Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to deliver a status report on what the government shutdown has meant to Virginia this week. I gave one last week, and I am back on the floor to share some additional news.

I associate myself with the comments of the Senator from Florida. I will talk about some similar effects. These effects are felt everywhere. It is not just furloughed employees; it is contractors, it is local communities and nonprofits, and it is the housing market.

Let me talk a bit about Virginia. Some of the pages might have been on the floor last week when I talked about a tiny community in Virginia, Chincoteague, which is a barrier island off the eastern shore of Virginia. It is not the place you might think of when you think about where Federal shutdown effects would be felt in a very specific way. But Chincoteague's economy is oriented around tourism. There is a national seashore and national wildlife refuge there, adjacent to Chincoteague Island, and so these few thousand people over the years have built up an economy that is hotels, motels, restaurants, grocery stores, drive-ins, and other shops for visitors. The fall is a very busy time. The island gets about 1.5 million visitors a year, and they are coming to the National Wildlife Refuge and the National Seashore.

On October 1, when government closed down the seashore and wildlife refuge closed down, the visitors have stopped coming. All those businesses, all those small mom-and-pops--I can see the faces of Tommy and Donna, and Jack Tarr, who is the mayor, and Glenn and Jane, my friends over there--they have called me to say: We are hit so hard because this is a busy time for us and we are closed down.

Last weekend there was a huge festival. There is a historic lighthouse on the island, and they have been working for 6 years to restore it. The opening was last week, and they were expecting hundreds or even thousands of visitors. They had to cancel it because it is on the wildlife refuge.

This weekend there was another big festival. Some of you might have read the book ``Misty of Chincoteague,'' which is about the Chincoteague Island ponies. Children read this book about ponies, probably ponies that came there from Spain, swim across the sound twice a year to Chincoteague, get shots, get inoculated. In the spring, some are sold for population control so they do not overrun the island. This weekend was the fall pony roundup. They had to cancel it because the wildlife refuge is closed.

It is not just a tourism event. It hurts all the businesses, but it is more than that. It is a fundraiser for the volunteer fire department that keeps every home and business on Chincoteague Island safe. They do not have a fire department other than the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department. They have two fundraisers a year. This weekend was one of them. They have canceled it. The volunteer fire department put up on their Web site: ``The fall pony roundup is closed because of the childish and idiotic antics of our Government.''

The other main economy in Chincoteague is NASA. There is a facility at Wallops Island, 5 miles away, and over 80 percent of the thousand employees and contractors who work at NASA, 5 miles from Chincoteague Island, are furloughed.

So you pull the guts out of the tourism economy, which this community

relies on, and you pull the guts out of NASA, which the community relies on--this community has been devastated by the government shutdown, and why? Why?

Mark Wright is a retired lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army who served in the Army for 23 years, including service tours in Iraq--a very solid veteran. We are so proud. One out of eight Virginians is a veteran--an amazing number of people. When he retired, he got a job at the Pentagon as a civilian, a DOD civilian. He got that job earlier this year. Mark Wright was furloughed earlier this year because of the sequester. He has a wife and two kids in elementary school. He was furloughed, days off work, less pay, he got through that furlough. Then October 1, furloughed again. So this veteran who served his country, put himself in harm's way, and fought in theaters of battle more than once has been furloughed twice this year.

Mark Wright and his wife and children live in an apartment in Stafford County--south of DC. They wanted to buy a home for the first time in their lives. They are in the housing market. They decided they can't buy a home now because he doesn't know if he will have a paycheck to make a mortgage payment. He will be lucky enough to keep making the rent payment every month. It hurts their family, but it also hurts the real estate market in Stafford County.

Just this week it was reported that foreclosures in Virginia are up 52 percent from August to September, the biggest jump since the start of the recession because of the effect of sequester and these kinds of foolish antics, as the volunteer fire department described. So what Mark Wright and his family are asking is why; why are we doing this?

I had an employee roundtable with about seven furloughed employees and contractors on Wednesday afternoon in my office. They shared their anxieties about their own finances. They shared their own anxieties about having kids at home and getting a paycheck and what it would mean to them. I said to one participant: Tell me about your family. He said: I am lucky. I don't have a family. Then he caught himself and he said: I wish I was married and had a family, but for now when I am not getting a paycheck and I don't know whether I will get a paycheck, I am lucky I don't have a family. This was a DOD civilian who was a West Point grad who served as an Active-Duty Army officer for 10 years and fought overseas.

Others talked about how it felt to be kicked around just because they are trying to serve their country. One said: I have gone on unemployment. I never wanted to go on unemployment, but I have to for my family. Even those who were financially secure said: I am looking elsewhere for a job. Why would I put myself and my family through this? I have other skills. Maybe I can't serve the public anymore if the Congress is not going to back me.

Why are we doing this to these people?

A Virginia business that I am going to leave nameless called me the other day. They have thousands of employees in Virginia. The shutdown caused their weekly revenue to fall by 85 percent immediately. They are still doing work, and they are still being told--because they are contractors--that they will get paid, they are just not told when they will get pay. But they are paying for office rent and they are paying for utilities and they are paying salaries of employees and they are paying monthly health insurance premiums. They don't know when they are going to get paid, but they are having to write checks to others every day.

The owner of the business said: A few more weeks of this, and we will be bankrupt and hundreds of people will lose their jobs.

Why are we doing this to these businesses?

Yesterday the Presiding Officer was with me in a hearing before the Armed Services Committee, and a woman by the name of Jo Ann Rooney was nominated to be Under Secretary of the Navy. I asked her a question about morale in the Navy and the Pentagon now. Her answer was interesting.

Jo Ann Rooney had been working in the Pentagon for quite a while and then left 1 year ago to be president of a women's college. So she has been away from the Pentagon for 1 year. Now she is back in the Pentagon as a nominee to be Under Secretary of the Navy. Her name is pretty important in Virginia.

She said the difference in the Pentagon and with the Navy folks she was working with from when she left 1 year ago to today is completely stark. In the year that she has been gone, the furloughs hit and now the shutdown has hit. She said she is walking around the halls and looking at how people are responding. They feel like they are not supported when they are doing this important mission. She had one question: Why are we doing this to people who are working for the U.S. Navy whom we count on to protect us every day. Why?

We know, as the Senator from Florida said, that the House pushed this shutdown through unwillingness to have a budget conference. We passed a budget in March. We wanted to sit down and find a budget compromise with a very different House budget. We were going to have to compromise and do that, but Senators and House Members have blocked a conference. With no conference, we don't get a compromise. With no compromise, we don't get a budget. With no budget, the government shuts down. They pushed this through a shutdown and only after the shutdown have they said: All right. Let's talk.

Yesterday they revealed a new plan in the House. Their plan was we need to make sure we don't default on our debt, but after 11 days of shutdown, we just want to keep the government shut down. We will make sure we pay our foreign creditors, but we want to keep the government shut down.

Why? Why cause this pain? Why hurt the economy? Why push businesses to the brink of bankruptcy? Why harm the housing market? Why degrade and devalue public servants, especially those who are veterans? Why jeopardize cities and towns such as Chincoteague? Why hurt nonprofits such as the Chincoteague Island Volunteer Fire Department? Why leave families vulnerable to unemployment and force them to go on unemployment for the first time in their lives? Why cause all this pain?

No one in this country is benefiting from the U.S. government being shut down. So why is the House continuing to insist that this government remain closed?

I am continually reminded of the words by the Founder of the Republican Party 150 years ago at Gettysburg--Abraham Lincoln. At the end of that amazing speech, he resolved, and we resolved, that government of, by, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth, not for a year, not for a month, not for a week, not for a day, not for an hour, not for a minute, and not for a second.

Why can't the House agree to open the government and stop all this unnecessary pain?

