Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, tomorrow the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a piece of legislation that many in this body on both sides of the aisle have worked on and that the majority leader of the Senate has described as the single most important piece of legislation that will pass this year. We call it the 21st Century Cures Act, and it includes three mental health reform acts--the most significant reforms in mental health programs in 10 years. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks the more than 200 organizations from all across the country supporting the 21st Century Cures legislation. Why would the majority leader say it is the most important legislation the Senate might act on--because we do a lot of important stuff around here, whether it is Defense authorization, whether it is cyber security, whether it is the bill to fix No Child Left Behind that we passed in a bipartisan way last December. I think it is because this legislation will affect virtually every American family because we are entering the most exciting period of medical research in our country. That is the first part of it. The second part, which has to do with mental health, affects so many families. We know that about one out of every five adult Americans suffers from some form of mental illness. This concentrates a large amount of money we actually spend on mental health programs every year from the Federal Government and spends it in a more effective way to actually help people. In the next few minutes, I would like to acquaint the Senate again with how we have gone about this and remind Senators of how many of us have had a hand in this legislation. It is a remarkable 2 years of work that has involved many, many, many hearings, dozens of meetings, and that has been done in a large committee of 22 Senators of very different points of view in a largely bipartisan way. I will summarize. The first thing I would mention, the legislation includes $6.3 billion of funding and $1 billion of that is for State opioid grants. Whether it is Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island or Senator Ayotte and Senator Portman, probably most Senators of this body have seen on the front pages of their newspapers the tragedies of opioid abuse. I know that is true in Tennessee. This bill helps in two ways. The most immediate way is to provide State grants--Federal dollars to go to States--over the next 2 years to help States fight opioid abuse. The other way it helps, when we get to the part about 21st Century Cures, is that Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health--Dr. Collins calls it the ``National Institutes of Hope''--says that one of the groundbreaking discoveries we expect to happen in this country is a non-addictive pain medicine. The problem with opioids is, they are addictive. Now, people need it. If you have a back surgery or if you have terrible pain, opioids can help people. We know that, but it is addictive and it is causing problems. What if we had non- addictive pain medicine? So this bill helps that in two ways. There is other funding in this legislation: $4.8 billion to the National Institutes of Health. The first 1.8 billion of that is for Cancer Moonshot. This is Vice President Biden's initiative. He is motivated for many reasons by it. His son died of cancer. Many of us have family members or friends with cancer. There are startling discoveries going on in cancer today. This is $1.8 billion in support of the Vice President's Cancer Moonshot. Then there is $1.4 billion for the Precision Medicine Initiative. This is one of President Obama's most important initiatives. I know he has said that very realistically he expects it to happen anyway, but he would like to move it along. This helps move it along. What this means is that if the Senator from Oklahoma and I each have a disease, that because of our genetic background, the medicine we might get for that disease should be different. If we know that genetic difference between the two of us, the doctor can prescribe for it. That is called personalized medicine or precision medicine. Then there is $1.6 billion for the BRAIN Initiative. This includes groundbreaking research in Alzheimer's, for example. I talked to one drug manufacturer that has spent more than $1 billion trying to develop a medicine that will help identify Alzheimer's before it shows symptoms and then another medicine that will slow the progression of Alzheimer's. Imagine what could happen in our country if, for the tens of millions of Americans who are going to suffer with Alzheimer's, we could find that out before they actually have the symptoms and we can then slow down the progression of Alzheimer's. Think of the suffering that would help avoid. Think of the billions of dollars it would save. This is for that kind of research. Dr. Collins says that during this next 10 years, he expects that we will be able to identify individuals at high risk for Alzheimer's before any symptoms appear and provide them with effective medicines to slow or prevent the disease. It also includes $500 million for the Food and Drug Administration to help pay for the extra work we are giving the FDA. One Senator was on the floor talking about this bill and suggested this isn't enough money. Let's talk about money just a minute. The United States spends more on biomedical research and development than Europe, Japan, and China--almost as much as those three put together. There has nevertheless been a real need for increased funding for the kinds of things I just mentioned, but the way we do things here is, we have authorization bills, which this is, where we decide what our policies and our programs are going to be. Some of us are on those committees--like the committee I chair, and of which Senator Murray of Washington is the ranking Democrat, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in this case. Then we have Appropriations Committees that decide how much we can afford to spend on that. We do that separately. Last year, this Congress, a Republican majority, I would point out-- but Senator Blunt, chairman of the Appropriations Committee for the Senate, would quickly give Senator Murray, the ranking Democrat, full credit--added $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health budget for 1 year. That means $20 billion over 10 years. This year, the same Republican Congress, with the cooperation of the Democratic Members, added another $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health budget. That is another $20 billion over 10 years. The Cures legislation that I have just described is another $5 billion. So that--20, 20, and 5--adds up to 45 billion new dollars approved. The first $20 billion is law, the second $20 billion has just been approved by the Appropriations Committees--hopefully it will become law--and the $5 billion I just described. Now, that is real money. It is unusual to find an appropriations bill stuck on an authorization bill, but we have done it this time because this is an unusual opportunity, and we have done it in a way that Speaker Ryan and the House of Representatives believe is fiscally responsible. That means it doesn't add any new mandatory spending. That kind of spending has the budget going through the roof so it doesn't do that. It means it is paid for. That means we have reduced other spending to pay for it. When we look at the entire budget, it doesn't add a penny to the entire budget--we call it the discretionary plus the mandatory part--because it is paid for by reducing other spending. We have set priorities, we have done our job, and the Appropriations Committee has done its job in consecutive years, approving $20 billion more over 10 years for the National Institutes of Health and will add another 5 here just to the National Institutes of Health. Let's talk about the bipartisan nature of this bill. I am going to go through this fairly quickly, but for those watching, I think it is important to see this because sometimes when bills are popular--and I think this one will be popular. Everyone says: Well, that is easy. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will vote on the 21st Century Cures bill. It includes the mental health bill--that I will describe in just a minute. I think it will be on suspension, which means they expect a big vote over there. I expect a big vote over here because I don't expect many Senators would want to vote no on a $1 billion grant program that will fight opioid abuse in their home State. I don't think there will be a lot of Senators who want to vote no on more money to fight cancer and to help the Vice President with the Cancer Moonshot. I suspect there will be a lot of Senators who want to vote yes to help the President advance his precision medicine legacy. I know there are families affected by Alzheimer's all over the country who hope Senators vote yes on the BRAIN Initiative. I imagine we will get a big vote when it comes up next Monday and Tuesday, after the House passes it tomorrow, but as we put this bill together, there was plenty of controversy, there was plenty of conflict, but virtually everything we did was bipartisan. The money I just described is certainly bipartisan--the President's initiative, the Vice President's initiative, the opioid initiative. That is bipartisan, but look at the bills we are talking about. Here is one called the Advanced Targeted Therapies, which allows researchers to use their own data from previously approved therapies to help find a faster treatment for serious genetic diseases--Senator Bennet, Democrat; Senator Warren, Democrat; Senator Burr, Republican; Senator Hatch, Republican--and it passed by voice vote. I am very quickly going to go through 19 different bills that are the core of the 21st Century Cures legislation. They came out of our committee which has 22 Members, and the largest number of recorded votes against any one of those 19 bills was two because every single one of these bills had a Democratic sponsor and a Republican sponsor, except for one, and that was Senator Murray's bill, and she is the ranking Democrat on our committee. So don't let anyone suggest that a bill that has $6.3 billion of appropriations, that include Democratic priorities and bipartisan priorities, and the core of it is 19 bills of FDA and NIH reform that has a Democratic sponsor for every single bill and that was approved by a 22-member committee and only had two recorded votes against it--was the most that was against it--don't let anybody say this is not a bipartisan bill. Anyone who says that simply hasn't spent the time to be involved in the process. Let's go to the next one. Burr and Franken, Republican and Democrat, FDA Device Accountability. It will bring innovative devices like artificial knees and insulin pumps to patients more quickly by getting rid of unnecessary regulations. One of the major things we need to do--and we do it in this bill--is to bring cures and discoveries through the regulatory process more quickly and at less cost. All of us are concerned about the price of drugs. One factor contributing to that cost is that it takes a billion dollars and 13 or 15 years to take a new discovery through the process. We would like to shorten that process as long as we can do it in a way that ensures that it is safe. The next one is called the Next Generation Researchers Act--Senator Baldwin, Democrat; Senator Collins, Republican. It improves opportunities for our young researchers. It was passed by voice vote. That means there was no objection. The next one is called the Enhancing Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health--Kirk, Republican; Bennet, Democrat; Hatch, Republican; Murkowski, Republican; Republicans Isakson and Collins. Enhancing Rehabilitation Research was passed by voice vote. Neurological Diseases Research. Here we have Isakson and Murphy, Republican and Democrat, advancing Research for Neurological Diseases. The next one has do with superbugs and protecting patients. You know about these. You get an infection, and you take a medicine to treat it, but the medicine doesn't work because the infection is a superbug. This bill will clarify that the FDA requires cleaning and validation data for reusable medical devices. In other words, this will make it less likely that will be a problem. That is Senator Murray's bill. Improving Health IT. This is about electronic health records. The government has spent a huge amount of money on that, over $32 billion, including hospitals and doctors to adopt electronic medical records. It is very important to precision medicine, to personalized medicine, because if you can't use all this data, a doctor is not going to prescribe something for the Senator from Oklahoma that is different from something for the Senator from Tennessee. We found that the electronic medical records system was a mess. We had six hearings on it, and we worked with the Obama administration because they could do some things to fix it and we could do some things to fix it. I thank Secretary Burwell in the Obama administration--I thank her and Andy Slavitt at CMS for the efforts they have