Lamar Alexander

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.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, let me pick up from where the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma ended. This Senate and the House are capable of doing some awfully good bipartisan work that helps the American people, and we do a lot of it. The Senator from Louisiana--the Presiding Officer today--has been working with the Senator from Connecticut, a Democrat. They have different political persuasions, and they have us very close to passing a very important mental health bill in the Senate--one that passed the House yesterday. They have worked hard on that. We are going to get that done this year. I would like to do it next week, but if not, we should be able to do it in September. Earlier today, I went to the National Education Association annual convention, where there were 10,000 teachers from all over the country, and they gave the Friend of the NEA Award to Senator Murray of Washington State and to me. Thirty years ago, when I was Governor of Tennessee, I would have gotten the ``public enemy of the NEA'' award. But what they like and what teachers and Governors and chief State school officers and parents like was that last year we came together and fixed No Child Left Behind. We stopped Washington from telling schools so much about what to do and restored that responsibility where it ought to be--with teachers and parents and Governors and legislators. We have been thanked for that because it affects 50 million children and 3\1/2\ million teachers and 100,000 public schools. We did our job. So there is mental health, there is fixing No Child Left Behind, and we are working on something called 21st century cures. The House of Representatives has passed it. Again, the Senator from Louisiana has been working on an important part of it having to do with electronic medical records as an example. This has the opportunity to be by far the most important legislation we pass this year, and we will pass it because it is part of Speaker Ryan's agenda; the majority leader, Senator McConnell, wants to pass it; and the President of the United States is interested in it because of his focus on precision medicine and the Vice President's focus on Cancer Moonshot. There is funding for the BRAIN Initiative, which has to do with Alzheimer's. These are breathtaking discoveries which we are on the verge of in America and which would affect millions of people--research for that and then moving them through the regulatory and investment process and into the medicine cabinets. I saw a Forbes poll the other day that showed that 82 percent of the American people would like for Congress to do more on biomedical research. They agree on that. We are doing that. So there are three things: fixing No Child Left Behind, mental health, and 21st century cures. Then we get to opioids and we get to Zika. So what has happened here? This reminds me of the Hatfields and the McCoys in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee. They fought so long, they forgot what they were fighting about. They just killed each other because that is what their grandfathers did. We have two issues here of intense interest to the American people, and we are on the verge of a significant step to help. The first is Zika. The Zika virus is terrifying young women in our country. They are postponing their pregnancies. They are afraid to have babies. They are afraid their babies will be born with deformities because we have found that if women have the Zika virus, some women have babies who have deformities when they are born. There will be a vaccine for that by 2018, perhaps. That is part of the 21st century cures initiative I was just talking about--more money for the National Institutes of Health to speed that along. But between now and then, we need to take every step we need to take to help keep the Zika virus from infecting as many people as we can. This is a very simple disease. It is carried by a mosquito, and if a mosquito bites you, you get the Zika virus. For many people, it makes no difference, but for pregnant women, it could be a problem. It is July, and the mosquitoes are out, and it is time to eradicate the mosquitoes. The Centers for Disease Control asked us for money, and so we passed $1.1 billion here, money for Zika. We are ready to pass $1.1 billion. Because of a small provision the House of Representatives put in that has to do with who is a Medicaid provider in Puerto Rico--there are many Medicaid providers in Puerto Rico who can go about this business in July and August and September to deal with trying to keep the mosquitoes away. Our friends on the other side of the aisle won't let us pass the bill. Now, let's stop and think about this. This is the Hatfields and McCoys at its worst. This is not the same spirit we had when fixing No Child Left Behind. It is not the same spirit we had working with the President and Speaker Ryan and Senator McConnell on 21st century cures. It is not the same spirit Senator Murphy and Senator Cassidy have shown in taking grave differences over mental health and putting them in in a way that we will get some advances on that this year. There is no excuse whatsoever for delaying the spending of $1.1 billion to help pregnant women and other families avoid the Zika virus this summer. We don't need mosquito control in the winter; we need it in the summer. And we need to pass it now because we leave and go away on our recess and come back in September. There may be a provision in the bill that some of us would have written a different way. Maybe some of us would like some more money. But the provision that is offensive to some people is a very small provision. There are Medicaid providers all over Puerto Rico who can deal with this part of the money, and there is no excuse for not approving the $1.1 billion that we are ready to spend for Zika, period, and it is wrong for the Democrats to block that. It is wrong as it can be, and it is not in the right spirit. I think I have a reputation here for trying to get results. I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle: Please stop and think about this. This is the Hatfields and McCoys example that the American people really don't like. We are on the verge of doing