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to talk about the need to reopen government--and not to reopen government in a piecemeal way, one bit this week and then another bit next week, which seems to be the newest gambit on the table. We need to reopen the government because the government of this country should have never shut down in the first place.

Few States are feeling the impact of the shutdown more than Virginia. I wish to tell two stories, a personal one and then a story about one community in my State.

In my State many Federal employees live in Virginia. About 150,000 Federal employees are jeopardized currently by the shutdown, and 70,000 of them are DOD civilians who were already furloughed earlier this year. One of the employees who is jeopardized is a major in the Air Force Reserve by the name of Eric Ryan. He lives in northern Virginia, is married, and has four children.

Eric had a distinguished career in the Air Force, retired, became a civilian, rejoined the Air Force Reserve, and is currently working at the Pentagon. At the Pentagon as a civilian, he is currently furloughed with a wife and four children to support.

Eric is a Presidential Management Fellow and has been loaned to my office for a period of time. He showed up at the Pentagon Tuesday to get furloughed, and then he came to my office to hear me deliver my furlough speech to all of my employees. He got the double dose that day.

This afternoon I have the honor of going and participating in the promotion ceremony for Eric Ryan from major to lieutenant colonel. I am going to talk about him and his qualifications, but it is going to be a bitter moment for all of us as I engage in that promotion for this wonderful person. He first served this Nation by flying dozens of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and now serves the Nation in a new way, but has now been furloughed twice this year, once because of the sequester and next because of the shutdown. We have tens of thousands of veterans such as Eric Ryan who are going through the furlough experience.

The second is a community story. If you were to ask where in Virginia would you feel the impact of the sequester, I think most people might think the neighborhoods around the Pentagon or Hampton Roads, where there is naval power. But the effects are being felt everywhere.

I wish to speak about one community, Chincoteague, the barrier island off the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the subject of the famous children's book, ``Misty of Chincoteague.'' It is beautiful community, a tiny small town.

Chincoteague's economy is fundamentally about visits to the national seashore, Assateague and Chincoteague Islands. But those parks and national resources have been closed.

I got a call Tuesday morning right away from friends in Chincoteague saying: Chincoteague is motels, restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, and people who sell suntan lotion and sunglasses. Because of the closure, the entire economy has had its guts pulled out during the Federal shutdown.

Moreover, there is a historic lighthouse at the wildlife refuge that has been restored. It has taken 6 years to restore. This week was the opening and celebration of the lighthouse. They expected visitors to come from everywhere. That has been cancelled.

Chincoteague has one other industry that is very important. They didn't only want to be about tourism, so over the last 15 to 20 years they have worked to build up the capacity of NASA at Wallops Island, which is 5 miles from Chincoteague Island.

Kids who graduate from high school and are interested in science and math don't have to move away and never come home. They can get a science and math degree, come back, and work as rocket scientists. Eighty percent of the NASA employees at Wallops near Chincoteague have been furloughed as a result of this shutdown.

The experience of Col. Eric Ryan, who works in my office, and the experience of this small community on the Eastern Shore of Virginia demonstrates how serious these effects are.

The good news is we can solve this if Speaker Boehner would only allow a vote to reopen government.

The Presiding Officer knows this because we sat through it together. It bears a little bit of repetition.

The Senate passed a budget on March 23 that funds all of these issues at the level that the Senate thinks is right. The same week the House passed a budget funding government at levels they think is right.

Under the Budget Control Act of 1974, the right strategy at that point was to put the two budgets in conference and let conferees figure it out. For folks who aren't familiar with it--and there may be some who are listening--a budget conference is a pretty simple thing.

When I was Governor of Virginia, we had them all the time. The two Houses would pass different budgets. Each House takes their budget, goes into the negotiating room, sits down, and compares. One side wins on this issue, one side wins on the other, and on a third issue they might split it 50-50. The House budget and the Senate budget are very different.

But that is what we do. We sit down, listen, dialogue, compromise, and we solve the problems of the country. Nineteen times since March 23 we have stood on the floor of this body and said we want to go to conference with the House on this budget. Nineteen times, the last of which was yesterday, a small handful of Senators--and that was the phrase that the Senator from Utah used once on the floor in blocking this: We are a small handful of Senators--and the House Republicans have blocked a budget compromise.

For the last 6\1/2\ months we have not had the opportunity to sit down and dialogue. For folks who don't know how a budget conference works, if, in a conference a compromise is reached, it doesn't just become law like that. The compromise has to come back to both Houses. Both Houses debate the compromise, both Houses vote on the compromise, and everyone's interests are protected. They can look at the compromise and decide whether they like it or don't.

For 6\1/2\ months we have been blocked in an effort to go to budget conference. Imagine our amazement. In this body on Monday night, after the House shut down government, 3 hours later they passed a bill and said: We have an idea. Let's have a conference. Finally, 6\1/2\ months after they shut down government. But let's have it be a really particular kind of conference, not a conference about the budget of the United States. Let's have a conference about whether the Government of the United States should be open or closed.

I know I can speak for my colleagues who are here. Our view is we will negotiate, compromise, and listen to any policy issue. Budget negotiation is exactly how you do this or policy debates are how you do it. But what none of us in this body or in the House should ever negotiate is whether the United States exists or not, whether it is funded or not, whether it is open or closed.

I believe it has to be open. That is essentially what our oath of office says we have to do when we say we will

faithfully discharge all the duties of the office to which we have been elected.

We also won't negotiate whether the United States should pay its bills because the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in Section 5 makes very plain that the public debt of the United States and its validity shall not be questioned.

There is a way forward here, and it is such a simple way forward: that is, Speaker Boehner needs to allow a vote in the House. It is simple. Allow a vote and not only allow a vote, but allow a vote on a budget number that he has already agreed to.

The continuing resolution the Senator from Connecticut talked about that is currently pending, funds government for an interim period of time at a budget level that was the House's number. It is not a number I liked. We had a different number in the Senate, a higher number we want to fund it to. But we accepted the House's number for the short- term spending bill out of a spirit of compromise.

We sent it back to the House and we said: We are compromising. We are not even going 50-50. We are compromising by accepting your budget number. This is not as if the Senator from Utah said we want to fund everything or nothing, no. We have other things we would like to fund that we are not funding in this bill because we accepted everything the House wants to fund in their CR.

They only need to accept yes for an answer. The good news is this is not a partisan issue because many Senate Republicans want to do exactly what I am suggesting.

Based on current reports in the House, there are numerous House Republicans--four of whom are from Virginia--who are publicly on the record. They wish to do exactly as we are suggesting.

Speaker Boehner, bring your own spending bill up for a vote. If you do it will pass. If it passes, government will reopen. Once government has reopened, we can have a budget conference and talk about any issue the House wants to talk about, any issue that we want to talk about. But it is time to end hostage politics and reopen the doors.

The Speaker has it in his hands to do that, simply and immediately.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise tonight--with the question of whether the House will allow government to continue or shut down--to actually talk for a few minutes about a simple concept but that is apparently difficult in this body, and that is compromise. I want to talk for a few minutes about compromise.

Based on the action that was taken by the Senate earlier today, the House has an opportunity to accept a compromise that the Senate has put before them. The CR bill the House drafted contained a budget number that was their number, not our number. We weren't wild about it, but we accepted it. And the question is: Will the House accept yes for an answer?

Over the weekend, I was traveling in Virginia--especially yesterday when the weather was great--to different events in central Virginia where there were big festivals, so people were gathering outside. As I traveled, I heard again and again: Don't shut down government and can't you find a compromise?

People are aware in Virginia, and in Hawaii I know they feel the same, that there can be severe consequences to a shutdown. I know the Senator from Maryland may have already offered a number of these thoughts. A great agency such as NASA that funds science and research will see furloughs of 97 percent of its employees. The Commerce Department, which is about commerce, our business and our economy, will see furloughs of 87 percent of its employees. The National Institutes of Health, dealing with research and other important health matters, will see furloughs of 73 percent of their employees. Even an agency such as Treasury--the core Treasury function, separate from the IRS-- will see a reduction of their staff at 50 percent at a time when we need the Nation's fiscal system to be strong.