made to do what they could do. And these are the things that we could do. Senator Murray was involved, Senator Cassidy, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Hatch, Senator Bennet. It was a bipartisan effort to reduce physician documentation burden--electronic health records to make it more interoperable and to get this system moving again. Advancing Breakthrough Medical Devices. One of the great successes we have had in legislation was a few years ago when Senator Bennet and Senator Burr, among others, introduced a bill and made it law that brought breakthrough medicines through the Food and Drug Administration more rapidly. More than 49 have been approved and 464 requests for breakthrough designation in about 4 or 5 years. We are applying that same breakthrough strategy to medical devices. Of course, we have bipartisan support for that. The Advancing Hope Act. If you are a parent of a child with a rare disease, such as brain cancer, this increases the opportunity that the drugs will help. Medical Electronic Data Technology. We had Senator Bennet, Democrat; Senator Hatch, Republican. Medical Countermeasure Innovation Act. This is very important. Senators Burr and Casey have been real leaders in dealing with medical countermeasures. These are in case there is a bioterror attack, anthrax--some kind of man-made or naturally-occurring problem like that. Are we ready to deal with that? This helps to do that. There are just a few more. Some will say: Why are you going on for so long? Because I would like for people to know when it happens that this Senate is capable of taking a great big, complex subject, and Democrats and Republicans are capable of working together to produce a result that deserves a big vote. The Combination Products Innovation Act. This helps to bring to the market a products that are made up of medical devices and medicines. There is a bill by Wicker, Bennet, Collins, Klobuchar, Isakson, and Franken on Patient Focused Impact Assessment. There is one to modernize the FDA workforce. Dr. Califf told us that his biggest problem at the FDA is that he can't hire all the people he needs to deal with all of the exciting things going on. This gives him new authority to do that. Everybody thinks that would be an important thing to do. It was approved by voice vote. Advancing Precision Medicine. This is legislation that I introduced and supported the President's Precision Medicine Initiative, which I have talked about before. There is other legislation that went through. The point of all of this is that 19 different bills are the core of this 21st Century Cures Act. The most recorded number of votes against this bill was two, and every single one was sponsored by a Democrat as well as a Republican, except for one, which was Senator Murray's bill. She is the ranking Democrat on the committee. In conclusion, we are fortunate to be able to add to the bill the Mental Health Reform Act. Actually, we include three mental health bills, and together they make up the most significant reform of mental health programs that we have had in more than a decade. I want to give particular credit to Senator Murphy, Democrat, and to Senator Cassidy, Republican, for working together through some real landmines to get this to a place where it can pass the House almost unanimously and where it will be a part of the bill that we will vote on next week. I want to thank the majority whip, Senator Cornyn, who also added an important judicial part to this legislation and helped us navigate some difficult issues. In other words, these Senators showed that they know how to legislate. They could have stood up and made a speech. They could have insisted on doing things exactly their way, but they said to look for the area where we might agree on 80 percent of the policy and let's agree that. This is one of those bills. Look at the number of Republicans and Democrats who have passed that. Here is the second mental health bill we are talking about. You can see the number of Senators. I have taken some time to go through the legislation that will be coming to the Senate early next week and that will be voted on tomorrow in the House of Representatives. I do think it likely represents, as the majority leader has suggested, the most important piece of legislation that we could act on this year. Because it affects virtually every American family, Forbes magazine reported that 78 percent of the American people favored Congress taking action on medical innovation because they have heard people like Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, talk about within the next 10 years having a Zika vaccine and HIV/AIDS vaccine, identifying Alzheimer's before symptoms appear and slow its progression, an artificial pancreas for those with diabetes, and a non-addictive type of pain medicine. These are magnificent opportunities for us. We have strong leadership at the National Institutes of Health. We have put our money where our mouth is. It is true that we will have to approve it every year, and it is true that we had to reduce other spending in order to have this spending, but that is the way we are supposed to do things. What we have done is take a bipartisan core of bills; we worked hard for two years in a bipartisan way and produced a result that had very few ``no'' votes along the way. It includes Democratic priorities as well as Republican priorities. It has the avid interest of the Democratic President of the United States, the Democratic Vice President of the United States. It is a part of the agenda forward in health care for the Republican Speaker of the House, and the Republican majority leader in the Senate says it is the most important bill we are going to act on. I would think that would get a big vote tomorrow in the House, and I would think it deserves a big vote in the U.S. Senate next week. It has been my privilege to work with Senator Murray and the other members of the Committee on Health, Education, and Labor to produce the bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senate offices have been hearing about something called the overtime rule on a daily basis. We are hearing about it from colleges, universities, Boy Scout troops, church camps, other nonprofits, employers, and employees who don't like to be suddenly considered employees who punch a timecard. Today, I would like to talk about action that Congress can take to change the effect of the overtime rule the administration issued that will go into effect in December unless we do something. The Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford, and the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, introduced legislation that would delay for 6 months the implementation of the rule. I cosponsored that legislation and I fully support it. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill with that same language which would delay for 6 months the implementation of the rule. That would be my preferred solution. Today I am introducing another piece of legislation that addresses the problems with the overtime rule that I hope will gather more bipartisan support. A similar bill was introduced in the House by Democrat Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon and is cosponsored by 10 Democrats and 7 Republicans. My hope is that when we come back in November, Senators on both sides of the aisle will have heard from their Boy Scout troops, from their colleges and universities, from their restaurants, and from their employees, who say: Wait a minute, this overtime rule makes no sense the way it is being implemented. Do something in November to change its negative effect on our country. I am introducing a bill today with the cosponsorship of Senator Collins of Maine, Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, Senator Scott of South Carolina, and Senator Flake of Arizona that will protect America's nonprofits, churches, colleges, and communities from the effect of the administration's overtime rule that will go into effect on December 1 unless we act. When we talk about employers that will be affected by overtime, we are talking about Operation Smile, which is a charity that funds cleft palate operations for children. Operation Smile says this rule may cost them at least 3,000 surgeries a year. The effect of this rule may mean 3,000 children won't have surgeries each year for cleft palates because of the cost of this regulation. We are talking about the Great Smoky Mountain Council of Boy Scouts. That is my home Boy Scout council where I grew up and where I live. They are telling me the new rule will result in about $100,000 in annual costs because during certain seasons employees staff weekend camping trips, which mean longer hours. That is what you do in Boy Scouts, Mr. President--you go on camping trips. And they are not 8-hour trips most of the time. If you are going to start saying they have to pay overtime to Scout masters and others you are going to have fewer boys and girls having a chance for Scouting. Senator Isakson of Georgia spoke on the floor about a phone call he received from the pastor at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, one of the largest Baptist churches in Georgia. That church provides daycare, early childhood development, and sports activities at Vacation Bible School, a 24/7 program for underprivileged kids in the Atlanta area. Under the overtime rule that goes into effect in December, a camp counselor for their Vacation Bible School will have to be paid overtime for many hours of the day when they are with the children, even if they are sleeping. So this rule could price the Johnson Ferry Baptist Church out of the business of providing Bible school church camp for underprivileged children. So there will be fewer cleft palate operations, fewer Scouting opportunities, and fewer church camp opportunities for underprivileged children. Here's what I mean by the overtime rule: Hourly workers in this country are usually paid overtime, but salaried workers generally don't earn overtime unless they are making below a threshold set by the Labor Department and required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today that threshold is a little over $23,000. This new rule issued by the Obama administration just 4 months ago raises the threshold from just over $23,000 to over $47,000 all at once on December 1. In other words, in 3 months it will double. This is a 100-percent increase and on December 1, employers will have had only about 6 months to prepare for this, reclassify employees, put time clock systems in place, adjust workers' schedules, and find new revenue to pay for all of this. It has thrown small businesses and colleges into a panic in the State of Tennessee. One poll released this month found that 49 percent of business owners were not aware of the rule that goes into effect in 3 months. The legislation I am introducing today would stretch out over 5 years the administration's increase in the salary threshold for overtime pay. I have not met many people who don't believe the threshold ought to go up. I have not met many people who think that it ought to be doubled in 6 months and automatically increased every 3 years, or that it should jump so high and all at once. On December 1, under the legislation I am introducing, it would still increase significantly--from $23,660 to $35,984. This is about a 50- percent increase. This bill would modify a rule that many believe goes too high and too fast and will result in employers, nonprofits, colleges, and others cutting workers' hours and limiting their workplace benefits and flexibility, as well as costing students more in tuition. If there is one subject I hear about on the Senate floor, it is Senators from both sides of the aisle saying college costs are too high. Yet the independent colleges and the public colleges of Tennessee have written me and they have detailed how the cost of this rule will have the effect of raising tuition by hundreds of dollars per student. So how can you go around complaining about college tuition increases on the one hand and on the other hand issue a rule that raises college tuition by hundreds of dollars in thousands of schools? My bill will do four things: No. 1, it will modify the rule so that it is phased in over 5 years rather than all at once on December 1. Most people I talk to think it ought to go up, just as I have said, but they do not think it ought to go up all at once. There is no need for that, so phase it in over 5 years. No. 2, make a significant increase on December 1, but then prohibit an increase in 2017 to give employers and employees an opportunity to adjust while our independent government watchdog--the Government Accountability Office, the GAO--studies the impact of the rule on American workers after the first year of implementation. So what I have said is that on December 1, the threshold goes up 50 percent, and then for 1 year it doesn't go up at all while the GAO studies the impact of that increase on colleges, church camps, businesses, workers, and others. No. 3, it would clarify that the administration does not have the authority to automatically increase the overtime