something that would help a lot of Americans, especially young women, and we ought to do it. We ought to do it today or next week, and we surely should not go home without having done it. The other thing we are on the verge of doing well is helping deal with opioids. Again, we are in a Hatfields-and-McCoys situation, apparently. I hope we avoid it, but we may be, and I would like to avoid that as well. We have talked a lot about the opioids abuse. I know what happens in Tennessee. Opioid overdose is killing more people every year than car wrecks or gunshots--car wrecks or gunshots. I had a roundtable in Knoxville several months ago. It was filled with people-- judges, parents, doctors, hospital managers. Everybody is overwhelmed with this. They want some help in doing it. We can't fix it from here, but we can support those on the frontlines, and we are doing it. We are making some changes. We have come back to Secretary Burwell and the President and said: Change the provision on the pain management survey that hospitals are telling us encourage doctors to overprescribe opioids. Well, at first they didn't listen, but to the President's credit and to Secretary Burwell's credit, they did it; they listened and they did it at the urging of Congress. They have increased the level of prescriptions that treatment doctors can prescribe. That was something Senator Paul, Senator Markey, and Democrats and Republicans in the House wanted to do. We might do more of it, but that was the TREAT Act. Then we came up with a bipartisan opioid bill in the Senate and in the House. It has contributions from half the Democrats and many of the Republicans. In the House, it passed 400 to 1. In the Senate, it passed 94 to 1. Pardon me, it was 400 to 5 in the House and 94 to 1 here. It has more than 200 groups across the country who say opioid abuse is an epidemic and a crisis, so let's fix it. So we have taken a substantial step to fix it. Yesterday we approved a merger of what the House did and the Senate did, and both will come to the House and next week to the Senate for approval. One would think that something that had passed the Senate 94 to 1, when it comes back for approval, would pass again 94 to 1. One would think that something as urgent as dealing with opioid drug abuse--an epidemic, as I said, that is killing more people every year in my State than gunshots, killing more people every year in my State than car wrecks--one would think we would want to do something about it, particularly when we have worked hard and we have a very good package. Two hundred of the advocacy groups in this country who work on opioid abuse like what we have done. So what is the problem? Well, our friends on the other side say you need to fund it. We are funding it, and they helped fund it. Over the last 3 years, count the last two Congresses where the money was already appropriated, in other words, it is there to spend; count the amount of money the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved, we have increased funding for opioids already by 542 percent. For those working on their math, that is five times more than we were doing 2\1/2\ years ago. Then the House of Representatives came along today and said: We want to go even further than that. That is in the regular appropriations process. That is how we do our business here. For example, last year, as I mentioned, we fixed No Child Left Behind. The President called it a Christmas miracle. Everybody is happy about it. It doesn't spend a penny. It reformed the education law. We spend the money in the appropriations process. Every year we pass a Defense authorization bill. It reforms everything that has to do with keeping us safe in the country, but we don't spend a penny. That is in the appropriations process. We have an energy bill we are going to conference on. It doesn't spend a penny. That is in the appropriations process. So we are spending money on opioids. We are spending money on opioids. A five times increase over 2\1/2\ years, in addition to policy that 200 groups support and that passed the Senate 94 to 1. Now, some say there should be more. I agree. I would like to spend even more for opioids. I would like to see a more significant amount of money for State grants to help with opioids because that is where the bottom line is, but there are a lot of discussions going on about doing that. There is some discussion about doing that in the 21st century cures bill, perhaps. We talked about it and even voted on it last year. Republicans put through a bill in our so-called reconciliation process in which all but five Republicans in the Senate and House voted for $750 million each year for 2 years for opioids. That is $750 million each year for opioids. That is $1.5 billion the Republicans voted for. The President vetoed it because it also repealed ObamaCare. We thought we were getting two good things--repeal ObamaCare and support opioids. Of course, the President disagreed with that. This isn't all on Democrats or Republicans because we have also voted for more money for opioids. But let's get out of this Hatfields-and-McCoys posture in this last week or 10 days before the convention starts when we are dealing with the lives of so many Americans. Every Senator who talked yesterday at the conference report had some story of someone from his or her State who had died from an opioid abuse--several from one family in several cases. Everyone has that story. Then how can we dare go home next week without having passed a policy that everyone who understands the subject says will help, in terms of prevention and State grants and treatment and a variety of other things, and when we have increased funding by five times over 2\1/2\ years--how can we dare go home without having passed that? Can we continue to talk about even more funding? Yes, I am ready to do that. I would like to do it. I would like to find a way to do it, but that doesn't mean we stop doing what we can do now. So I am on the floor today--and let me just remind my friends on the other side of the aisle, this opioids conference is not a Republican bill. It is filled with Democratic priorities. Mr. Whitehouse is the lead sponsor, the Senator from Rhode Island. He is passionate about it. There are 44 Democratic Senators who voted for his version of