The consequences of shutdown are severe, and that is why the citizens of Virginia are saying: Don't shut the government down. Find compromise. It is not just employees either, and that is significant enough. It will affect tens of thousands of employees in Virginia and services people rely on. To pick one as an example, the number of VA employees who will be furloughed is actually fairly small as a percentage, but the people at the VA who will be furloughed are the folks who work at the VA Benefits' Administration, which is the organization within the VA that processes veterans' benefits claims.

If you are a veteran who has come home from Iraq or Afghanistan, and you have been part of a war that has now lasted for 12 or 13 years and you want to file for your benefits, which is something you are entitled to because you fought for the Nation--and we have heard the stories of the backlog in veterans' claims--you will be delayed even more because of the furlough. It is unfair to do this to our veterans. It is unfair to do this across government.

I said I wanted to talk about compromise because I think this is not even fundamentally a battle about the budget. It is not a battle about the Affordable Care Act. It is a battle about whether compromise is good or bad.

I don't know if anyone had a chance to read this, but there was a wonderful article in the Washington Post--an opinion article on Friday, September 27--that was authored by a columnist of the Post, Michael Gerson. Michael was the former speechwriter for President Bush 43, George W. Bush. He worked in the Bush administration and wrote an excellent piece that was published, and I want to read a bit of it. The title of the piece is ``A compromised reputation among the GOP.'' Again, it ran in The Washington Post last Friday. I will read a couple of quotes:

The real target--

Not the ACA, not the budget--

is the idea of compromise itself, along with all who deal,

settle or blink.

In the middle of this unfolding Republican debate comes a

timely National Affairs article by Jonathan Rauch. It is

titled ``Rescuing Compromise,'' but it might as well have

been called ``James Madison for Dummies.''

Rauch argues that Madison--

I have to mention a Virginian in my speech--

had two purposes in mind as he designed the Constitution. The

first was to set faction against faction as a brake on change

and ambition--a role that tea-party leaders have fully

embraced. Madison's second purpose, however, was ``to build

constant adjustment into the system itself, by requiring

constant negotiation among shifting constellations of

actors.''

Following the Articles of Confederation, America's founders

wanted a more energetic government. But they made action

contingent upon bargaining among branches of government and

within them. ``Compromise, then, is not merely a necessary

evil,'' argues Rauch, ``it is a positive good, a balance

wheel that keeps government moving forward instead of

toppling.''

Compromise, of course, can have good or bad outcomes. But

an ideological opposition to the idea of compromise removes

an essential cog in the machinery of constitutional order.

``At the end of the day,'' says Rauch, ``the Madisonian

framework asks not that participants like compromising but

that they do it--and, above all, that they recognize the

legitimacy of a system that makes them do it.''

Finally from the Gerson article:

It is a revealing irony that the harshest critics of

compromise should call themselves constitutional

conservatives. The Constitution itself resulted from an

extraordinary series of compromises. And it created the

system of government that presupposes the same spirit.

``Compromise,'' says Rauch, ``is the most essential principle

of our constitutional system. Those who hammer out painful

deals perform the hardest and, often, highest work of

politics; they deserve, in general, respect for their

willingness to constructively advance their ideals, not

condemnation for treachery.''

That is what this debate is about: Is compromise good or is it bad? We have to be willing to compromise.

I want to talk about what the Senate has been doing to advance the spirit of compromise. On the 23rd of March in this body--after a very late night--at 5 a.m. in the morning, the Senate passed the first Senate budget that we passed in 4 years. In that same week, the House passed a budget as well. We have talked about this often. Once that happens and the two budgets are passed,

there is a budget conference to sit down and try to find compromise between these two different documents.

These budgets passed more than 6 months ago, but there has been no budget conference. There has been no effort to find compromise. Why not? Because the Republicans--a tiny handful in the Senate and the majority in the House--do not want to compromise.

Senate Democrats have made a motion 18 times since March 23 to begin a budget conference, and in every one of those instances, a handful of Republican--and when I use the word handful, I am quoting the Senator from Utah who objected to a budget compromise and said ``a handful of us object''--Members of this body, working together with House colleagues, have decided they do not want to put in motion the process for dialog and compromise.

The Senate Democrats were, are, and will be ready to sit down at a budget conference table to negotiate, listen, and compromise to find a budget going forward. We have tried 18 times. We will try it a 19th time. We will try it a 20th time. We will keep working to compromise.

We also compromised in the very matter of the bill that is pending before the body today. As the Presiding Officer knows, the continuing resolution bill was sent from the House over to the Senate last week. That is the way these bills start; they originate in the House. The bill had two components. The first component was ``defund ObamaCare,'' and the second was ``and then we will fund government.''

The House bill said they would fund the government at their proposed budgetary number, which is $986 billion in discretionary spending. That was their number; that was not our number. We had extensive discussions among Senators about what we thought of their proposal. Frankly, we thought the $986 billion number was too low. It includes all of the sequester cuts we disagree with. We think the right number to the budget compromise should be $1.05 trillion, not $986 billion.

The Senate has a different idea about the number, but guess what. The Senate was willing to accept the House's number. We accepted the House's budget number out of the spirit of compromise, and we stripped away the ``defund the Affordable Care Act'' provision and said: Let's put that into a budget negotiation. In a budget negotiation, we can talk about that or anything else they want, but we won't tie it up with the threat of a government shutdown.

So we sent the budget bill back to the House at their budget number and said to them: Can't you take yes for an answer? They have proposed funding at $986 billion. We do not agree with that number, but for purposes of the short-term CR, we will agree, out of the spirit of compromise: Can you take yes for an answer?

The Presiding Officer knows the answer. They would not take yes for an answer. They brought it back and added new provisions: the repeal of a tax that would increase the deficit, and a delay in the Affordable Care Act provisions that would provide maternity service to expecting mothers, that would protect adults from not getting insurance on the grounds of preexisting conditions, that would give a significant tax credit to small businesses to help them pay for insurance. They wanted to delay all of those provisions.

We have taken action again today. We have again made this bill what we call a clean spending bill. We have taken out anything other than what this bill was supposed to be: At what level should government be funded? We have gone back to the House and we said: We are accepting your proposal. We are accepting your number even though we have a different number we want to argue for, and we will save the other arguments for a budget conference if you will finally go to the table with us.

I want to conclude and say that James Madison was right, and not because he was a Virginian. He was just right to recognize that compromise is the essential element of our system. Think about it for a minute. If you set up a government, you have three different branches. The legislative branch has two Houses. You have to find compromise between the two Houses to move forward.

The Supreme Court in the judiciary has nine Justices. They have to work together and find a compromise, or a consensus, by a majority on any case.

Even the President's power, which is unilateral so it seems as though it is not a compromise branch because we put the executive powers in the President's hands. How do we choose the President? We choose the President through the fundamental constitutional compromise of the electoral college. So the choice of a President is based on compromise.

The entire constitutional system we have requires compromise. The Senate was willing to compromise and go to a budget resolution, and we have been blocked by the House. The Senate was willing to compromise and accept the House's budget number and they have not been willing to say yes even to their own budget number.

We stand here tonight at 5:27 p.m. ready to compromise, and we will be ready the next hour to compromise. We will be ready to compromise and find a deal to keep this government open every minute, every second, from now until we get this right. But we do feel very strongly that no one should threaten to shut down the government of the United States.

If a foreign enemy threatened to shut us down, we would unify, as we have so many times, to repel that threat. But we are allowing elected Members of Congress to threaten to shut down this body, the government of the greatest Nation on Earth? It is unfathomable to me. The only way I understand it is in exactly the terms Michael Gerson indicated in the Washington Post. This is not fundamentally about the Affordable Care Act or a debate about the budget. It is a fundamentally an attack by some upon the very notion of compromise that is at the core of our system of constitutional government.