threshold, which is currently set to occur automatically every 3 years, starting in 2020. No. 4, it would require a study of the rule's impact after the first year of implementation. If the study finds the impact is negative, the bill will exempt certain employers from future increases--nonprofits, including churches, colleges, and universities; State and local governments; many Medicaid and Medicare eligible facilities, such as nursing homes or facilities serving individuals with disabilities. These are employers who can't just raise prices. They are dependent on tax dollars or on charitable donations. And if they are in trouble because of this rule, our communities will lose critical services-- surgeries for cleft palates, Scouting opportunities, church camps for underprivileged kids, and others. This is not a partisan proposal. My bill is very similar to a bill introduced by House Democrat Kurt Schrader of Oregon and cosponsored by 10 Democrats and 7 Republicans. So my hope is that our Democratic colleagues will take a look at this bill and say that this is a reasonable, bipartisan proposal to apply more common sense to the overtime rule when it comes to the employees, employers, and nonprofits that serve our country. Without these bills, on December 1, the salary threshold for overtime pay will more than double, from just over $23,000 to over $47,000. Representative Kurt Schrader, a Democrat, when he introduced his bill, said the following: Since the Department of Labor's immediate phase-in date was announced, we've heard from business owners and their employees who are worried about implementing this increase overnight. Without sufficient time to plan for the increase, cuts and demotions will become inevitable, and workers will actually end up making less than they made before. Democratic Representative Schrader has 10 Democrats as cosponsors, including Congressman Jim Cooper from my State of Tennessee, who said: I am hearing from lots of Middle Tennesseans who are worried about how this new rule will affect them. The overtime rule hadn't been adjusted in years and needed updating. But it's good to make commonsense changes and add flexibility so the rule works for all businesses and workers can actually have a chance to get ahead. We don't want to see lost hours or shifts in job responsibility. I congratulate Senator Collins of Maine and Senator Lankford of Oklahoma for the legislation they introduced to delay the overtime rule's effect for 6 months. I support that bill, and I am glad the House of Representatives last night passed that bill, but I am also introducing this alternative for those in the body--especially my Democratic friends--who might not be willing to delay the implementation of the overtime rule, who believe it should go up, who believe it should go up as high as the President has proposed but not as fast as the President has proposed, and who believe the rule has created a problem for nonprofits, such as the Boy Scouts, or surgeries for cleft palates or church camps. I hope they will seriously consider the proposal I have made today, along with Senators Collins, Lankford, Scott, and Flake. Over the next 5 weeks between now and the election, we will all be home. We will have a chance to see our Boy Scout leaders. We will have a chance to see our doctors and visit our churches. We can go by our colleges and ask how much this is going to raise the tuition at Maryville College, the University of Tennessee, the University of Wyoming, or wherever we may be. And if the fact is that most Americans feel that to impose this salary threshold on December 1 is too high and too fast, there will be two alternatives when we come back. One is to delay the rule for 6 months, and the other is to raise the threshold just as high as the President proposed but do it over 5 years. Take half of the increase in the first year, no increase the second year, and exempt nonprofits, state and local governments, and many Medicare- and Medicaid-eligible facilities if they are negatively affected. This is similar to the commonsense proposal that Congressman Cooper talked about, that 11 Democrats as well as 7 Republicans have signed on to in the House, and that I hope will have serious consideration here.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Reserving the right to object, as chairman of the Senate Health Committee, I will object, but I will work with the Senators from Pennsylvania, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Vermont to do what we need to do during the rest of the day so that the Senate will be able to adopt an extension of this important program to the end of the year, which I think we should be able to do. I will reserve the remainder of my remarks until the Senator from Massachusetts has a chance to speak. I object.

Mr. ALEXANDER. First, Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Casey and Senator Isakson for doing a terrific job of being excellent Senators and coming up with legislation a couple of years ago that has helped children. We have now heard from the only two U.S. Senators in the whole body, so far, who have voted against this bill this year. We have 22 members on our HELP Committee--Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. We voted to extend this bill another few years because it has been so successful. The vote was 20 to 2. You just heard from those very eloquent Senators. They don't like Republicans, they don't like drug companies, they don't like billionaires, and they asked the question: Well, is anybody listening? I am listening. Whom do we care about? Let's talk about these 7,800 children at St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis. These are children who are very sick. Many of them will die prematurely. Every single one of them has free care at St. Jude's Hospital thanks to the contributions of many people. This is what the doctors at St. Jude's Hospital say about the proposal Senator Isakson and Senator Casey have made that has been in the law since 2012 and received 20 votes in our committee against the two votes of the Senators who are on the floor. St. Jude's doctors who are taking care of these very sick children say: Priority vouchers (PRVs) provide a very powerful incentive to stimulate drug development in rare pediatric diseases. Does anybody care about these children in Memphis-- These aren't some people in Washington, in bureaucracies. These are doctors caring for dying children. The doctors continue: These conditions often lack the market opportunity to attract significant investment, or may present other significant development obstacles and costs that may deter investment from biopharmaceutical companies. We may not like drugmakers, but if we need new drugs for dying children, who is going to make the drugs if the drugmakers don't make them? Some bureaucrat in Washington? Some committee member of the Senate? No, no--someone who knows how to make drugs. This proposal that has been on the books for 5 years says that we will provide an incentive to help these children. It has worked. We voted 20 to 2 in our committee--which is about equally composed of Democrats and Republicans--in favor of extending it. It is important for the American people to know that. According to the doctors at St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis--remember, they have 7,800 very sick children they are caring for today. They say: We have witnessed strong evidence that the programs are working. The Isakson-Casey bill is working. Continuing: Support for the Voucher Program is key to facilitating access to new agents important to improving outcomes in pediatric cancers. We have considered this the way U.S. Senators are supposed to. We brought it up in our committee. We debated it. We had amendments when they were offered. We voted on it, and we voted 20 to 2. The House of Representatives has also considered this legislation. It has enacted this. This would be part of our 21st century cures legislation that we hope the entire Congress will approve before we leave at the end of the year, but the bill expires at the end of this month so we need an extension. Every day we delay creates more uncertainty in the marketplace and makes it less likely that some drugmaker is going to create a new drug to help these children. Now, we may not like drugmakers, some of us; we may not like markets, some of us; we may not like Republicans, some of us; we may not like billionaires, some of us, but if the drugmakers don't make the drugs to help these children, who will do it? When we have an entire committee that has worked through this, I think it is very unfortunate that we don't take the time to extend this for a period of time to create the kind of certainty we need. On the 21st century cures legislation the Senator from Massachusetts, a diligent Senator and a good member of the committee, talked about, apparently, she is not paying much attention to the work we are doing on the bill. It has been my top priority. I have worked on it daily with Senator Murray, the ranking Democrat. I have worked with the President and with the Vice President. We have a bill that the President of the United States would like us to pass because it addresses precision medicine, his top priority. This same bill addresses the Cancer MoonShot, the Vice President's top priority. The Speaker of the House of Representatives is turning somersaults to try to find a way for us to be able to find the money for that, as well as opioids and other important projects we would like to fund. The majority leader of the Senate has said that if we are able to agree on this bill, it will be the most important bill we will pass this year. We are doing a very good job in our committee of getting to the point where we can actually turn something into law that the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the majority leader would all like to see happen. I thank Senator Casey and Senator Isakson for their help in doing this. My hope is that we can work together, finish our work on this, and pass it shortly after we come back in November. My last point, regarding doing nothing on funding, is that I don't know what budgets people are reading. Let's stop and talk about this a little bit. Let's talk about the Food and Drug Administration. According to Mercatus, in 2000, the FDA was funded at a little over $1 billion. In 2015, that number is $4 billion. We are about to look into a series of agreements next year, which we will have a chance to vote on, that will add billions of new funding to the FDA. In our 21st century cures legislation, there are provisions to allow the Commissioner of the FDA to recruit and hire more of the talented experts he needs--another reason we need to pass that bipartisan legislation. What about funding for research in the United States? According to the New England Journal of Medicine, today the United States--both through the government and through our pharmaceutical companies--spends nearly as much on biomedical research as all of Europe, all of Japan, and all of China combined. Let me say that again. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the United States of America--publicly and privately--spends nearly as much on biomedical research as all of Europe, all of Japan, and all of China, combined. In addition to that, I think the number is about $32 billion that we now spend through the National Institutes of Health, mostly on biomedical research at major universities. I try not to spend my time talking about Democrats. I notice my friends on the other side often say Republican, Republican, Republican. I get a little tired of that because we are working together to get something done, but we do have a Republican majority. Last year, it was under the Republican majority that we added $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health. Senator Blunt led that, but I want to give credit to Senator Murray, who is the ranking Democrat on that committee, because without Senator Murray and Senator Blunt, it wouldn't have happened. But give Senator Blunt credit for it, he happens to be a Republican, if we are being partisan about it. How much money is that? That is $20 billion over the next 10 years. This year, the same committee, Senator Blunt of Missouri and Senator Murray of Washington, added another $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health. Over the next 10 years, that is $20 billion more dollars. We are up to $38 billion of new money for the National Institutes of Health over the next 10 years. If anybody has been paying attention to anything I have said over the last 6 months or any of the discussions I have been having with the President, the Vice President, and the House of Representatives in our committee, we have been talking about $6 billion, $7 billion, or $8 billion additional dollars for Cancer MoonShot, for precision medicine, for the BRAIN initiative, for regenerative medicine, and for a number of things that need to be done. This is the most exciting time in biomedical research we have had. What I just added up was $20 billion, plus $18 billion, plus $6 billion or $7 billion. That adds up to $44- $45 billion of