it. Senator Warren is the lead sponsor for the Reducing Unused Medication Act. It is in the package. Senator Durbin led an amendment regarding the opioid action plan at the FDA that is included. Senator Shaheen and nine other Democratic Senators led the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reauthorization which is included. Congressman Sarbanes has a bill on expanding access through cold prescribing. Senator Casey introduced a plan of safe care improvement that was included. Senators Brown, King, and Manchin are cosponsors of a Healthy Babies Act that was included. Senators Brown, King, Casey, and Feinstein were coauthors in another provision. We all put this together. We all care about it. The people we work for all need our help. We should pass it. We should pass it. To come up with a lame excuse that we are not funding it when, in fact, we are--five times more over 2\1/2\ years--that is not the kind of thing that will gain respect for the U.S. Senate. I am here today as someone who spends most of his time trying to get results in this body, and often achieves results. I do that only because of relationships with Democratic Members as well as Republican Members. I told the National Education Association today to give Patty Murray a big hand for being the friend of the NEA on fixing No Child Left Behind because it would not have happened without her. I would say that when we pass the opioids conference, give a big hand to Senators Durbin and Shaheen and Congressman Sarbanes and especially Senator Whitehouse, Senator Casey, and Senator Warren because they all made major contributions to this, they voted for the funding over the last 2 years, and I am sure they will this year, which will go up at least five times--five times. So let's put the Hatfields and McCoys back in Kentucky and Tennessee. Let's say young women all over the country are terrified by the Zika virus. Let's spend $1.1 billion or make it available for the Centers for Disease Control now to help. Let's take this opioids conference report we are on the verge of passing that we are all for, and let's do it and go home. And let's add to the fixing No Child Left Behind, the 21st century cures progress, the mental health progress, our work on opioids abuse, and our work on Zika. That would be what the American people would expect of us, and I hope that by the end of next week, we find a way to do it. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Corker and I have come to the floor having submitted a resolution honoring the life and achievements of Pat Summitt, the former University of Tennessee basketball coach who died this week. She coached for 38 years and became the winningest coach--man or woman--in Division I history. I had the privilege of going to the White House with Coach Summitt in April of 1989. I was president of the University of Tennessee at the time, and she had just won the national championship. President Bush, The first President Bush, recited the usual statistics about Pat Summitt's remarkable coaching career. The President said: ``And in 13 years she brought Tennessee to the final four 10 times, winning it twice.'' This was in 1989, a long time before she retired. ``Later on we're going down to that fountain over there that you all can see, to see if literally she can walk on water.'' That was what President Bush said of Pat Summitt. So when it came time for Coach Summitt to speak--the winningest basketball coach in our country's Division I history--this is what she said: Mr. President, we're honored and delighted to be here. I am extremely proud of our academic success. We have won two national championships in the last 3 years, but the most important statistic for our team and our program is the 100- percent graduation rate, of which we will hold our heads very proudly. Pat Summitt did everything by the book, and she made sure her players did as well. She had some of the most remarkable athletes in any program in the country. One of those is Candace Parker, who is still playing in professional women's basketball. If I remember this right, there was finally a game when Candace got to play near her hometown in a Midwestern city. So the whole town turned out--all of her friends, all of her family. Everybody had come to see a young woman who was then the most celebrated women's basketball player in the country. But Candace Parker had missed a curfew the night before by a few minutes, and so Pat Summitt sat her on the bench for the first half while her family, her friends, and everybody had come to see her play watched. Everyone understood that's how Pat Summitt did things. She began her career when she was 22. She was paid $250 a month for that. She was a graduate student at the University of Tennessee. For many, women's basketball consisted still of three women on one end of the court and three on the other. The NCAA didn't even sponsor a national championship game at that time. Pat really invented many aspects of the women's college game, and what she didn't invent she taught to the rest of us. It will be hard for people outside Tennessee to appreciate how much she became a part of us. She literally taught us the game. She was so up-front and personal about it all. She introduced us to her players. She told us about their great abilities and successes. She told us about their failures and when they weren't living up to their potential. She invited us to go into her locker room at halftime and listen to her fiery halftime speeches. She made time for every single person who touched her. There are countless stories about that. But the best wanted to play for Pat Summitt because she was the best. Tamika Catchings, still playing and retiring this year--one of the great players in women's college basketball--was the women's college basketball player of the year. She was in high school when Tennessee already had the best team and the best players, but Tamika wanted to go to Tennessee to play for Pat Summitt, to play with Chamique Holdsclaw because she wanted to be a part of the best team. Tennesseans are very, very proud of Pat Summitt. We know that when the nation saw her, they might think a little better of us because she was one of us. She was a great friend, not just a friend of mine and our family, but thousands of Tennesseans. Today, we