I stand on behalf of Virginians--and I don't think Virginians are different from the rest of America--by saying we have to be willing to compromise to find the common good. It is my hope that the House, when they act tonight, will act in the spirit of compromise and the common good and allow this government to remain open.

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

I thank the Senator.

I would ask the Senator to yield for a series of questions around two issues--first, comments the Senator made earlier about helpful reforms that could be made to the health care system and, second, the Senator's comments about the need for Members of this body to listen to their constituents. Being in the chair and hearing the Senator, I could not resist but to follow up on those two items.

On the issue of reforms, I understood one of the Senator's points to be that a helpful reform might be for Congress to take up and potentially eliminate the current prohibition of purchasing insurance across State lines. Did I hear that correctly?

In addition, I think I understood, and I agree with a comment the Senator made about potential reforms--that even the whole notion of health care provided through employers is a little bit of a historical anomaly that came up in the aftermath of World War II.

I was not sure if the Senator was suggesting that as part of a health care reform he would want to alter that norm of employers providing at least some health care provision for their employees.

I say to the Senator, you engaged in a colloquy with the Senator from Illinois about a provision that I wanted to follow up on.

Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, it was completely lawful and, in fact, common for insurance companies to turn down individuals for insurance because of preexisting health conditions. I do not think--but I want to make sure about this--I do not think the Senator was arguing that we should go back to that day and that we should go back to a status quo where children would be turned down for health insurance because of preexisting health care conditions.

Does the Affordable Care Act require that insurance be provided to folks despite preexisting conditions at the same rate across the board?

So then, to make sure I understand, the Senator is opposed to the provision in the current Affordable Care Act that requires insurance companies to write insurance to individuals within those limitations, regardless of preexisting conditions.

If I could, let me ask: A reform in the Senator's view that might encompass a different solution for the preexisting condition or an ending of the ban on interstate purchasing of insurance, if we get through this week and we are into next week and ObamaCare has not been defunded and we have funded government operations going forward, the Senator could introduce a reform bill proposing to do just those things, could he not?

I say to the Senator, if we get to that point and he introduces affirmative legislation to reform the health care system-- after we get through this debate--that would be legislation that would not be connected to the question, the existential question, of whether the government would continue to operate on October 1. So it would not be integrally wrapped up with sort of a threat to the economy that would be posed by a potential government shutdown, and it could be analyzed just on its own merits: Is this a good reform or a bad reform, without being wrapped around the question of whether we would shut down the government and do we lay off or put on some kind of furlough the nurses at Fort Belvoir Hospital who are taking care of wounded warriors every day. That would be a reform bill where we could dig into the reform and talk about the reform and analyze what is good and what is bad and what should be fixed and maybe what should not be, without it being wrapped around the question of a government shutdown.

Would the Senator not agree with that?

I ask the Senator, would he not agree that the best way to avoid a government shutdown or threats of a government shutdown or talking about the consequences of a government shutdown would be to separate out his question of what are the right reforms of the health care system from the funding of government operations?

So the Senator will not vote to continue government operations unless ObamaCare is defunded?

I want to switch and ask the Senator a question about ``MakeWashingtonListen.'' That is the second piece. If the Senator will let me get back into a little bit of campaigning activity, he and I were candidates at the same time in 2012, and I gather that he told his constituents that he was opposed to ObamaCare and that he would vote to repeal or defund it if he were elected to office. Is that correct?

I believe I am correct that the Senator won his election not by a small margin but by a large margin. Is that correct?

Would it be fair to say that part of the Senator's mission here is he told his voters what he would do. They knew what the Senator would do and chose him to do the job. One of the things the Senator is doing today on the floor with this effort is to basically live up to the promise that he made to them, and the mandate that they gave to him?

Let me offer a hypothetical situation. Contemplate another State and another race between two candidates, where one candidate took the strong position that ObamaCare should be repealed and the other candidate took the strong position that ObamaCare should not be repealed. In that State, the candidate that won by a sizable margin was the candidate who said ObamaCare should not be repealed, having been plain about it with the voters, and the voters having heard the choices and made a choice. Does the Senator think it is also the case that a Senator in that hypothetical State should come to the body and do what he said he was going to do for his voters?

The last thing I would ask the Senator is--the three Senators who are now in the Chamber are each from different States. We all ran in 2012. I do not know about the presiding officer's situation. I was in that hypothetical, as you understand, running against a candidate who promised to repeal ObamaCare. I promised to work on reform efforts but to reject any effort to repeal or defund ObamaCare. The voters of Virginia chose the candidate who was not for repeal of ObamaCare. I do not know if it was the same situation in Connecticut or not. I suspect it probably was. We each represent one State.

There was also a national election in 2012, between a candidate, a President, who said that the Affordable Care Act was the law of the land and I am willing to work on it and improve it, but I will fight against efforts to repeal it or defund it, and a candidate who pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

An election result in a Presidential election is listening to America, I believe. I am a believer in this system. I am a believer in democracy and the power of Presidential elections and mandates. I think the result in that election between the candidate who promised to maintain the Affordable Care Act and work to improve it and the candidate who promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act was not particularly close. I think it was a 53 to 47 percent election among the large size of a national electorate, rejecting the repeal of the Affordable Care Act position.

Is that something that this body should at least consider or take into account as we wrestle with this question?

I have a comment and a final question. I am not skilled at how campaigns are run, but I would challenge the Senator's assertion. I think virtually everyone in the country who voted in the Presidential election in 2012 knew that one candidate, the President, would fight to maintain the Affordable Care Act, and another pledged to repeal it.

How much they did it in ads and on TV I cannot count. I actually saw a lot of ads about the very subject in the battleground State of Virginia. But I think the voters knew exactly the position of the two candidates on this issue. While it was not the only issue in the campaign, it was an important one. They had that before them as they made the decision.

The last question I will ask is a little bit of a rhetorical one but it is a sincere one. I very much hope that regardless of the outcome of this debate over the next few days--and I strongly want the outcome of this debate to be that government continues and that we continue to provide the services that we need to provide, and that we save the debate about health care reform for another day. But I very much hope that the Senator introduces legislation about health care reform ideas and that the legislation not be wrapped up with the question of whether government should shut down or not but that it be stand-alone legislation, that it not be wrapped up with a question of whether we should default on our debts or not, but that it should be stand-alone legislation.

I have a feeling that there are many Democrats and Republicans that would love to work on reform ideas. In this body and in the House we have a somewhat limited bandwidth. We are trying to deal with a lot of different issues. Health care is a hugely important one.

Its connection to the economy is equally important, and I think there are a lot of Members here who would love to have a debate about reform.

But for the last 3-plus years the only debate has been about the repealing or defunding instead of about reform. That makes it a fairly simple vote for many of us. It makes it a simple vote for many of us who feel as though the will of this body has been expressed, that the Supreme Court has rendered an opinion about the Affordable Care Act, that the American public rendered an opinion about two positions in a Presidential election in 2012.

A defunding repeal strategy, which has been now done four dozen times by the House, is actually a pretty simple thing to move aside based on the foregoing, but if we set aside those efforts and try to take up the kinds of concrete reform ideas the Senator talked about earlier, I actually think there might be a number of things that we could all do together to improve the situation, but we don't need to do it while we are talking about the shutdown of the government or defaulting on America's bills for the first time in our history.

Thank you. I yield the floor, and I yield back.

Madam President, I also rise to speak on the continuing resolution. We are coming up on the 150th anniversary of the most famous speech ever given in America, the Gettysburg Address, delivered by Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg, PA, in November of 1863. In that address, President Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the modern Republican Party, talked about the meaning of the battle and stated that all Americans should resolve that ``government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.''