new dollars for the National Institutes of Health over the next 10 years. While it took bipartisan cooperation, let's say it: We do have a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, and that is our agenda. That is what we want to do. We just don't talk about it in a partisan way because we usually get better cooperation and better results when we give credit to the other side, which I am pleased to do. Maybe you don't like drug companies. Then who is going to make the drugs? We are not talking about drug companies today. We are talking about 7,800 children who are very sick at St. Jude's Hospital and receiving free care. Their doctors have told us that if we don't pass the Isakson-Casey legislation for several more years, we are going to make it less likely that these children will live--less likely that they will live. That is what we are talking about. We could have a big debate about drug companies. We can raise taxes on billionaires. We can talk about Republicans and Democrats. Let's do that another day. Let's get back to business. Let's do our quiet work in a bipartisan way, which is the way we try to do it in our committee and we have done it. We have had 45 hearings. Forty-one of them have been bipartisan hearings where we have agreed on the witnesses. We get more results than about anybody, but we don't get results by making speeches about each other and making speeches about subjects that aren't the real subject of the day. The real subject of the day is 7,800 very sick children at St. Jude's Hospital. Their doctors are telling us that if we don't continue incentives that are already working, according to these doctors, if we don't provide more incentives to drugmakers to make the drugs for rare diseases that will keep these children alive, then we aren't doing our job. I thank Senators Isakson and Casey. By the end of the day, I hope we have accepted Senator Sanders's motion to extend the program until the end of the year. What I also hope is, when we come back in November, we will have an agreement--as we are perfectly capable of doing--that begins to move treatments and drugs through the FDA more rapidly so they can get into the medicine cabinets and the doctors' offices at a lower cost and more quickly; that we will have several more billion dollars of funding for the National Institutes of Health; that we will focus on the President's Precision Medicine Initiative with some of that money, on the Vice President's Cancer MoonShot with some of that money, on the BRAIN Initiative with some of that money; and that we will give each other a little bit of a pat on the backs for this past year, appropriating $20 billion more over the next 10 years for NIH and putting another $20 billion in appropriations bills this year. I look forward to the end of the day, when hopefully Senator Sanders' motion will be adopted and the Isakson-Casey program, which has worked so successfully for these children, will be extended for long enough to create enough certainty in the marketplace so drugmakers will make rare drugs to help these children live. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I see other Senators on the floor who wish to speak, and I will let them do that. Maybe Senator Casey wishes to conclude. I look forward to working with Senator Sanders. He and I have some different points of view, which I guess is obvious, but we can talk about drug companies. We can talk about the fact that one drug company has spent $3 billion since 1989 on Alzheimer's and is about to offer to the American people a way, for the first time really, to prevent the progression of Alzheimer's, we hope. This is public information currently in clinical trials. Another drug company is about to offer, hopefully, medicine that may actually help Alzheimer's before the symptoms are shown, which would be terrifically important in terms of the grief that we will avoid for Americans and the cost that terrible disease is causing. But that is $3 billion spent without any ``profit'' yet. That is what a marketplace allows. Now, in marketplaces there can be abuses. My point of view is that, generally, what you want to do is have the most amount of competition in the marketplace possible, and that is what we can talk about as we go forward. I don't think we gain much when we give these speeches about Republicans and Democrats. I don't think people like to hear it; maybe they do. I don't give them, but I am doing it today just because I have heard so much of it from the other side. I don't like it, frankly; I don't like it at all. I mean, I never got a result by talking about my opponents' political party. I never moved an education bill through without giving credit to the other side, and a genuine amount of credit. I didn't mention that the President himself, with whom I am working on 21st century cures, proposed in his budget to cut the National Institutes of Health by $1 billion. I could come down here and say that. I could have gone to the committee hearing and said that. I never mentioned it in the hearing because my goal was not to embarrass the President or make a political point. My goal was to see if we could find some consensus to move ahead at the most exciting time of biomedical education. And 20 of the 22 of us voted for this bill. So I would like to ratchet down the partisan rhetoric. If people want to point out the difficulties with drug companies and with the marketplace and with Republicans and billionaires, there is a time and place for that. But today we are talking about these children--the 7,800 children at St. Jude Hospital. Doctors have told us that if we extend the Isakson-Casey bill for a period of time to give enough certainty so that drug makers will make more drugs to deal with rare diseases, these children will live longer. And 20 of the 22 of us agreed with that, and we would like to see it move forward. So I am delighted to work with the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Massachusetts. I am glad we have a temporary solution that will take us through the end of the year, but that is not the best solution because it still provides a lot of uncertainty and will not do as good a job as the doctors say we should do. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from North Dakota would like 2 or 3 minutes to speak. I will be glad to yield to her.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Delaware for his courtesy.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have been listening carefully to my friends on the other side of the aisle. Zika is truly an epidemic. It is terrifying young families all across the country who are worried their babies might be born with a birth defect. We are working hard to fund the creation of a vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that is likely to happen in the next year and a half. It takes a certain amount of creativity for the Democratic Senators to come to the floor and complain about the Senate not doing our job on Zika funding when three separate times the majority leader and Republicans have offered $1.1 billion in funding for Zika, and the Democratic Senators have refused to allow a vote. Let me say that again. Republican Senators had offered $1.1 billion in funding for Zika early in the summer, at a time when mosquitoes were flying, and the Democratic Senators have said: No, you can't even vote on it. This $1.1 billion, passed by the House, we are ready to vote on it here, and they have said no. Let's be straight up about this. We regard it as an urgent problem. Three times we have brought it up. We are ready to vote again if that is what we need to do. (The remarks of Mr. Alexander pertaining to the introduction of S. 3326 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, through the Chair, may I ask a question, which would be that Republican minutes will be----

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Republican minutes be preserved for Senator Thune.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, following the Senator from Delaware, I ask unanimous consent that whatever Republican minutes are remaining would be reserved for Senator Thune.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here to talk about another issue that is also a real emergency. Later today, I will introduce, with other Senators, the State Flexibility to Provide Affordable Health Options Act. This bill addresses a real emergency. It provides immediate relief to families who use their ObamaCare subsidies to buy insurance on failing ObamaCare exchanges for the 2017 health care plan year. Here is an example. If you are a single mother in Memphis who gets an ObamaCare subsidy to buy health insurance for your family, you might have read that Tennessee's insurance commissioner says your rates may be more than 60 percent higher for the same health insurance policy for next year, 2017. You may be eligible for an ObamaCare subsidy. This could soften the blow of some premium increases, but there is also a good chance the insurance you currently have may be gone by this November, 2 months from now, when you sign up for your insurance for next year, 2017. You will have to figure out how to stretch your subsidy dollars as your options shrink. Maybe the new plan options don't include your doctor in their network so you will have to pay higher copays for your office visits. Maybe you need to buy a new plan altogether with new doctors. You can spend the new year trying to move all your records from your child's old doctor to your child's new doctor, if you can get an appointment. This legislation will do two things for you and the nearly 11 million Americans who buy health insurance for themselves or their families on ObamaCare exchanges. No. 1, it gives States with a failing ObamaCare exchange the authority to allow residents to use their ObamaCare subsidy to purchase any health care plan of their choice, even those off the exchange for the 2017 plan year. This opportunity would be available in every single State. It will give Governors the opportunity to step in if he or she determines this emergency relief is ``necessary to ensure that residents of the state have access to an adequate number of affordable private health insurance options in the individual or small group markets.'' This bill means, the mother in Memphis can shop around for a health insurance policy that meets her family's needs but is unavailable on the exchange in Tennessee. When she goes to pay for it, she can use the ObamaCare subsidy currently limited to exchange plans. The second thing this bill does is this. If a State chooses to use this authority to allow residents to use subsidies outside the exchange, the legislation will waive the ObamaCare law's requirement that you must buy a specific health care plan or pay a fine of as much as $2,000 for a family of four next year. In other words, if that mother cannot find affordable insurance options that meet her family's needs, meaning a plan that covers the right doctors and services on the ObamaCare exchange, then she doesn't have to waste her money or the taxpayer's money on a plan she does not want or does not need. She will not be threatened with paying a fine if she doesn't. The individual mandate and its penalty will be lifted. Without this emergency bill, she is locked into a failing exchange. The only place her subsidy works is the exchange, and in the words of Tennessee's insurance commissioner last week, Tennessee's exchange is ``very near collapse.'' ObamaCare is unraveling at an alarming rate. In November, Americans in nearly one-third of the Nation's counties will have only one insurance carrier to choose from, when they have to buy health insurance on their regional ObamaCare exchange. Most Americans on the exchanges will face higher rates. In my home State of Tennessee, residents will see their rates increase between 44 and 62 percent, on the average, next year. So even for a healthy, 40-year-old, nonsmoking Tennessean with the lowest price silver plan on Tennessee's exchange, premiums increased last year to $262 a month. Next year it is $333 a month. Tennessee had to take extreme measures to allow these increases because insurance companies told the State: If you don't let us file for rate increases, we will have to leave. If that happened, Tennesseans might have had only one insurer to choose from. That is what is happening in States all over the country as ObamaCare plans and rates get locked in for next year. According to the consulting firm Avalere Health, Americans buying insurance in one-third of ObamaCare exchange regions next year may have only one insurer to choose from. People buying on an ObamaCare exchange will have only one insurance carrier to choose from in the following States: Alaska, Alabama, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The same Kaiser Family Foundation report found that in a growing number of States, States that have multiple insurers offering plans statewide will have only one insurer selling policies in a majority of counties. Tennessee is one of those States. Last year, Tennesseans could choose ObamaCare plans between at least 2 insurers in all 95 counties