honor her life. We honor that she lived that life by the book, that she taught so many young women how to live their lives by the book, that she brought out the best in so many of them and inspired the rest of us to think a little bigger for ourselves. Four years ago at a young age, 60 years of age, suddenly she had Alzheimer's disease. She confronted that just as well, and set an example for the rest of us. So for Pat Summitt, this is a day to honor a woman of style, a woman of substance, a farm girl who grew up to be the winningest coach in the country and who by her example and by her life brought out the best in her players and set an example for the rest of us. Tennesseans are very, very proud of Pat Summitt. We know that when the Nation saw her, they might think a little better of us because she was one of us. She was a great friend--not just a friend of mine and our family but of thousands of Tennesseans. We honor her life. We honor that she lived her life by the book, that she taught so many young women how to live their lives by the book, that she brought out the best in so many of them and inspired the rest of us to maybe think a little bigger for ourselves as well. Four years ago, at a young age--about 60, 59 years of age--suddenly she had Alzheimer's disease. She confronted that, as well, and she set an example for the rest of us in fighting through that. For Pat Summitt, this is a day to honor a woman of style, a woman of substance, a farm girl who grew up to be the winningest college coach in the country and who, by her example and by her life, brought out the best in her players and set an example for the rest of us. I have joined Senator Corker in submitting this resolution, which the Senate will adopt this evening.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I request that a copy of my letter to Darin Gordon, TennCare director and deputy commissioner of the Tennessee Health Care Finance Administration, be printed in the Record. The material follows:

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Murray and I rise today to speak about our shared concerns with language included in this year's National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA. Section 578 of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, is an inappropriate place from which to impose mandates on nearly 20,000 public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school districts across the country. Legislative language is included in the NDAA this year that dictates disruptive policies on public schools that would create a complicated and confusing system where one school system follows established background checks under State or local law, while a neighboring county must now comply with a new unfunded Federal mandate. This language should not be included in the final version of this bill. The U.S. Senate takes seriously the goal of ensuring the safety of the more than 50 million children in our 100,000 public schools, including federally connected children. These issues have been and should be discussed, debated, and legislated within the appropriate committees of jurisdiction. Measures related to education are within the jurisdiction of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee under Rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, as well as within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce under Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives for the 114th Congress. So while it may be appropriate for the Armed Services Committee to dictate background check policies for the 172 schools operated by the Department of Defense, it is not appropriate to use the authorization bill for the Department of Defense to impose mandates on nearly 20,000 public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school districts across the country. These 20,000 public schools, out of 100,000 total, are being singled out because they receive ``Impact Aid'' funds from the Federal Government under title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, of 1965. The purpose of the program is to ``fulfill the Federal responsibility to assist with the provision of educational services to federally connected children in a manner that promotes control by local educational agencies with little or no Federal or State involvement.'' According to the Government Accountability Office, 46 States already require background checks of some kind for all public school employees, and 42 States have established professional standards or codes of conduct for school personnel. Section 578 of the NDAA would create confusion for all those States and localities, as they are forced to navigate two sets of potentially conflicting background checks policies. As chairman and ranking members of the Senate HELP Committee, Senator Murray and I worked tirelessly last year to pass a long-overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Our law, called the Every Student Succeeds Act, addressed the issue of background checks. I now want to yield to my colleague, Mrs. Murray, to speak on this issue.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, section 578 of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, is an inappropriate place from which to impose mandates on nearly 20,000 public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school districts across the country. Legislative language is included in the NDAA this year that dictates disruptive policies on public schools that would create a complicated and confusing system where one school system follows established background checks under State or local law, while a neighboring county must now comply with a new unfunded Federal mandate. This language should not be included in the final version of this bill. The U.S. Senate takes seriously the goal of ensuring the safety of the more than 50 million children in our 100,000 public schools, including federally connected children. These issues have been and should be discussed, debated, and legislated within the appropriate committees of jurisdiction. Measures related to education are within the jurisdiction of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee under Rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, as well as within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce under Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives for the 114th Congress. So while it may be appropriate for the Armed Services Committee to dictate background check policies for the 172 schools operated by the Department of Defense, it is not appropriate to use the authorization bill for the Department of Defense to impose mandates on nearly 20,000 public elementary and secondary schools in 1,225 public school districts across the country. These 20,000 public schools, out of 100,000 total, are being singled out because they receive ``Impact Aid'' funds from the Federal Government under title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, of 1965. The purpose of the program is to ``fulfill the Federal responsibility to assist with the provision of educational services to federally connected children in a manner that promotes control by local educational agencies with little or no Federal or State involvement.'' According to the Government Accountability Office, 46 States already require background checks of some kind for all public school employees, and 42 States have established professional standards or codes of conduct for school personnel. Section 578 of the NDAA would create confusion for all those States and localities, as they are forced to navigate two sets of potentially conflicting background checks policies.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I welcome Steve Berger and thank Senator Corker for arranging for him to be here today. Steve is, indeed, one of our most distinguished Tennesseans. We welcome his family and some of his friends who are with us in the Gallery. Chaplain Barry Black has reminded us that this tradition of opening the Senate with a prayer has been with us since the Senate began, and the Senate has had a Chaplain before the First Amendment to our Constitution was adopted. This tradition is an essential part of the American character, and having Steve Berger here to help us celebrate that essential part of the American character is a very special moment for me as well as for Senator Corker.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of my remarks from earlier today at the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy's Conversation on the Future of Adult Literacy.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on this side?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 9 minutes and that Senator Johnson then be allowed 5 minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the remaining time be for the Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, would you please let me know when 8 minutes has elapsed.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here today to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval on the administration's so-called overtime rule. I am joined by Senator Johnson of Wisconsin on this effort and also 43 other Senators who are cosponsors. While President Obama is running around talking about keeping college costs down, his administration has put out this so-called overtime rule that could raise tuition by hundreds of dollars for millions of American college students or cause layoffs at our colleges and universities. In Tennessee, for example, colleges report to me that they may have to raise tuition by anywhere from $200 a student to $850 a student in one case because of this rule. The administration's new rule is a radical change to our Nation's overtime rules. What they have done is doubled the salary threshold for overtime. Here is what that means. Hourly workers are usually paid for overtime work, but salaried workers generally don't earn overtime unless they are making below a threshold set by the Labor Department, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today that threshold is $23,660. This administration is raising it all at one time to $47,476. The administration calls this the overtime rule. I think we should call this the ``time card'' rule or the ``higher tuition'' rule. This means that a midlevel manager in Knoxville or Nashville who is making $40,000 a year is going to have to go back to punching a time card. The rule affects 4.23 million workers nationwide and nearly 100,000 in Tennessee. It is going to create huge costs for employers, including small businesses, nonprofits, such as the Boy Scouts, and colleges and universities. They have to decide whether to cut services, cut benefits, lay off or demote employees, or create more part-time jobs or do a little of all of that. The University of Tennessee says that if they increase everyone's salaries to meet the new threshold, they will have to increase tuition by over $200 per student on average, with some seeing as much as a $456 increase. If they put all the salaried employees back on time cards, they will face big morale issues. Listen to this letter I received from a University of Tennessee employee: Currently, I am an exempt employee but I stand to fall under the non-exempt status under the new standards. While this may not seem like a major issue to many, I stand to lose a substantial amount of benefits if my status changes. The nature of my position does not ever cause me to work overtime, as I work in an office from 8:30-4:30 daily and I am salaried. If I am reclassified, it appears I will lose 96 hours of annual leave per year, as well as be subject to an almost 100 hour lower cap on accrued annual leave. Another private college in Tennessee tells me it will cost them the equivalent of $850 a student if they don't lay off any employees. As employers, they also face the cascade of regulations that is coming from the Labor Department. This rule should be called the ``time card'' rule because they are going to pull millions of Americans who have climbed their way to salaried positions backwards--back to filling out a timecard and punching a clock, back to having fewer benefits, backwards in their careers, back to being left out of the room, back to being left off emails and even out of the discussion. Want to show your stuff at work? Want to get up early, leave late, climb the ladder, earn the American dream the way that so many Americans have before you? Tough luck. Employers are going to say: Don't come early. Don't stay late. Don't take time off to go to your kids' football game. Work your 8 