That is what we are debating today. Should the American government be defunded and shut down? Should our government perish? The answer to this question is easy and obvious: Of course not. Of course not.

If a shutdown threat to the American government were external, because of an act perpetrated by an enemy or anthrax put in the mail and sent to us, the American people would rally with every ounce of their energy to battle against a government shutdown. That is what is so amazing. There is a proposal on the table by a faction of Congress themselves to shut the government down. Not an external enemy but a proposal by Members of Congress, a faction in both Houses, to shut the government down.

Last night on the floor of the Senate, I presided and then I took to my feet and asked the Senator from Texas a basic question: Will you vote against the funding and continuation of government if you do not get your wish on the defunding of ObamaCare? And his answer was very simple: Yes. Yes. In his view, and in the view of others who support this position, after 237 years of our national life, if you do not get your way on one issue that is important to you, it is acceptable to shut down the American government.

Needless to say--and the Senator from Indiana did a good job of saying it--the consequences of shutdown are severe. The 26 days of shutdown in 1995 and 1996 cost taxpayers $1.4 billion by the estimate of the Congressional Budget Office.

As Senator Coats mentioned, our Active-duty military are required to stay on duty, but they do not get paid. Their paychecks get delayed and then we have to come back and try to figure out a way to pay them late. They and their families don't deserve that treatment.

Many civilians working in our military, army nurses, for example, might get furloughed and not paid, as well as cyber security professionals, aviation mechanics, and I mentioned army nurses.

We won't take new applications for Medicare as people become eligible for Medicare. In 1996, 10,000 seniors a day who were becoming eligible for Medicare were turned away every day during the government shutdown. There will be 2.4 million Federal workers who won't get paid in a government shutdown, hurting their families. Many of those get furloughed, so whether it is meat inspectors or cancer researchers or folks who are negotiating trade deals to improve the economy, they will not be able to do the work the Nation needs them to do.

And private businesses, such as the Newport News Shipyard, the manufacturers of the most sophisticated manufactured items on Earth find that their contracts are put in question and their employees are, therefore, put at risk.

A shutdown is a huge blow to our economy and jobs. Make no mistake, these economic consequences of a shutdown are negative. Yesterday the Budget Committee held a hearing. We had both majority and minority witnesses--economists. I asked each of them: Would a government shutdown under current circumstances hurt the economy? They all answered: Yes. I asked them: Is even the threat of a shutdown harmful to the economy? They all answered: Yes.

And furthermore, the economic consequences of a shutdown are even magnified by the economic consequences of a potential default on America's debt. Some are threatening default on America's debt if we don't defund ObamaCare. This is also economically irresponsible--not paying our bills for the first time in 237 years as a Nation. America paid its bills when Washington was burning during the War of 1812. America paid its bills during the Civil War. The entire world knows they can bank on the full faith and credit of the United States. Our Constitution says that the validity of public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.

Those who threaten to repudiate our fiscal obligations or to shut down our government are engaging in economically destructive behavior.

It is painfully obvious we should not shut down government, that we should not default on our fiscal obligations. So why are we even having a discussion about shutdown and default? What has brought us to a place where these unthinkable actions are being discussed and even promoted by some in both Houses of Congress? Simple. Some Members of both Houses are opposed to the Affordable Care Act. They are committed to repealing it or defunding it at all cost, even accepting a government shutdown or default on the debt of this Nation.

What do we say to those who hold that view? First, to be plain, I oppose those who want to defund or repeal the Affordable Care Act, because repealing or defunding it would mean millions of Americans who will be able to access affordable care through health insurance exchanges would lose that ability. It will mean that nearly 7 million young adults would lose coverage they have been able to gain through their family's insurance policies. It would mean seniors would be stripped of Medicare coverage for certain preventive care, and also Medicare coverage to reduce prescription drug costs. It would mean small businesses will lose tax credits they can access if they insure their employees. And this is a personal one to me--I have experienced this in my family--that people with a health history will once again be free to be turned away by insurance companies because they have a preexisting health condition. Consumers who are getting rebates from insurance companies who overcharge them will stop getting rebate checks. In the States that have decided to embrace the Medicaid expansion of the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 5 million people who are now on the verge of being insured will have that protection taken away from them.

So for all those reasons I oppose repeal.

Last year, I told my voters in Virginia that I opposed efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and I had an opponent who pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The voters heard both of those positions and they rejected repeal and they embraced to keeping it in place and improving it.

Last year, the President of the United States campaigned on continuing the Affordable Care Act and being open to improvements. He campaigned against someone who said it should be repealed or defunded, and the American public, by a large majority, said we don't want repeal, we want to continue forward and to reform and improve.

The American public does not want repeal. The American public does not want defunding. The American public does not want default. The American public does not want shutdown. They are open to reform and improvement.

Let me be clear: We should be open to reforming and improving the Affordable Care Act or any other part of our health care delivery system or any other thing we do as government. We need to be open to reform and improvement.

The Senator from Indiana was wrong in one particular thing. Many in this Chamber, including Democrats, have already voted for ACA reforms as part of the budget we passed in March. But the minority party has stopped us from putting that budget into a conference now for more than 6 months. There is a significant group of people in this body who would love to talk about reform and improvements but who reject shutdown and default.

This gets to the nub of the issue. Last night I asked the Senator from

Texas about reforms he was interested in, and he laid a number of them out on the floor. He had some I liked and some I thought were good. I asked the Senator: Have you prepared any legislation to make these reforms? And he answered: I don't currently have a reform proposal but I am going to work with my staff to come up with some reform ideas.

This gets to the nub of the issue. There is a right way to approach health reform. Though I disagree with it, there is also a right way to approach a repeal of the Affordable Care Act or defunding the Affordable Care Act. Here is what you do: If you have a better idea, introduce a health reform bill with your own ideas and try to convince your legislative colleagues that you have a better answer or participate in debate about the budget or about an appropriations bill and make your argument about the appropriate level of funding for the Affordable Care Act.

The Senator from Texas and every legislator has the ability to raise whatever reforms or whatever funding or defunding ideas they want in these ways. Make your case, argue your position, try to convince your colleagues, and then accept the outcome. But do not threaten to shut down the government of the United States if you don't get your way, if you are not able to convince your colleagues that you have a better answer. Do not threaten to default on America's fiscal obligations if you don't get your way, if you can't convince your colleagues that you have a better answer.

There is absolutely no reason to jam your plan to overturn a law passed by Congress, signed by the President, and affirmed by the Supreme Court, into the very gears of the American government. Do not let your opinion on one issue threaten not only government operations but the economy of the United States.

In other words, let's talk about reform. Let's talk about improvements. Let's do it the right way, not the wrong way. Let's separate those discussions out from all the threats of shutdown or default. If we are willing to do that, I think we will be able to get somewhere.

To conclude, I want to go back to where I started. I ask my Senate colleagues, avoid all the brinkmanship and promptly approve a continuing resolution to fund the continuation of American government. Strip away the separate issues that should be debated and considered separately, and let the House vote on the simple question of whether they believe that American government, after 237 years, shall continue. We have come far, we have achieved so much, and we have much work still to do.

Government by, of, and for the people is not perfect and it will never be perfect. But I am resolved--and I hope all my colleagues are resolved--that government by, of, and for the people shall not perish-- not for 1 year, not for 1 month, not for 1 week, not for 1 day, not for 1 hour, not for 1 minute. Government shall not perish on this Earth.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 25, 2013, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorizing Tria: The State of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Market.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 25, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room SD-406 of the Dirksen Senate office building, to conduct a hearing entitled, ``The Need to Invest in America's Infrastructure and Preserve Federal Transportation Funding.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 25, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 25, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on September 25, 2013, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Judicial Nominations.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance be authorized to meet during the

session of the Senate on September 25, 2013, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Assessing the Investment Climate and Improving Market Access in Financial Services in India''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 25, 2013, to conduct a hearing entitled ``State of the American Senior: The Changing Retirement Landscape for Baby Boomers.''