in our State. For next year, 2017, it is estimated that 60 percent of Tennessee's counties will have only one insurer offering ObamaCare plans. North Carolina is experiencing the same thing. Next year, 90 percent of the counties in North Carolina are estimated to have only one insurer offering ObamaCare plans, up from 23 percent last year. There is a similar picture in West Virginia, Utah, South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, and Florida. Just last week, the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire published an article with this headline: ``Maine health insurance cooperative leaves N.H. market, reeling from losses.'' That is their headline. The story goes on to describe how this health insurance plan will no longer be operating in New Hampshire after experiencing over $10 million in losses in the ObamaCare exchange over just the first two quarters of this year alone. That move leaves more than 11,000 individuals in the Granite State looking for new health care plans. The bill I am introducing will not fix ObamaCare for Americans. It is not a permanent solution, but it does give the mom in Memphis a real solution for next year, for 2017. It lets her know we are on her side and we have not forgotten her and her family as we seek to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with step-by-step reforms that transform the health care delivery system by putting patients in charge, giving them more choices, and reducing the cost of health care so more people can afford it, which is precisely the alternative Republicans offered in 2008, 2009, and 2010, when ObamaCare was debated and voted in. It also highlights the big structural change we will need to make in the near future to avoid a near collapse of our Nation's health insurance market. Americans get their insurance, our insurance, through many different places, some from Medicare, some from Medicaid, and most from their employers, but nearly 11 million buy their insurance through the exchanges. If the ObamaCare policyholder isn't bearing the cost of the higher premiums I just described, then you--the taxpayer--will because a large portion of ObamaCare premiums are subsidized with tax dollars. There is no excuse for having a failing insurance market where taxpayers are paying most of the bill and costs are so out of control that we may soon have a situation where no insurance company is willing to sell insurance on an ObamaCare exchange. Where does that leave these 11 million Americans? ObamaCare and its one-size-fits all takeover of health care robs States of their abilities to provide access to affordable health care plans in a way that makes sense for their State populations and economies. ObamaCare was supposed to create a marketplace where people would have more access to affordable, private health insurance plans. Robust, private, market competition was supposed to spur innovative insurance design and help drive down costs. But just the opposite has happened, as those stuck in ObamaCare are facing fewer and more expensive options. Long term, Americans should have the freedom to make their own choices about their families' health care needs. But short-term, in November, nearly 11 million Americans need freedom from the ObamaCare exchanges. And this legislation that I will introduce later today with other Senators will provide that immediately.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here to talk about another issue that is also a real emergency. Later today, I will introduce, with other Senators, the State Flexibility to Provide Affordable Health Options Act. This bill addresses a real emergency. It provides immediate relief to families who use their ObamaCare subsidies to buy insurance on failing ObamaCare exchanges for the 2017 health care plan year. Here is an example. If you are a single mother in Memphis who gets an ObamaCare subsidy to buy health insurance for your family, you might have read that Tennessee's insurance commissioner says your rates may be more than 60 percent higher for the same health insurance policy for next year, 2017. You may be eligible for an ObamaCare subsidy. This could soften the blow of some premium increases, but there is also a good chance the insurance you currently have may be gone by this November, 2 months from now, when you sign up for your insurance for next year, 2017. You will have to figure out how to stretch your subsidy dollars as your options shrink. Maybe the new plan options don't include your doctor in their network so you will have to pay higher copays for your office visits. Maybe you need to buy a new plan altogether with new doctors. You can spend the new year trying to move all your records from your child's old doctor to your child's new doctor, if you can get an appointment. This legislation will do two things for you and the nearly 11 million Americans who buy health insurance for themselves or their families on ObamaCare exchanges. No. 1, it gives States with a failing ObamaCare exchange the authority to allow residents to use their ObamaCare subsidy to purchase any health care plan of their choice, even those off the exchange for the 2017 plan year. This opportunity would be available in every single State. It will give Governors the opportunity to step in if he or she determines this emergency relief is ``necessary to ensure that residents of the state have access to an adequate number of affordable private health insurance options in the individual or small group markets.'' This bill means, the mother in Memphis can shop around for a health insurance policy that meets her family's needs but is unavailable on the exchange in Tennessee. When she goes to pay for it, she can use the ObamaCare subsidy currently limited to exchange plans. The second thing this bill does is this. If a State chooses to use this authority to allow residents to use subsidies outside the exchange, the legislation will waive the ObamaCare law's requirement that you must buy a specific health care plan or pay a fine of as much as $2,000 for a family of four next year. In other words, if that mother cannot find affordable insurance options that meet her family's needs, meaning a plan that covers the right doctors and services on the ObamaCare exchange, then she doesn't have to waste her money or the taxpayer's money on a plan she does not want or does not need. She will not be threatened with paying a fine if she doesn't. The individual mandate and its penalty will be lifted. Without this emergency bill, she is locked into a failing exchange. The only place her subsidy works is the exchange, and in the words of Tennessee's insurance commissioner last week, Tennessee's exchange is ``very near collapse.'' ObamaCare is unraveling at an alarming rate. In November, Americans in nearly one-third of the Nation's counties will have only one insurance carrier to choose from, when they have to buy health insurance on their regional ObamaCare exchange. Most Americans on the exchanges will face higher rates. In my home State of Tennessee, residents will see their rates increase between 44 and 62 percent, on the average, next year. So even for a healthy, 40-year-old, nonsmoking Tennessean with the lowest price silver plan on Tennessee's exchange, premiums increased last year to $262 a month. Next year it is $333 a month. Tennessee had to take extreme measures to allow these increases because insurance companies told the State: If you don't let us file for rate increases, we will have to leave. If that happened, Tennesseans might have had only one insurer to choose from. That is what is happening in States all over the country as ObamaCare plans and rates get locked in for next year. According to the consulting firm Avalere Health, Americans buying insurance in one-third of ObamaCare exchange regions next year may have only one insurer to choose from. People buying on an ObamaCare exchange will have only one insurance carrier to choose from in the following States: Alaska, Alabama, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The same Kaiser Family Foundation report found that in a growing number of States, States that have multiple insurers offering plans statewide will have only one insurer selling policies in a majority of counties. Tennessee is one of those States. Last year, Tennesseans could choose ObamaCare plans between at least 2 insurers in all 95 counties in our State. For next year, 2017, it is estimated that 60 percent of Tennessee's counties will have only one insurer offering ObamaCare plans. North Carolina is experiencing the same thing. Next year, 90 percent of the counties in North Carolina are estimated to have only one insurer offering ObamaCare plans, up from 23 percent last year. There is a similar picture in West Virginia, Utah, South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, and Florida. Just last week, the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire published an article with this headline: ``Maine health insurance cooperative leaves N.H. market, reeling from losses.'' That is their headline. The story goes on to describe how this health insurance plan will no longer be operating in New Hampshire after experiencing over $10 million in losses in the ObamaCare exchange over just the first two quarters of this year alone. That move leaves more than 11,000 individuals in the Granite State looking for new health care plans. The bill I am introducing will not fix ObamaCare for Americans. It is not a permanent solution, but it does give the mom in Memphis a real solution for next year, for 2017. It lets her know we are on her side and we have not forgotten her and her family as we seek to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with step-by-step reforms that transform the health care delivery system by putting patients in charge, giving them more choices, and reducing the cost of health care so more people can afford it, which is precisely the alternative Republicans offered in 2008, 2009, and 2010, when ObamaCare was debated and voted in. It also highlights the big structural change we will need to make in the near future to avoid a near collapse of our Nation's health insurance market. Americans get their insurance, our insurance, through many different places, some from Medicare, some from Medicaid, and most from their employers, but nearly 11 million buy their insurance through the exchanges. If the ObamaCare policyholder isn't bearing the cost of the higher premiums I just described, then you--the taxpayer--will because a large portion of ObamaCare premiums are subsidized with tax dollars. There is no excuse for having a failing insurance market where taxpayers are paying most of the bill and costs are so out of control that we may soon have a situation where no insurance company is willing to sell insurance on an ObamaCare exchange. Where does that leave these 11 million Americans? ObamaCare and its one-size-fits all takeover of health care robs States of their abilities to provide access to affordable health care plans in a way that makes sense for their State populations and economies. ObamaCare was supposed to create a marketplace where people would have more access to affordable, private health insurance plans. Robust, private, market competition was supposed to spur innovative insurance design and help drive down costs. But just the opposite has happened, as those stuck in ObamaCare are facing fewer and more expensive options. Long term, Americans should have the freedom to make their own choices about their families' health care needs. But short-term, in November, nearly 11 million Americans need freedom from the ObamaCare exchanges. And this legislation that I will introduce later today with other Senators will provide that immediately.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I object.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, to keep appropriate balance here in the Chamber, the Senate has treated President Obama fairly in terms of his judicial nominations. As the majority leader has pointed out, by comparison, at this point in President Bush's Presidency, the Senate had confirmed 316 of his judicial nominations. As of now, the Senate has already confirmed 329 of President Obama's judicial nominations. So President Obama is ahead of President Bush by that count. In fact, the Senate has already confirmed more of President Obama's judicial nominees than it did during the entirety of President Bush's 8 years in office. Senator McConnell offered an agreement to process a bipartisan package of four more judicial nominations that would include a California judicial nomination, two Pennsylvania judicial nominations, and a Utah judicial nomination, but Democrats objected.