocolate treat, and cherry crush. In the face of this mounting evidence, rather than accelerating its efforts, the FDA bowed to industry pressure last week and extended the comment period on its proposed regulations. Every day, 3,200 kids smoke their first cigarette. Every day that the FDA fails to take action costs lives.

As we move to protect kids from new threats like e-cigarettes, we also have to redouble our fight against tobacco use in the military. Nearly 30 years have passed since the first Department of Defense report on high rates of tobacco use among servicemembers and its devastating impact on readiness, productivity, and medical costs. While overall rates of use have declined significantly, smoking rates among servicemembers are nearly 20 percent higher than civilian rates. The use of smokeless tobacco is more than 450 percent higher for servicemembers than civilians. One in three military smokers began doing so after enlisting.

The Department of Defense spends more than $1.6 billion every year on tobacco-related medical care and lost days of work, and the VA spends an additional $5 billion a year to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, primarily caused by smoking.

In 1993, after reading about the dangers of secondhand smoke, CAPT Stanley W. Bryant, commander of the U.S.S. Roosevelt, declared that his ship would be smoke-free. He said, ``I'm the commanding officer of these kids and I can't have them inhaling secondhand smoke. I wouldn't put them in the line of fire. I'm not going to put them in the line of smoke.'' Captain Bryant is one of many leaders in our Armed Forces who have tried to protect the men and women under their command from the dangers of tobacco, but at every turn, their efforts have come under fire from the tobacco industry and its allies. Even Bryant's victory was short-lived. Within the year the tobacco industry forced in a new tobacco policy that stripped ships' captains of their authority over ships' stores and mandated that cigarettes be sold on ships.

One of the central problems is the widespread availability of cheap tobacco products on military installations and ships. The Department of Defense policy requires that exchanges set tobacco prices 5 percent below the lowest local competitor. In practice, these discounts are greater. A 19-year-old soldier walking into a PX can buy a pack of Marlboro cigarettes for 25 percent less, on average, than at the nearest Walmart, according to a recent study in JAMA. These discounts are deadly. Extensive research shows that raising tobacco prices is one of the most effective ways to reduce use. Efforts to end these discounts began in the late 1980s, but nearly every attempt has been blocked due to industry pressure.

This spring, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that he is considering a ban on tobacco sales at all

bases and ships. As the Department of Defense has acknowledged, our ultimate goal should be a tobacco-free military. When I asked about this last week at a hearing, I was heartened to hear that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was conducting a Department-wide review of tobacco sale policies. I urge Secretaries Hagel and Mabus to set concrete goals, policies, and timelines--starting with an end to these discounts that cost lives just as surely as do wars.

The Tobacco Control Act is one of this administration's greatest legacies. I urge the administration to continue its leadership by protecting children from e-cigarettes and our men and women in uniform from the harms of smoking.

Madam President, I rise today to talk about what this Congress did to help one of the world's most forgotten yet most deadly conflicts--that in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Former Kansas Senator Sam Brownback invited me to eastern Congo almost 10 years ago and later I returned with Senator Sherrod Brown in 2010.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is a nation of breathtaking natural beauty, rich in a vast array of resources. It is also a badly broken country, weak in governance and dominated by relentless poverty, warlords, pillaging soldiers, and horrific, almost incomprehensible, violence. A barbaric civil war spanning more than a decade in Congo is the most lethal conflict since World War II.

Eastern Congo is known as the ``Rape Capital of the World.'' In fact, according to the United Nations, regional war and rape leaves an estimated 1,000 or more women assaulted every day in the Congo. That is 12 percent of all Congolese women.

I will try to describe the city of Goma in eastern Congo to those who haven't been there. It is almost impossible. Imagine one of the poorest places on Earth, where people are literally starving, where they are facing the scourge of disease, where malaria and AIDS cut short the lives of far too many. Imagine a nearby active volcano. Then superimpose over that the misfortune of ongoing war and unrest that has ravaged the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo for years and resulted in millions of deaths and unspeakable sexual violence. Armed militias, some left over from the genocide in Rwanda, continue to operate in the region, terrorizing civilians and inflicting horrific brutality.

The United Nations has a 20,000-member peacekeeping force in the area with an impressive new mandate to bring stability, but it can only do so much. The area is still very fragile, awash in weapons, warlords, and competing regional interests. It is also rich in valuable minerals that are found in our every-day electronics, jewelry, and other products.