The Committee will meet in room SD-562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building beginning at 2:15 p.m.

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

Madam President, I rise to speak to the grave issue of the Syria resolution currently pending before the body.

It is September 11. I know many Members have expressed thoughts, and we are all thinking about that day and what it means to our country. In a few minutes I will leave and go to the Pentagon to be with Pentagon staffers and family members as they commemorate the anniversary of this horrible tragedy in American life. The shadow of that tragedy and its rippling effects even today, 12 years later, definitely are a matter on my mind and heart as I think about this issue with respect to Syria.

Also on my mind and heart as I think about this grave issue is its connection to Virginia. I believe Virginia is the most militarily connected State in our country. Our map is a map of American military history: the battle at Yorktown, the surrender at Appomattox Court House, the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11. Our map is a map of American military history. We are more connected to the military in the sense that one in nine of our citizens is a veteran. We have Active Duty at the Pentagon, training to be officers at Quantico, the largest concentration of naval power in the world at Hampton Roads. We have DOD contractors. We have DOD civilians such as Army nurses. We have ROTC cadets, Guard and Reserve members, and military families, all of whom care very deeply about the issue we are grappling with as a nation.

I am sure in the Presiding Officer's State, as in mine and across the country, there is a war weariness on this 12th anniversary of 9/11, and that affects the way we look at this question of whether the United States should potentially engage in military action.

I cast a vote last week in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to authorize limited military action, and I have spent the days since that vote talking to Virginians and hearing from them and hearing from some who aren't happy with the vote I cast.

I spent 1 day talking to ROTC cadets at Virginia State University, folks who are training to be officers who might fight in future conflicts for this country. Then I spent Friday in Hampton Roads with veterans and military families talking about the choices before us.

I heard a teenager last night say something that truly struck me. This is a teenager who doesn't have any direct connection to the military herself, no family members in service. But at an event I was attending, she stood and said: I don't know war, but all my generation and I know is war. Think about that: I don't know war, but all my generation and I know is war. During her entire life that she has been kind of a thinking person, aware of the outside world, we have been at war. That makes us tremendously war-weary, and I understand that. So trying to separate out all those feelings and do what is right is hard.

Similar to many Virginians, I have family in the military who are going to be directly affected by what we do or what we don't do. I think about those family members and all Virginians and all Americans who have loved ones in service as I contemplate this difficult issue.

I wish to say three things. First, I wish to praise the President for bringing this matter to Congress, which I believe is courageous and historic. Secondly, I wish to talk about why I believe authorizing limited military action makes sense. Third, I wish to talk about the need to exhaust all diplomatic opportunities and openings, including the ones that were reported beginning Monday of this week by Russia and Syria.

First, on the President coming to Congress. This was what was intended by the Framers of the Constitution; that prior to the initiation of significant military action--and this would be significant by all accounts--that Congress should have to weigh in. The Framers wanted that to be so. They had read history. They knew executives might be a little too prone to initiating military action, and they wanted to make sure the people's elected representatives had a vote about whether an action should be initiated. Once initiated, there is only one Commander in Chief. But at the initiation, Congress needs to be involved. That was the intent from the very beginning of this Nation from 1787. There was an understanding that in an emergency, a President might need to act immediately, but even in that case there would need to be a reckoning, a coming back to Congress and seeking approval of Presidential action.

In my view, the President, by bringing this matter to Congress, has acted in accord with law, acted in accord with the intent of the Framers of the Constitution, and actually has done so in a way that has cleared up some sloppiness about the way this institution and the President has actually done this over time.

Only five times in the history of the Nation has Congress declared war. Over 120 times Presidents have initiated military action without congressional approval--at least prior congressional approval. Presidents have overreached their power, and Congress has often made a decision to avoid being accountable for this most grave decision that we make as a nation.

I praise the President for bringing it to Congress, the people's body, because I think it is in accord with law. But I praise him for a second reason. It is not just about the constitutional allocation of responsibility. Responsibilities were allocated in the Constitution, in my view, for a very important moral reason. The moral reason is this: We cannot ask our men and women in service to put their lives on the line if there is not a consensus of the legislative and executive branches that the mission is worthwhile.

That is why it is important for Congress to weigh in on a decision to initiate military hostility because, absent that, we face the situation that would be a very real possibility in this instance that a President would make a decision that an action or a war was worth fighting but a Congress would not support it. That would put the men and women who have to face the risk

and potentially risk their lives in a very difficult situation. If we are going to ask people to risk their lives in any kind of a military action, we shouldn't be asking them to do it if the legislative and political branches haven't reached some consensus that it should be done.

That is the first point I wish to make. I wish to thank the President for cleaning up this sloppiness in the historical allocation of responsibilities between a President and Congress, for taking a historic step--as he said he would as a candidate--of bringing a question such as this to Congress.

We may be unable to act in certain cases because we are divided. But if we act and we act united, we are much stronger both militarily and in the moral example that we pose to the world. It is the right thing to do for the troops who bear the burden of battle.

Second, I wish to talk about the actual authorization. We grappled with this. The news came out about the chemical weapons attack on August 21, and 18 of us members of the Foreign Relations Committee returned last week. The Presiding Officer came and attended some of our classified meetings. We grappled with the question about whether in this circumstance a limited military authorization was appropriate, and I voted yes. I voted yes for a very simple reason. I believe there has to be a consequence for using chemical weapons against civilians.

It is pretty simple. There are a lot of nuances, a lot of subtleties, and a lot of questions about whether the plans might accomplish the particular objective we hope. Those are all legitimate questions. But at the end of the day, I feel so very strongly that if chemical weapons have been used--and in this case they were and used on a massive scale and used against civilians--there must be a consequence for that. There must be a sharp consequence for it. If there isn't, the whole world will be worse off.

I believe that if the United States acts in this way to uphold an important international norm--perhaps the most important international norm that weapons of mass destruction can't be used against civilians-- if we act to uphold the norm, we will have partners. How many partners? We will see. Maybe not as many as we would wish, but we will have partners. But I am also convinced that if the United States does not act to uphold this principle, I don't think anyone will act. If we act, we will have partners; if we don't, I don't think anyone will act. That is the burden of leadership that is on this country's shoulders.

We know about the history of the chemical weapons ban, and we are so used to it that it seems normal. But just to kind of step back from it, if we think about it, it is not that normal at all.

The chemical weapons ban came out of World War I. World War I was a mechanized slaughter with over 10 million deaths, a slaughter unlike anything that had ever been seen in global history. There were all kinds of weapons used in World War I that had never been used before, including dropping bombs out of airplanes. Dropping bombs out of airplanes, new kinds of artillery, new kinds of munitions, new kinds of machine guns, chemical weapons, all kinds of mechanized and industrialized weapons were used in World War I. The American troops who served in 1917 and 1918 were gassed. They would be sleeping in a trench, trying to get a couple hours of sleep, and they would wake up coughing their lungs out or blinded--or they wouldn't wake up because some of the gases were invisible and silent. With no knowledge, you could suddenly lose your life or be disabled for life because of chemical weapons.

The number of casualties in World War I because of chemical weapons was small as a percentage of the total casualties. But it is interesting what happened. After World War I, the nations of the world that had been at each other's throats, that had battled each other, gathered a few years later. It is interesting to think what they banned and didn't ban. They didn't ban aerial bombardment. They didn't ban machine guns. They didn't ban rockets. They didn't ban shells. They didn't ban artillery. But they did decide to ban chemical weapons. They were able to all agree, as combatants, that chemical weapons were unacceptable and should neither be manufactured nor used.