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Americans I have talked with are tired of ObamaCare rhetoric. They are worried about the ObamaCare reality. And what is the reality today? The reality is that ObamaCare is unraveling at an alarming rate. There appears to be a very real danger that without structural changes there may be entire States with no insurer willing to sell plans on their ObamaCare exchanges in 2018. We are talking about 10.8 million Americans who buy health insurance for themselves or their families on the ObamaCare exchanges created in each State as a result of the law passed in 2010. What we are saying is there are whole States where these 10.8 million Americans may have no options to purchase health care with ObamaCare subsidies. This unraveling is happening sooner than anyone thought and will require us to act both in the short term and in the long term. If we don't take action in the short term, many Americans will have fewer options and no relief from skyrocketing premium costs. If we don't take action to address the longer term structural failure of ObamaCare, we could have a complete collapse of the individual insurance market. Again, what we mean is that you may be living in a State where you cannot buy health insurance if you rely on an ObamaCare subsidy. The reality of ObamaCare today is alarming even for those of us who have been critical of the law and its thousands of pages of regulations. Before ObamaCare even became law, Republicans warned President Obama and we warned Democrats in Congress that ObamaCare was bad news for Americans. In February of 2010, more than 6 years ago, I spoke for Republicans at a White House summit on health care and warned President Obama that premiums for millions of Americans with individual insurance would rise under his proposal. I was right about that. Republicans warned that ObamaCare would increase the cost of health care, that people would lose their choice of doctors, that policies would be canceled, that people would lose jobs, that taxes would go up, and that Medicare beneficiaries would be harmed. We were right about all of that. Today an alarming number of health care insurance companies are leaving ObamaCare exchanges. Americans are being forced to pay much more in premiums for the same health plans next year. This might be what Republicans predicted, but it is happening even faster than we imagined, and no one is happy about being right. Unfortunately, I don't need to look any further than my home State of Tennessee to see how bad things have become. When Tennesseans woke up on August 24 and read the front page of our State's largest newspaper, they saw this headline: ``Very Near Collapse.'' The story wasn't about a bridge or about a foreign dictatorship. ``Very Near Collapse'' was our State insurance commissioner's description of the ObamaCare exchange in Tennessee, which more than 230,000 Tennesseans--almost a quarter of a million Tennesseans--used to buy health plans last year. What does ``Very Near Collapse'' mean in the real world? This November, when Tennesseans are signing up for 2017 ObamaCare plans, there will be fewer plans to choose from, and they will be much more expensive. That is what it means. This picture will be the same for many Americans across the country. Next year, Tennesseans will be paying intolerable increases--on average, between 44 and 62 percent more for their ObamaCare plans than they paid last year. Even for a healthy 40-year-old, nonsmoking Tennessean with the lowest price silver plan on Tennessee's exchange, premiums increased last year to $262 a month. Next year, it is $333 a month. And if you, the policyholder, don't pay all of it, then you, the taxpayer, will because a large portion of ObamaCare premiums are subsidized with tax dollars. Surely, it is not a valid excuse to say that just because taxpayers are paying most of the bill, that justifies having a failing insurance market where costs are so out of control that we may soon have a situation where no insurance company is willing to sell insurance on an ObamaCare exchange. Tennessee had to take extreme measures to allow these increases because insurance companies told the State: If you don't let us file for rate increases, we will have to leave. And if that happens, Tennesseans might have only one insurer to choose from. That is what is happening in States all over the country as ObamaCare plans and rates get locked in for next year. According to the consulting firm Avalere Health, Americans buying insurance in one-third of ObamaCare exchange regions next year may have only one exchange to choose from. People buying on ObamaCare exchanges will have only one insurer to choose from in the entire State in five States next year: Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The same Kaiser Family Foundation report found that a growing number of States that have multiple insurers have only one insurer selling policies in a majority of counties. Tennessee is one of those States. Last year, Tennesseans could choose ObamaCare plans between at least two insurers in all 95 counties in the State. For the 2017 plan year, next year, it is estimated that 60 percent of Tennessee's counties will have only one insurer offering ObamaCare plans--in other words, no choice. North Carolina is also experiencing a dramatic reduction in options under ObamaCare. Next year, 90 percent of counties in North Carolina are estimated to have only one insurer offering ObamaCare plans, up from 23 percent of counties last year. A similar picture exists in West Virginia, in Utah, South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, and Florida. Just last week, the Concord Monitor, a newspaper in New Hampshire, published an article with this headline: ``Maine health insurance cooperative leaves N.H. market, reeling from losses.'' The story goes on to describe how the Maine-based Community Health Options insurance plan will no longer be operating in New Hampshire after experiencing over $10 million in losses in the ObamaCare exchange over just the first two quarters of this year alone. This move will leave 11,581 individuals in the Granite State looking for new health plans. Politico reports that one Arizona county is ``poised to become an ObamaCare ghost town''--those are Politico's words--because no insurer can afford to sell health plans on the ObamaCare exchange. That leaves 9,700 people in Pinal, AZ, with no ObamaCare plan options in 2017. Millions of Americans need relief from ObamaCare. Here is the action that is needed: First, Americans need immediate relief from the cost of health insurance and the lack of options on the ObamaCare exchanges. We could do that by giving States more flexibility to give individuals and their families options to purchase lower cost private health insurance plans outside of ObamaCare, and we could do that now. I intend to offer legislation that would provide that relief. That is only to deal with the emergency of next year. Second, we need big, structural change in order to avoid a near collapse of our Nation's health insurance market. If there is a Republican in the White House next year, we need to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with step-by-step reforms that transform the health care delivery system by putting patients in charge, giving them more choices, and reducing the cost of health care so that more people can afford it. But if there is a Democrat in the White House, broad systemic, structural changes will still be necessary. Republicans didn't create this problem, but we are prepared to solve it. Democrats want to spend more taxpayer dollars to prop up the exchanges. They want to expand the role of government in your private health care decisions. In an article last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, here is what President Obama wrote: ``I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited.'' Of course, the President's proposal means more money and more government, but Republicans know and Americans have seen over the last 6 years that more money and more government are not the solution; they are the problem. We saw the problem ahead of time. We warned about it. We criticized the poor regulations that made a bad law even worse. Now, we are ready to take action. We are ready to do something about this emergency--both for next year and for the longer term. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here for another reason, but I am listening to the distinguished majority whip, the Senator from Texas. I congratulate him on his remarks and make an observation. I was once the Republican Governor in a State that had a Democratic legislature. If I had gone around the State for the first 4 years of my term announcing that we could not get anything done because I could not work with the Democratic legislature, I think about half the people would have said: Well, maybe we need another Governor. Maybe we need someone who has the capacity to work with people and get results. So I have never understood the strategy that exists--I hope temporarily--on the other side of the aisle of telling the American people the Senate can't function. That does not bring any respect and credit to this body. It does not help the Democrats to say that. It does not help the Republicans. All it does is cause the American people to think that those of us whom they elect are not capable of working together to get a result, when, in fact, as the Senator from Texas said, that is not true. I know for a fact--he cited one example; that is, the bill we passed last December to fix No Child Left Behind. President Obama signed it. He said it was a Christmas miracle. It got 85 votes in the Senate. It was difficult to do, but I have been careful every time I talk about this to say, it would never have happened had Senator Patty Murray, the Democratic Senator from Washington, not been willing to work with me and other Republicans and Democrats on the committee to get a consensus. In fact, every single Democrat on the committee worked that way. For example, the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Franken, held back an amendment he cared a lot about in committee and agreed to offer it on the floor because he did not want to hurt the bill. We passed very important legislation in the Senate. The cyber security bill is important. It would not have passed without Democratic support. The Wall Street Journal said the Education bill that was passed, with the support of not just the Governors but of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers--usually Democratic constituents--it was the most significant devolution of power from Washington to States in 25 years. I hear from everybody I talk to in Tennessee--teachers, Governors. They like the bill we passed. They are proud we did it. They thank us for it. I have heard from physicians in Tennessee they are glad that for once now we have fixed the doc fix. In other words, every few months we are not leaving them in limbo about how they are paid for their Medicare patients. That has been taken care of, not just by Senator Hatch but also by Democratic Senator Wyden. Right out of the box last year, with a new Republican majority, we passed a trade bill. With whose support? With President Obama's support. That was a Democratic and Republican effort together. The chemical safety bill. Several Republican Senators worked hard on that but so did the Senator from California Mrs. Boxer. Without her leadership, it never would have passed. Our legislature in Tennessee has not been able to agree on a long- term highway funding bill, but in Washington we have, again, because of cooperation between Republicans and Democrats. My practice always has been to give people credit when they do something good because I think often that credit reflects back on the institution and maybe even on the person giving the credit. That is a time-honored way of doing business in the Senate. I would like to see us get back to that in the next Congress. Let's recognize the fact that there are a number of things that have not gotten done. I can cite all the reasons I am unhappy about the fact that we were able to pass 12 appropriations bill in committee, but we are blocked from bringing them to the floor by the Democrats. I would rather talk about the things we accomplished, the things we have gotten done, and show the American people that when they put us here, they were making a good decision. We have had a productive Senate these last 2 years. One newspaper said it was the most productive we have had since the early 1990s. Anytime you pass a bill that sends more power from Washington back to the States that has the support of the Governors, the NEA, and the American Federation of Teachers at the same time, I think we have done something pretty good. I am happy to give credit to the Democratic Senators who voted for it, because without them and without the President's signature, it would have not happened. So a little more of that spirit would help this Senate function and function in the way it traditionally has. We can finish our work this year, by the way. We have a mental health bill that Senator Cassidy and Senator Murphy have worked hard on. We have a 21st century cures bill that has broad support--19 bipartisan cosponsors. We are moving, next week I think, to a water resources development bill that Senator Boxer as well as Senator Inhofe are working on. Why do we not give other Members of the Senate due credit when they work together and get a result? No wonder the American people wonder whether we are getting anything