hours and go home. I don't have enough money to pay you overtime. This rule says the Obama administration knows best. They know how to manage your career, your work schedule, your free time, and your income. They know better than you do. Today, somebody who makes a salary of less than $23,660 must be paid overtime. Almost everyone agrees that threshold is low and should begin to go up. Almost everyone said to the administration: It is time to raise the number, but don't go too high, too fast or you will create all kinds of destruction. They didn't listen, so now we are going to have these huge costs. Let's talk about employers. Let's remember that we are talking about nonprofits like Operation Smile, which is a charity that funds cleft palate operations for children. They say this rule will mean 3,000 fewer surgeries a year. Then there is the Great Smoky Mountain Council of the Boy Scouts, my home council, which estimates $100,000 in added annual costs because during certain seasons, employees staff weekend campouts and recruitment events, which mean longer hours. Many Americans are discouraged by this economic recovery. Millions are still waiting for the recovery. But you don't grow the economy by regulations such as this. The National Retail Federation says the rule will ``curtail career advancement opportunities, diminish workplace flexibility, damage employee morale, and lead to a more hierarchical workplace.'' The U.S. Chamber Commerce says: ``The dramatic escalation of the salary threshold, below which employees must be paid overtime for working more than 40 hours a week, will mean millions of employees who are salaried professionals will have to be reclassified to hourly wage workers.'' There are 16 million Americans--including 320,000 Tennesseans--who are working part time while looking for full-time work or who are out of work entirely. They need a vibrant economy; they don't need Washington bureaucrats telling them how to manage their work schedule, their free time, and their income. I know this is a good-sounding rule, but it wrestles more and more control from the hands of Americans and small business owners and puts more power in Washington agencies. Many of these rules, like the overtime rule or the ``higher tuition'' rule or the ``time card'' rule--call it whatever you will--won't stand the test of time. They will end up in courts and they will lose, or another President will come along and fix what is broken. But in the meantime, how many millions of dollars and hours of time will be wasted as small business owners make excruciating decisions about how to implement these rules? My hope is that the Senate will vote to give this ``time card'' ``higher tuition'' rule an early death before business owners and nonprofits and colleges and universities begin the task of implementing it by December.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here today to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval on the administration's so-called overtime rule. I am joined by Senator Johnson of Wisconsin on this effort and also 43 other Senators who are cosponsors. While President Obama is running around talking about keeping college costs down, his administration has put out this so-called overtime rule that could raise tuition by hundreds of dollars for millions of American college students or cause layoffs at our colleges and universities. In Tennessee, for example, colleges report to me that they may have to raise tuition by anywhere from $200 a student to $850 a student in one case because of this rule. The administration's new rule is a radical change to our Nation's overtime rules. What they have done is doubled the salary threshold for overtime. Here is what that means. Hourly workers are usually paid for overtime work, but salaried workers generally don't earn overtime unless they are making below a threshold set by the Labor Department, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today that threshold is $23,660. This administration is raising it all at one time to $47,476. The administration calls this the overtime rule. I think we should call this the ``time card'' rule or the ``higher tuition'' rule. This means that a midlevel manager in Knoxville or Nashville who is making $40,000 a year is going to have to go back to punching a time card. The rule affects 4.23 million workers nationwide and nearly 100,000 in Tennessee. It is going to create huge costs for employers, including small businesses, nonprofits, such as the Boy Scouts, and colleges and universities. They have to decide whether to cut services, cut benefits, lay off or demote employees, or create more part-time jobs or do a little of all of that. The University of Tennessee says that if they increase everyone's salaries to meet the new threshold, they will have to increase tuition by over $200 per student on average, with some seeing as much as a $456 increase. If they put all the salaried employees back on time cards, they will face big morale issues. Listen to this letter I received from a University of Tennessee employee: Currently, I am an exempt employee but I stand to fall under the non-exempt status under the new standards. While this may not seem like a major issue to many, I stand to lose a substantial amount of benefits if my status changes. The nature of my position does not ever cause me to work overtime, as I work in an office from 8:30-4:30 daily and I am salaried. If I am reclassified, it appears I will lose 96 hours of annual leave per year, as well as be subject to an almost 100 hour lower cap on accrued annual leave. Another private college in Tennessee tells me it will cost them the equivalent of $850 a student if they don't lay off any employees. As employers, they also face the cascade of regulations that is coming from the Labor Department. This rule should be called the ``time card'' rule because they are going to pull millions of Americans who have climbed their way to salaried positions backwards--back to filling out a timecard and punching a clock, back to having fewer benefits, backwards in their careers, back to being left out of the room, back to being left off emails and even out of the discussion. Want to show your stuff at work? Want to get up early, leave late, climb the ladder, earn the American dream the