It can seem maybe a little bit illogical or even absurd: Why is it worse to be killed by a chemical weapon than a machine gun or by an artillery shell? I don't know what the logic is to it. All I can assume is that the experience of that day and moment had inspired some common spark of humanity in all of these cultures and combating nations, and they all agreed the use of chemical weapons should be banned heretofore on the Earth.

Nations agreed with that ban. The Soviet Union was on board. The United States was on board. So many nations were on board. Syria ultimately signed that accord in 1968. Even in the midst of horrific wars where humans have done horrific things to each other, since 1925 and the passage of the ban, the ban has stuck. The international community has kept that ember of humanity alive that says these weapons should not be used, and only two dictators until now have used these weapons--Adolph Hitler using these weapons against millions of Jews and others and Saddam Hussein using the weapons against Kurds, his own people, and then against Iranians in the Iraq-Iran war.

When we think about it, it is pretty amazing. With all the barbarity that has happened since 1925, this has generally stuck, with the exception of Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein, until now. The beneficiaries of this policy have been civilians, but they have also been American service men and women. The service men and women who fought in World War I were gassed from this country, but the Americans who fought in World War II, in Europe and North Africa and the Pacific, who fought in Korea, who fought in Vietnam, who fought in Afghanistan, who fought in Iraq, who fought in other minor military involvements have never had to worry about facing chemical weapons. No matter how bad the opponent was, American troops haven't had to worry about it, and the troops of other nations haven't had to worry about it either. This is a very important principle, and it is a positive thing for humanity that we reached this accord and we have honored it.

So what happens now if there isn't a consequence for Bashar al- Assad's escalating use of chemical weapons, to include chemical weapons against civilians.

What happens if we let go of the norm and we say: Look, that may have been OK for the 20th century, but we are tougher and more cynical now. There are not any more limits now, so we don't have to abide by any norms now. What I believe the lesson is--and I think the lessons of history will demonstrate that this will apply--is that an atrocity unpunished will engender future atrocities. We will see more atrocities in Syria against civilians and others. We will see more atrocities abroad. We will see atrocities, and we will have to face the likely consequence that our servicemembers, who have not had to face chemical weapons since 1925, will now have to prepare to face them on the battlefield.

If countries can use chemical weapons and there is no serious consequence, guess what else they can do. They can manufacture chemical weapons. Guess what else. They can sell chemical weapons and proliferate chemical weapons. It is not just a matter that the use of chemical weapons would be encouraged, but the manufacture and sale of chemical weapons by individuals or companies or countries that want to make money will proliferate.

This has a devastating potential effect on allies of the United States and the neighbors around Syria such as Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey. It would have a devastating impact on other allies, such as South Korea, that border nations that use chemical weapons. It could encourage other nations that have nonchemical weapons of mass destruction, for example, nuclear weapons, to think that the world will not stand up, there is no consequence for their use so they can violate treaties, violate norms, and no one is willing to stand and oppose it.

That was the reason I voted last week in the Foreign Relations Committee for this limited authorization of military force. I was fully aware the debate on the floor might amend or change it, and I was open to that possibility. But I thought it was important

to stand as a representative of Virginia and a representative of this country to say: The use of chemical weapons may suddenly be OK in the 21st century for Bashar al-Asad, it may suddenly be OK to Vladimir Putin and others, but it is not OK to the United States of America, and we are willing to stand and oppose them.

The limited military authorization that is on this floor, as the Presiding Officer knows, talks about action to punish, deter, and degrade the ability of the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons. The goal is to take the chemical weapons stockpile of that nation out of the battlefield equation. The civil war will continue. We don't have the power, as the United States, to dictate the outcome of that war. But chemical weapons should not be part of that war, and they should not be part of any war.

The authorization was limited. There will be no ground troops. It was limited in scope and duration, but make no mistake, the authorization was a clear statement of American resolve that there has to be a consequence for use of these weapons in violation of international norms that have been in place since 1925.

Finally, I want to talk about diplomacy and the urgent need that I know we all feel in this body, and as Americans, to pursue diplomatic alternatives--including some current alternatives on the table--that would be far preferable to military action. It is very important that we be creative. It is very important that we have direct talks with the perpetrators and enablers of these crimes, but also important to look to intermediaries and independent nations for diplomatic alternatives.

We have been trying to do so until recently and have been blocked in the United Nations. But the authorization for military force actually had that as its first caveat. The authorization said: Mr. President, if this passes, we authorize you to use military force, but before you do, you have to come back to Congress and stipulate that all diplomatic angles, options, and possibilities have been exhausted.

So on the committee, and with the wording of this authorization, we were very focused on the need to continue a diplomatic effort, and that is why it was so gratifying on Monday, on my way back to DC after a long week, to hear that Russia had come to the table with a proposal inspired by a discussion with administration figures. It is a proposal that the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile--one of the largest in the world--would be placed under international control.

Then a few hours later--and this was no coincidence--Syria, essentially Russia's client state, spoke up and said: We will very much entertain placing our chemical weapons under international control. Syria has even suggested, beyond that, they would finally sign on to the 1990s-era Chemical Weapons Convention. They are one of six nations in the world that refused to sign it. Syria would not even acknowledge they had chemical weapons until 2012--even though the world knew it.

Over the last 48 hours, we have seen diplomatic options emerge that are very serious and meaningful. In fact--and it is too early to tell-- if we can have these discussions and find an accord where Syria will sign on to the convention and put these weapons under international control, we will not only have avoided a bad thing, such as military action, which none of us want unless it is necessary, but we will have accomplished a good thing for Syrians and humanity by taking this massive chemical weapons stockpile off the battlefield and submitting it to international control and eventually destruction.

The offer that is on the table, and the action that has happened since Monday is very serious, very significant, and very encouraging, and it could be a game changer in this discussion. I said it is serious, but what we still need to determine is if it is sincere. It is serious and significant, but obviously what the administration needs to do in tandem with the U.N. is to determine whether it is sincere.

I will conclude by saying I think it is very important for Americans, for citizens, and for the Members of Congress to understand--we should make no mistake about this--that the diplomatic offer that is on the table was not on the table until America demonstrated it was prepared to stand for the proposition that chemical weapons cannot be used.

I have no doubt that had we not taken the action in Congress last week in the Foreign Relations Committee to show America is resolved to do something, if no one else in the world is resolved to do something, at least we would be resolved to do something, had we not taken that action, Russia would not have suddenly changed its position--they have been blocking action after action in the Security Council--and come forward with this serious recommendation. Had we not taken that action, and had they not been frightened of what America might do, Syria--which was willing to use with impunity these weapons against civilians--would not have come forward either.

So American resolve is important. American resolve is important to show the world that we value this norm and we will enforce it, even to the point of limited military action. But even more important, American resolve is important because it encourages other nations--even the perpetrators and enablers of the use of these weapons--to come forward and shoulder the responsibilities they have, or so we pray, in the days ahead.

What I ask of my colleagues and my countrymen is that because it has been our resolve that has produced a possibility for a huge diplomatic breakthrough and win, I ask we continue to be resolved, continue to show strength, continue to hold out the option that there will be a consequence for this international crime, that America will play a leading role in making sure there is a consequence, and as long as we stand strong with this resolve, we will maximize the chance that we will be able to obtain the diplomatic result we want.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 11, 2013, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Department of Homeland Security at 10 Years: Examining Challenges and Achievements and Addressing Emerging Threats.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 11, 2013, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Judiciary Nominations.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Sergio Aguirre, a legislative fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges during morning business today, September 11, 2013.

Mr. President, I also rise to support the nomination of Samantha Power to be our Ambassador at the United Nations. Within the last month I had a unique opportunity as the junior member of the committee that my friend Chairman Menendez chairs, as the head of Foreign Relations, to spend the day at the United Nations and learn about it from then-Ambassador Rice. I left that day with a couple of reactions: first, very proud to be an American, and, second, concerned about the challenges the institution faces.