It has been said that the Congo war contains ``wars within wars''-- and that is true. But fueling much of the violence is a bloody contest for control of these vast mineral resources.

Most people probably don't realize that many of the products we use and wear every day, from automobiles to our cell phones and even our wedding rings, may use one of these minerals--and that there is a possibility it was mined using forced labor from an area of great violence.

We can not begin to solve the problems of eastern Congo without tackling a key source of funding for armed groups, which is the mining of conflict minerals, including tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold. We as a nation and as consumers, as well as industries that use these minerals, have a responsibility to ensure that our economic activity does not support such violence.

NGOs like the Enough Project have led the way in informing the American people about what goes into the jewelry, electronics, and manufacturing equipment they wear and use.

That is why I joined with Senators Brownback and Feingold and Congressman Jim McDermott to support legislation that would help stem the flow of proceeds from illegally mined minerals into those perpetuating unspeakable violence. That law passed almost 4 years ago. Its requirement is simple: If a company registered in the United States uses any of a small list of key minerals from the Congo (tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold)--minerals known to be involved in the conflict areas--then such usage must be reported in that company's SEC disclosure. Companies can also include information showing steps taken to ensure the minerals are legitimately mined and sourced and that by responsibly sourcing these minerals, they are not contributing to the region's violence.

It is not a ban on using the materials or a requirement to source responsibly. Instead it was a reasonable step--a reporting requirement--to shed some light on the issue and to encourage companies using these minerals to source them responsibly.

It took some time for the Securities and Exchange Commission to thoughtfully craft the rule for this law. And disappointingly, as is increasingly too often the case with the rulemaking process, some tried to gut the law in court.

But the law was upheld repeatedly in court, moved forward as enacted by Congress. The first filing reports were submitted to the SEC early this month. This is a milestone.

A look at these filings shows us that some companies have been working for several years already to use their collective financial incentives to foster clean and legitimate supply chains out of eastern Congo. And I want to commend a few of these companies for taking such an early and responsible lead on this issue, including Apple, Intel, and electronics components manufacturer Kemet, which has a branch of its business in my home State of Illinois.

For example, Intel has created its first conflict-free computer chip, while still using responsibly sourced minerals from Congo, and took its reporting a step further by voluntarily submitting it to third-party audits. Under the Conflict-Free Smelter program, the number of international smelters operating free from conflict minerals continues to grow, with almost 90 smelters--40 percent of the world's total smelters--being certified as conflict-free and over 150 companies and industry associations participating in the program. After being refined, the origins of the material become difficult to track, as these smelters purchase materials from a variety of sources. The smelter or refiner therefore represents a critical point in the supply chain where we can look for assurances about whether or not the material has been purchased from conflict-free sources. Apple has confirmed that its entire tantalum supply chain is conflict free.

Another leader in the electronics industry has been Motorola Solutions, headquartered in Schaumberg, IL. Motorola Solutions emerged early as a company dedicated to cleaning up its supply chain, and to do so, it helped establish Solutions for Hope, dedicated to developing a ``closed-pipe'' supply chain. In the Rubaya region of the North Kivu province in the DRC, it has done just that. Tantalum mines in Rubaya were directly funding the leader of the vicious M23 rebel group, Bosco Ntaganda. Through persistent effort, diligent monitoring and the banding together of other likeminded corporations, those 17 mines are now certified conflict-free, and most importantly, M23 has laid down its arms and Bosco Ntaganda stands before the International Criminal Court to face charges for the atrocities he and his comrades committed.

According to the Enough Project's recent report on the impact of this legislation, armed groups and the Congolese army are no longer present at two-thirds of tin, tantalum and tungsten mines surveyed in eastern Congo. And as you may have seen recently, Dutch smart phone manufacturer Fairphone is making its products with conflict-free raw materials. Fairphone has already sold 35,000 units and is hoping to expand production as more consumers embrace conflict-free electronics. Fairphone and others are leading by example, and proving that conflict- free is not only possible, but it can be profitable too.

This was the whole point of the legislation. And consumers will finally have an option to invest in and purchase from those companies that are making a good-faith effort to source from this war stricken area responsibly.

I thank my many colleagues here in the Congress on both sides of the aisle

who helped make this bill a reality and the many responsible companies that are taking steps to help ensure their sourcing of minerals does not contribute to the horrific violence in mineral-rich Congo. The Congolese people have suffered entirely too much, and I sincerely believe that these efforts will be part of the long-term solution to the quest for stability and peace in their country.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.