done. The truth is, we are getting quite a bit done, and it is in their interests, and I am proud of it. Honoring Officer Kenneth Ray Moats Mr. President, now, let me take 3 or 4 minutes, because I see other Senators here, on something that is very important to me, a completely different subject and important to the people of my hometown of Maryville, TN. Last Tuesday, I attended a funeral for Officer Kenny Moats, a Maryville, Tennessee, police officer who was killed in the line of duty responding to a domestic disturbance call. Kenny Moats was a young man with three young children, Mackenzie, Kamron, and Tyson. His wife, Britteni, and he are in their early thirties. Nothing has so touched our community that I can remember in a long, long time. Maryville, TN, is a small town. Blount County is our county. Things like this are not supposed to happen where we live. An officer gets a call, he goes to deal with a domestic disturbance, and he is ambushed from the house he was called to by a person who is now in jail. There was a huge outpouring of support from our community, not just for Kenny Moats but also for the men and women in blue of the Maryville Police Department and of the Blount County Deputies who were there as well. There was a procession before the funeral. The funeral was at 7 o'clock last Tuesday. The church, Sevier Heights Baptist Church, began filling up at 4 p.m. It was nearly full with hundreds of people, and there were more than 1,200 who listened in on a Webcast. The next day, as I was driving to the airport, I found myself behind a procession of maybe 200 squad cars from many different police departments and sheriffs' offices around our State and other places. There was a flag of honor--the United States flag of honor--that is flown to honor first responders who are killed in the line of duty. It was driven from Texas so it could be there to honor Kenny Moats as well. So today on the Senate floor, I come simply to express the feelings of the Senate--I am sure all of us--to his family and to those who served with him in the Maryville Police Department, to the Blount County Sheriff's Deputies, to the entire community who have all grieved over his loss. After the funeral, the police chief, Tony Crisp, gave a commendation to Officer Moats. It is called the ``Commendation of Valor.'' It is awarded to a police officer who demonstrates gallantry and extraordinary heroism. The act must have been so exceptional that the rules say that ``the officer while fully aware of the imminent threat to their own personal safety assumed a voluntary course of action above and beyond the call of duty, at the risk of his own life.'' This commendation is the highest decoration conferred by the department. I was moved, as was everyone in the church last Tuesday night, by Chief of Police Tony Crisp's reading of the ``Commendation of Valor.'' I would like to offer that ``Commendation of Valor'' to be printed in the Record and express once again to the family of Kenny Moats and to the Maryville Police Department and all of the law enforcement officers in the area, our respect for his life, his bravery and for what they do to protect us on a daily basis.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I want to express once again to the family of Kenny Moats, the Marysville Police Department, and all of the law enforcement officers in the area, our respect for his life, his bravery, and for what they do to protect us on a daily basis. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to a fellow Tennessean Henry Diamond, who passed away Sunday, February 21, here in Washington. He was a champion for land and water conservation, a tireless advocate for the cause of protecting and conserving some of this country's greatest natural treasures. He had the ability and personality to work across the political spectrum with members of both parties, nongovernmental groups, State and local governments, and others. Named by then Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Henry was one of the country's first commissioners of a newly created State environmental department. From that beginning, he left an indelible mark. I think back to the seminal Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission some 50 years ago in which Henry played a prominent role. The commission led to the creation of our wilderness areas, wild and scenic rivers, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has invested billions of dollars from oil and gas revenues in well over 40,000 projects all across this country. I am reminded of his involvement some 20 years later when he created and chaired a task force that pressed for a timely review of the country's commitment to land and water conservation, which prompted President Reagan to establish the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors. I chaired the commission when I was Governor of Tennessee. The commission's 1987 report called for a ``prairie fire of local action'' to inspire States and communities to build greenways and otherwise protect outdoor resources and provide opportunities for outdoor recreation. And then there was his work with Lady Bird Johnson as director of the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, which rallied Americans to support environmental initiatives and paved the way for an array of laws and programs Congress enacted to clean our air and water and ensure the continuing productivity of the natural resources on which our economy and our quality of life depend. His close friendship with the Rockefeller family led to their contribution to the Nation of some outstanding landscapes in Wyoming, Hawaii, and Vermont. After he left public service, Henry started one of the premiere environmental law firms that still bears his name, Beveridge & Diamond, where he continued to champion conservation. Henry coauthored ``Land Use in America'' with another great conservation leader Patrick Noonan to take stock of our Nation's accomplishments, challenges, and new thinking in how we build communities to meet the needs of American families while protecting the lands we treasure. In 2008, Henry Diamond helped create a task force I cochaired with our former colleague Senator Jeff Bingaman that envisioned a new day in protecting landscapes of value and fulfilling the promise of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, tying in recreation, health, education, jobs, and more. This endeavor initiated one of President Obama's signature conservation programs, America's Great Outdoors, implemented by another of our former colleagues Ken Salazar, whom the President chose as his Secretary of the Interior. There is so much more to Henry Diamond's long and distinguished career, from chairing the National Park Service's 75th anniversary conference to serving on various boards and commissions, including Resources for the Future, the Environmental Law Institute, and the Jackson Hole Preserve. His many contributions were recognized in 2011 when he was awarded the Interior Department's highest citizen honor, the Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award. Henry Diamond was an exceptional lawyer, a mentor to colleagues and young conservationists, and someone many of us regularly turned to for advice and support. We will miss him. We will miss his tireless efforts to protect the best of our Nation's natural endowment, the lands and waters that sustain us. Our condolences to his wife, Bettye, and to their family and to all who valued his friendship. May he rest in peace. I ask that Henry's remembrance from Beveridge & Diamond and his New York Times obituary be printed in the Record. The material follows: [Feb. 23, 2016] Henry L. Diamond--1932-2016 We are saddened to announce the passing of one of our founders, Henry L. Diamond. Henry was an early advocate for conservation and greatly influenced the development of environmental law in the United States. His work on the Outdoor Recreation Resources Commission under President Kennedy laid the foundation for the creation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and our national system of protecting wilderness areas and scenic rivers. He later served as Executive Director of the 1965 White House Conference on Natural Beauty. This bipartisan event helped to elevate environmental issues on the national agenda in the years leading up to the establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the major federal environmental legislation that guides our nation today. He was a member and Chairman of the President's Citizens Advisory Committees on Recreation and Natural Beauty and Environmental Quality. He served as the first Commissioner of New York's Department of Environmental Conservation. As Commissioner, he led a 533-mile bike ride across the entire state of New York to advocate for the successful legislative passage and voter approval of the Environmental Quality Bond Act of 1972 that provided $1.2 billion for water and air pollution control and land acquisition. In 1975, Henry moved to the private sector, joining the nascent environmental law firm that would become Beveridge & Diamond. His practice included advising leading companies and numerous municipalities on high profile environmental matters. He also served as a mentor to many young lawyers inside and outside the firm. While in private practice, Henry remained a tireless advocate for land and water conservation. He served on more than 30 boards and commissions, including Resources for the Future, the Environmental Law Institute, The Woodstock Foundation, The Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., and Americans for Our Heritage and Recreation. He chaired the National Park Service 75th Anniversary Conference, which produced the influential Vail Report, and co-authored the 1996 survey Land Use in America. He recently co-chaired the bipartisan Outdoor Resources Review Group, sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman and Lamar Alexander. The group's report, Great Outdoors America, served as a catalyst for President Obama's America's Great Outdoors initiative. Henry's close friendship with Laurance Rockefeller over many years allowed him to facilitate some of Mr. Rockefeller's gifts to the National Park Service. These included the JY Ranch in Wyoming, additions to Hawaii's Haleakala National Park, areas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the establishment of the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont. His pro bono work included representing the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in its defense of the constitutionality of rail banking. Henry's contributions to conservation and the field of environmental law are widely recognized. In October of last year, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) presented Henry with its Environmental Achievement Award before an audience of more than 700 environmental professionals from the private sector, government and non-profit communities. With assistance from some of Henry's ``contemporaries and collaborators,'' we produced a brief tribute video that debuted at the ELI award dinner after warm introductory remarks from former U.S. Park Service Superintendent Bob Stanton. In 2011, he received the Secretary of the Interior's Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award, the Interior Department's highest honor for a private citizen. He was also the recipient of Pugsley Medal of the American Academy for Park & Recreation Administration in 2008. As Pat Noonan, founder and Chairman Emeritus of The Conservation Fund, said in the ELI Tribute video, ``Henry Diamond embodies the values of public service, political insight, and private sector activity. He has blended all of those into his life's work in a remarkable mosaic that has led to the conservation field, the environmental field, and sustainability that we now have today. It's a remarkable legacy.'' Earlier this year, Henry penned an inspiring charge to us all in an article in the ELI Forum entitled, ``Lessons Learned for Today.'' Calling for a return to the spirit of the 1965 White House Conference, Henry wrote, ``We must return to the spirit of that afternoon in 1965, where government-citizen cooperation, high-level leadership, and bipartisanship can again be brought to bear on today's unfinished agenda. We cannot allow complacency to take hold. There is work to be done.'' As all of Henry's friends and colleagues observed throughout the years, he was renowned as a witty story teller, a master at trivial pursuit, and an iconic commentator on political talent and lack thereof. He loved biking, hiking, reading history, and listening to the oral histories of presidents and other leaders. Henry was an exceptional lawyer, a fine mentor to his colleagues, and a devoted conservationist. We are proud of uphold the high standards and traditions of excellence he set. Thank you, Henry.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here to talk about the importance of doubling funding for basic energy research and making $8.1 billion available in the Federal budget to pay for it. The United States does many things well, but one thing we do better than any other country in the world is innovation through basic research. I have been talking a lot this year about biomedical research. Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health--which he calls the ``National Institute of Hope''--tells me that in 10 years, researchers in our country may be rebuilding hearts from stem cells, giving patients an artificial pancreas which would help patients with diabetes, and there may be a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Just as remarkable are the opportunities available in clean energy research: lowering the cost of energy, cleaning up the air, improving health, reducing poverty, and helping us deal with climate change--not just in the United States, but all around the world. Congress has been focused on doubling energy research since the 2007 America COMPETES Act that was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bush. America COMPETES grew out of a report called ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' a report on American competitiveness, written by Norm Augustine, who was the committee's chair. The report's main recommendation was to increase energy research because of the benefits it would provide to our country and around the world. Eight years ago, in a speech at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, I called for a project that would duplicate the urgency of the World War II Manhattan Project and put the United States on a path to clean energy innovation. I proposed seven ``grand challenges''--No. 1, make plug-in electric vehicles commonplace; No. 2, find a way to capture and use carbon; No. 3, help solar become cost-competitive; No. 4, safely manage nuclear waste; No. 5, encourage cellulosic biofuels; No. 6, make new buildings green buildings; and No. 7, create energy from fusion. In 8 years, energy researchers have made tremendous progress in these areas. For example, the price of solar panels has fallen over 80 percent since 2008. In some of the other challenges, we still have a long way to go. That is why we need to keep our focus on making energy research a priority. The biggest problem we have in funding basic energy research is how we pay for it. Today I am introducing legislation that finds a way to pay for it by ending the 24-year-old wind production tax credit at the end of this year, rather than in 2019, as the law now says. Instead of slowly allowing the wind production tax credit to phase out, this bill would end it on January 1, 2017. Then Congress could use the $8.1 billion in savings to increase the funding authorization for the Office of Science for the same kind of basic energy research that helped drive our natural gas boom and will provide the basis for the next generation of energy innovation that will mean cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable energy. Research at the Office of Science benefits other Department of Energy programs, including advanced nuclear reactor research at the Office of Nuclear Energy and research on carbon-capture technology at ARPA-E, which was formed by the America COMPETES Act. Energy research through the Office of Science, nuclear and fossil energy programs, energy efficiency research, and ARPA-E have led to amazing new discoveries. If more funding is available, it could be used to make sure energy research is a priority. Let's not continue to give away this money to wind developers that have been using it to get rich over the last 24 years, often over the objections of communities, towns, and homeowners who don't want their farmlands and mountain lands covered with 45-story turbines with blades as long as a football field. It is obvious what Congress ought to do, and it is obvious how we ought to pay for it. In 2014, taxpayers committed to spend--or Congress committed for them--another $6 billion to extend the wind subsidy for 1 year. Let me emphasize that--$6 billion to extend the wind subsidy for 1 year. That amount is more than the United States of America spends in an entire year on energy research through the Office of Science. That money could be used instead to put us on a path to double government funding for basic energy research. Let's not make that same mistake again. Basic energy research is one of the most important things we can do in this country. We need to unleash our free enterprise system to provide clean, cheap, reliable energy that will power our 21st century economy, create good jobs, and keep America competitive in the global economy. Political scientist Bjorn Lomborg wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month that ``the Obama administration's signature power policy, the Clean Power Plan . . . will accomplish almost nothing.'' He said: We should focus more on green-energy research and development, like that promoted by Bill Gates and the Breakthrough Coalition. Mr. Gates has announced that private investors are committing $7 billion for clean energy R&D while the White House will double its annual $5 billion green innovation fund. Sadly, this sorely needed investment is a fraction of the cost of the same administration's misguided carbon-cut policies. Instead of rhetoric and ever-larger subsidies of today's inefficient green technologies, those who want to combat climate change should focus on dramatically boosting innovation to drive down the cost of future green energy. Finally, Bjorn Lomborg writes: The U.S. has already shown the way. With its relentless pursuit of fracking driving down the cost of natural gas, America has made a momentous switch from coal to gas that has done more to drive down carbon dioxide emissions than any recent climate policy. That is the end of the quote from the article in the Wall Street Journal. In my own conversations with Mr. Gates, he has said the government should double its $5 billion annual investment in basic energy research in order to support clean energy innovation in the private sector. For example, that research could help develop small modular reactors which would allow inherently safe nuclear power to be produced with less capital investment and less resulting nuclear waste in more places. Small modular reactors are one way the country can increase cheap, clean, reliable power. Another way is to continue to develop new advanced reactors and do the research that is necessary to begin the process of extending reactor licenses from 60 to 80 years. Why should we close reactors when our 100 reactors provide 60 percent of the carbon-free electricity in the United States? Nuclear power provides 60 percent of the carbon-free electricity in the United States today. It is available 92 percent of the time. On the other hand, wind, despite these huge subsidies, produces 15 percent of our country's carbon-free electricity. The wind often blows at night when electricity isn't needed, and it isn't easy to store that electricity. It is hard to think of an important technological innovation since World War II that hasn't involved at least some form of government- sponsored research. Natural gas, our latest energy boom, is a very good example. The development of unconventional gas was enabled in part by 3-D mapping at Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Department of Energy's large-scale demonstration project. Then our free enterprise system and our tradition of private ownership of mineral rights capitalized on our basic energy research. Supercomputing, which is part of the Office of Science, is another tool for energy innovation. Supercomputing could do for nuclear power what massive hydraulic fracturing, new mapping tools, and horizontal drilling did for natural gas. By the end of next year, we expect the world's fastest supercomputer will again be in the United States, and once again, it will be at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. That computer is called Summit, and it will help researchers better understand materials, nuclear power, and basic energy science to drive breakthroughs. Supporting the next generation of computers, known as exascale, an area of agreement between the Obama administration and Congress, is also essential to our ability to solve the most complex scientific problems for both our country's competitiveness and national security. Exascale computers will have a 1,000-fold increase in sustained performance over today's petascale computers, which have been operating since 2008. Congress can invest in this kind of innovation or we can invest in subsidizing giant wind turbines that produce a puny amount of electricity at a great cost to taxpayers. Some energy developers are reaping great financial benefits provided by the wind production tax credit, which has been in place now for 24 years. It has provided billions in subsidies to the wind industry and has been extended 10 different times. The subsidy to Big Wind is so generous that, in some markets, wind producers can literally give their electricity away and still make a profit. This phenomenon is called negative pricing. Most of the time, wind power is unreliable and ineffective at meeting the demands of our industries, our computers, our homes, and almost everything else we depend upon. Nationwide, wind power is available about 35 percent of the time, and only 18 percent of the time in Tennessee, my home State, while nuclear power on the other hand is available 92 percent of the time. Wind is not effective at meeting peak power demands because the wind blows, as I said, mostly when demand is low at night and does not blow when demand is high during the day. Wind production tends to peak in the spring and fall when the need for energy is at its lowest. In fact, wind production decreases in the winter and summer, when heating and cooling needs can dramatically increase the demand for electricity. Until there is some way to cost-effectively store wind power, it would be dangerous for a country our size to rely significantly on wind. Relying on wind when nuclear plants are available is the energy equivalent of going to war in sailboats when a nuclear navy is available. If reliable, cheap, and clean electricity is the goal, then four nuclear reactors, each occupying 1 square mile, would equal the production of a row of 45-story wind turbines strung the entire length of the 2,178-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Even if you wanted to build all of those turbines along the most picturesque mountains in the Eastern United States, you would still need a nuclear reactor or gas plant to power your home or business when the wind does not blow. These are not your grandma's windmills. Each one is over two times as tall as the skyboxes at the University of Tennessee football stadium and taller than the Statue of Liberty. The blades on each one are as long as a football field. Their blinking lights can be seen for 20 miles. Many communities--take a look at the windmills in Palm Springs, CA-- where wind projects have been proposed have tried to stop them before they go up because, once the wind turbines and new transmission lines are built, it is hard to take them down. In October, the residents of Irasburg, VT, voted 274 to 9 against a plan to install a pair of 500-foot turbines on a ridgeline visible from their neighborhoods. In New York, three counties opposed 500- to 600-foot wind turbines next to Lake Ontario. People in the town of Yates voted unanimously to oppose the project in order to ``preserve their rural landscape.'' Yet utilities are talking about closing nuclear reactors, which produce 60 percent of our carbon-free electricity. In January, Apex Clean Energy announced it would spoil Tennessee's mountain beauty by building up to 23 wind turbines in Cumberland County, less than 10 miles from Cumberland Mountain State Park, where for a half century Tennesseans and tourists have camped, fished, canoed, and kayaked alongside herons and belted kingfishers around Byrd Lake. Residents are voicing their opposition. The city council has voted to oppose it. Finally, Clean Line Energy is proposing to build a single 700-mile direct current transmission line from Oklahoma, through Arkansas, to deliver wind power to Tennessee and other Southeastern States even though the Tennessee Valley Authority has announced publicly that it does not need the power. Yet the subsidies for wind are so large that developers are continuing with wind projects anyway. Arkansas objects to the project. Tennessee does not need the power. But the Federal Government is attempting to use Federal eminent domain to proceed. According to the Congressional Research Service, this would be the first time that Federal eminent domain authority has been used for electric transmission lines over the objection of a State. The wind production tax credit is as bad for taxpayers as giant wind turbines are bad for the environment. Clean energy research can help us lower the cost of energy, clean the air and improve health, reduce poverty, and deal with climate change. Let's end the wind production tax credit this year instead of 2019 and authorize the $8.1 billion in basic energy research to find more ways to ensure that the United States has reliable sources of cheap, efficient, and carbon-free electricity.