First, on the proud to be American, I think it is important for us to realize, for whatever its flaws, the United Nations would not exist if it were not for this country. It is a quintessential American idea to pull together an institution that tries to build peace, that tries to solve hunger, that tries to solve global health needs. The idea first gained force through the efforts of American President and Virginian Woodrow Wilson who won the Nobel prize for trying to get the League of Nations going at the end of World War 1. That league lasted for 20 years and collapsed, for many reasons, including the lack of participation in the United States in the global effort. But the idea did not die. The American idea stayed alive, and in 1939 the State Department, within 2 years after the collapse of the league, started to work on the next version. FDR worked on it during his entire Presidency and was scheduled to have the first conference on the United Nations 2 weeks after his untimely death in 1945.

The second decision made by President Truman in 1945--the first was to keep FDR's Cabinet--was he was posed with this: After FDR's death, we can

postpone the meeting in San Francisco about the formation of the United Nations. But Truman said: No, we are going to go ahead because this is something the world needs and America is uniquely positioned to lead.

Ever since its start, in funding and support, through good times and bad, through controversies Senator Rubio described on the floor, this United Nations has worked hard to do good, worked hard to achieve an ideal that may be impossible to achieve. It is a tribute to the U.S. role as a global leader that the United Nations exists today.

I was also struck again by many of the challenges--the challenges of a tough globe, the challenges of U.N. problems in the ethics and finance area, the challenges that confuse many Americans as we look at the U.N., principally those referred to by my colleague Senator Menendez, a history of anti-Semitism at the U.N. that confuses us as we watch it.

What are we to do with this institution that we birthed, more than any other nation, that still offers great hope and service every day, yet still needs significant change? I think what we should do is put a strong person in to be U.S. Ambassador, and Samantha Power is that individual. She has the strength to tackle the challenges that need tackling at the U.N. She has had the career, as described by earlier speakers, as a war correspondent, a writer, somebody who snuck across borders to take photos of atrocities in Darfur and then bring them to the attention of the world. Her writings and her activism have inspired generations of activists around the world to take up the cause of human rights.

She has been the President's senior adviser on matters in the United Nations in the last 4 years. To focus on this issue, here is what Samantha Power has done in that role to help deal with this issue of anti-Semitism at the U.N. and the double standard in the treatment of Israel. She worked to ensure the closest possible cooperation between the United States and Israel at the U.N., where she championed efforts to stand up against attempts to delegitimize Israel. She was key to the decision of the United States to boycott the deeply flawed ``Durban II'' conference in 2009, which turned into an event to criticize Israel. She helped mobilize efforts for the U.N. sanctions against Iran. She has challenged unfair treatment of Israel by U.N. bodies, including the one-sided Goldstone Report, and efforts to single out Israel in the Security Council after the Turkish flotilla incident, and she opposed the unilateral moves in the U.N. by the Palestinians that could undermine prospects for a negotiated peace agreement between Palestine and Israel, and how hopeful we are at the events this week, and we pray it goes forward and finds positive possibility. This is the activity she has had helping the U.N. while she was not the U.N. Ambassador. I want her in that seat so she can carry forward on those initiatives and others.

She will champion efforts to protect persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East and beyond, and she helped spearhead the creation of new tools for genocide prevention and she led the administration's efforts to combat human trafficking, all values of which we can be proud if they would be on display at the United Nations.

I said during her hearing the one thing that made me scratch my head a bit about her when I heard she was nominated is I think of her primarily as a very blunt and outspoken person, and blunt and outspoken is not always the best job description of a diplomat. But in the case of the United Nations, with the challenges there, the challenges in the needed financial reform, the challenges in the need to push back against some instances of anti-Semitism, the challenges of ethics and other issues, we need blunt and outspoken at the United Nation. We don't need vague and ambiguous. We need the kind of strong leadership that Samantha Power would provide.

I think of many United Nations Ambassadors. It has been an ``A'' list of people from Henry Cabot Lodge to President George H.W. Bush before he was President to Bill Richardson and Andrew Young. We can think of many. But the two I think of most--I guess I think of them because they are Irish Americans--when I think of Samantha Power is Daniel Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, strong United Nations Ambassadors who stood proudly for the values of this country, who gave no quarter, who were good diplomats but did not hesitate to call the truth whenever and wherever they saw it. I think Samantha Power will do the same, and that I is why I support her nomination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, my colleague Senator Mark Warner and I are introducing the Commonsense Permitting for Job Creation Act of 2013, a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation to address an aspect of water permitting law that has touched several economic development projects.

In my home State of Virginia, there is a county that has been working on securing a permit for the proposed site of a business center, where one or multiple firms could establish job-creating manufacturing plants. This area--Henry County, on the North Carolina border, has seen profound economic challenges in recent years. The county's 5-year average unemployment rate is 11 percent. In the county's largest city, Martinsville, the 5-year average unemployment rate is over 17 percent. This part of Virginia would benefit greatly from the jobs this site could bring.

Henry County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on site preparation. However, the Corps has been reluctant to issue the permit because no company has yet committed to the site and prepared detailed blueprints. The problem is that a company will not relocate to the site without an approved permit, but a permit cannot be approved without a company willing to relocate.

Henry County, the Martinsville-Henry Co. Economic Development Corp., and the Commonwealth of Virginia have together devoted more than $16 million to this project. They have worked in good faith, at great cost in money and personnel hours, to promote economic development in line with environmental protection and all requirements of the law. Yet due to this regulatory ambiguity, this process is unable to move forward.

Our legislation clarifies that ambiguity. It specifies that the lack of a committed end-user shall not be a reason to deny a Corps permit that meets all other legal requirements. I believe this bill will allow the site in Henry County, and similar sites elsewhere, to move forward, while maintaining all environmental protections.

Senator Warner and I have introduced this legislation in partnership with our friends and Virginia colleagues in the House, U.S. Representatives Robert Hurt and Morgan Griffith. We believe this will expedite the approval of important economic development projects, and we are proud to be able to work across the aisle and with state and local officials on this commonsense, bipartisan solution.

Mr. President, today, my colleague Senator Mark Warner and I are introducing the Commonsense Permitting for Job Creation Act of 2013, a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation to address an aspect of water permitting law that has touched several economic development projects.

In my home State of Virginia, there is a county that has been working on securing a permit for the proposed site of a business center, where one or multiple firms could establish job-creating manufacturing plants. This area--Henry County, on the North Carolina border, has seen profound economic challenges in recent years. The county's 5-year average unemployment rate is 11 percent. In the county's largest city, Martinsville, the 5-year average unemployment rate is over 17 percent. This part of Virginia would benefit greatly from the jobs this site could bring.

Henry County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on site preparation. However, the Corps has been reluctant to issue the permit because no company has yet committed to the site and prepared detailed blueprints. The problem is that a company will not relocate to the site without an approved permit, but a permit cannot be approved without a company willing to relocate.

Henry County, the Martinsville-Henry Co. Economic Development Corp., and the Commonwealth of Virginia have together devoted more than $16 million to this project. They have worked in good faith, at great cost in money and personnel hours, to promote economic development in line with environmental protection and all requirements of the law. Yet due to this regulatory ambiguity, this process is unable to move forward.

Our legislation clarifies that ambiguity. It specifies that the lack of a committed end-user shall not be a reason to deny a Corps permit that meets all other legal requirements. I believe this bill will allow the site in Henry County, and similar sites elsewhere, to move forward, while maintaining all environmental protections.

Senator Warner and I have introduced this legislation in partnership with our friends and Virginia colleagues in the House, U.S. Representatives Robert Hurt and Morgan Griffith. We believe this will expedite the approval of important economic development projects, and we are proud to be able to work across the aisle and with state and local officials on this commonsense, bipartisan solution.

I have no objection.

I thank the majority leader for his kind words.