way that so many Americans have before you? Tough luck. Employers are going to say: Don't come early. Don't stay late. Don't take time off to go to your kids' football game. Work your 8 hours and go home. I don't have enough money to pay you overtime. This rule says the Obama administration knows best. They know how to manage your career, your work schedule, your free time, and your income. They know better than you do. Today, somebody who makes a salary of less than $23,660 must be paid overtime. Almost everyone agrees that threshold is low and should begin to go up. Almost everyone said to the administration: It is time to raise the number, but don't go too high, too fast or you will create all kinds of destruction. They didn't listen, so now we are going to have these huge costs. Let's talk about employers. Let's remember that we are talking about nonprofits like Operation Smile, which is a charity that funds cleft palate operations for children. They say this rule will mean 3,000 fewer surgeries a year. Then there is the Great Smoky Mountain Council of the Boy Scouts, my home council, which estimates $100,000 in added annual costs because during certain seasons, employees staff weekend campouts and recruitment events, which mean longer hours. Many Americans are discouraged by this economic recovery. Millions are still waiting for the recovery. But you don't grow the economy by regulations such as this. The National Retail Federation says the rule will ``curtail career advancement opportunities, diminish workplace flexibility, damage employee morale, and lead to a more hierarchical workplace.'' The U.S. Chamber Commerce says: ``The dramatic escalation of the salary threshold, below which employees must be paid overtime for working more than 40 hours a week, will mean millions of employees who are salaried professionals will have to be reclassified to hourly wage workers.'' There are 16 million Americans--including 320,000 Tennesseans--who are working part time while looking for full-time work or who are out of work entirely. They need a vibrant economy; they don't need Washington bureaucrats telling them how to manage their work schedule, their free time, and their income. I know this is a good-sounding rule, but it wrestles more and more control from the hands of Americans and small business owners and puts more power in Washington agencies. Many of these rules, like the overtime rule or the ``higher tuition'' rule or the ``time card'' rule--call it whatever you will--won't stand the test of time. They will end up in courts and they will lose, or another President will come along and fix what is broken. But in the meantime, how many millions of dollars and hours of time will be wasted as small business owners make excruciating decisions about how to implement these rules? My hope is that the Senate will vote to give this ``time card'' ``higher tuition'' rule an early death before business owners and nonprofits and colleges and universities begin the task of implementing it by December.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, while the Senator from Connecticut is still here, I want say through the Chair that I am glad I had a chance to hear his remarks. I agree with him that there is a mental health crisis, and I congratulate him for his leadership, especially with the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Cassidy, in focusing the Senate's attention on dealing with it this year. I think he has a very passionate and practical way of making the argument that while there may not be a consensus on what we do about guns, there is a consensus, I believe, in this body on what we do about mental health or at least an important step in the direction of dealing with the crisis. If we are able to do it, Senator Murphy, Senator Cassidy, and Senator Murray, the ranking Democrat on the HELP committee, will deserve great credit for that happening. I plan to attend for a while the summit tomorrow that Senators Murphy and Cassidy are hosting. It will help to draw attention to the efforts that the Senators made. Last year the full Senate passed the Mental Health Improvement Act. This year, working with the Senators from Connecticut and Louisiana, and the Senator from Washington, Senator Murray, we have incorporated that into the Mental Health Reform Act. We are very hopeful we can pass that legislation on the Senate floor in June and work with the House to turn it into a law this year. No doubt we will have more to do on the mental health crisis after that, and we will have more debates on this floor about what the Senator from Connecticut calls the gun crisis. But there is no reason we cannot move ahead with what we already have a consensus on in mental health. I am committed, as I know Senator Murray is, and so are other Members on this side of the aisle. I know that Senator Blunt from Missouri feels passionate about mental health needs. Senator Cornyn is working on helping us resolve this legislation. And Senator McConnell has said that if we can find a consensus among ourselves and reduce the amount of time it takes to put it on the floor, he will interrupt the appropriations process, put it on the floor, and try to get a result this year. So I am glad I had a chance to hear the Senator. I pledge to continue to work with him to get a result on the Mental Health Reform Act that he has played such a key role in fashioning. 21st Century Cures Legislation Mr. President, I would like to speak on another issue that the Senator from Connecticut has also played a role in because he is an important Member of the HELP committee in the Senate, and that is what we call the 21st Century Cures legislation. This legislation, in which President Obama is interested and which we have mostly finished in terms of our committee work in the Senate, has already passed the House. A little over a week ago, the New York Times Magazine published a special health issue on the new frontier in cancer treatment--how doctors and researchers are trying new tips, new drugs, even new ways of thinking about cancer. This month the photographer Brandon Stanton, who documents the stories of ordinary people in his popular photography blog, ``Humans of New York,'' turned his lens on the pediatrics department of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to help raise money for cancer treatment and the research hospital there. Also this month, two former U.S. Senators, both of them physicians and one a cancer survivor--Dr. Bill Frist and Dr. Tom Coburn--wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about what the Senate is doing to help bring safe treatments and cures to doctors' offices, patients, and medicine cabinets more quickly. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the op-ed by Dr. Frist and Dr. Coburn at the conclusion of my remarks. In the New York Times Magazine issue, one oncologist writes: [For patients] for whom the usual treatments fail to work, oncologists must use their knowledge, wit and imagination to devise individualized therapies. Increasingly, we are approaching each patient as a unique problem to solve. Toxic, indiscriminate, cell-killing drugs have given way to nimbler, finer-fingered molecules that can activate or deactivate complex pathways in cells, cut off growth factors, accelerate or decelerate the immune response or choke the supply of nutrients or oxygen. More and more, we must come up with ways to use drugs as precision tools to jam cogs and turn off selective switches in particular cancer cells. Trained to follow rules, oncologists are now being asked to reinvent them. The article continues: Cancer--and its treatment--once seemed simpler. . . . A breakthrough came in the 2000s, soon after the Human Genome Project, when scientists learned to sequence the genomes of cancer cells. Gene sequencing allows us to identify the genetic changes that are particular to a given cancer. We can use that information to guide cancer treatment--in effect, matching the treatment to an individual patient's cancer. In another Times story, the reporter writes: Today, a better understanding of cancer's workings is transforming treatment, as oncologists learn to attack tumors not according to their place of origin but by the mutations that drive them. The dream is to go much deeper, to give an oncologist a listing of all a tumor's key mutations and their biological significance, making it possible to put aside the rough typology that currently reigns and understand each patient's personal cancer. Every patient, in this future situation, could then be matched to the ideal treatment and, with luck, all responses would be exceptional. This idea, more broadly, has been called precision medicine: the hope that doctors will be able to come to a far more exact understanding of each patient's disease, informed by genetics, and treat it accordingly. I am here today to insert these important stories from the New York Times Magazine, the ``Humans of New York'' blog, and Drs. Frist and Coburn's Wall Street Journal op-ed into the Record and to remind everyone that this year the Senate HELP Committee has passed 19 bipartisan bills that will help drive medical innovation. I am working today with Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on the committee, on an agreement that will give the National Institutes of Health a surge of funding for the President's Precision Medicine Initiative, which will map 1 million genomes and give researchers a giant boost in their efforts to tailor treatments to a patient's individual genome. It will also provide funding for the Cancer MoonShot, which the Vice President is heading, to try to set us on a faster course to a cure. To raise money for cancer researchers at Sloan Kettering, Bradley Stanton used photos on his ``Humans of New York'' blog, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. He writes: ``The study of rare cancers involves small and relentless teams of researchers. Lifesaving breakthroughs are made on very tight budgets. So your donations will make a difference. They may save a life.'' The fundraiser wrapped up this past weekend. More than 103,000 people donated more than $3.8 million to help fight pediatric cancer. More than $1 million was donated in the last day of the campaign in honor of a young boy named Max to help research and cure DIPG, the brain tumor that ended his short life. Stanton shared photos and stories of Sloan Kettering patients and their parents, as well as the doctors and researchers working to treat and cure them--many stories hopeful, all difficult to read. As Stanton put it: ``These are war stories.'' In one post, a researcher at the pediatric center says: In the movies, scientists are portrayed as having a ``eureka moment''--that singular moment in time when their faces change and they find an answer. . . . [I]t's hard to say what a ``eureka moment'' would look like in my research. Maybe it's when I'm finally able to look patients and parents in the eye and say with confidence that we have what's needed to cure them. In another, a doctor at the center says: It's been twelve hours a day, six days a week, for the last thirty years. My goal during all these years was to help all I could help. I've given 200%. I've given transplants to over 1200 kids. I've published as many papers as I could. . . . But now I'm almost finished. It's time for the young people out there to finish the job. They're going to be smarter than us. They'll know more. They're going to unzip the DNA and find the typo. They're going to invent targeted therapies so we don't have to use all this radiation. How do we make good on these dollars? How do we ensure that these remarkable new discoveries of targeted therapies are able to reach the patients that need to be reached? We must give the Food and Drug Administration the tools and the authority it needs to review these innovations and ensure that they are safe and effective, that they get to the patients who need them in a timely way. That is exactly the goal of our Senate Cures Initiative that I am committed to seeing through to a result. Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health-- he calls it the National Institutes of Hope--a Federal agency that this year funds $32 billion in biomedical research, offered what he called ``bold predictions'' in a Senate hearing last month about major advances to expect if there is sustained commitment to such research. Listen to what he said. One prediction is that science will find ways to identify Alzheimer's before symptoms appear, as well as how to slow or even prevent the disease. Today, Alzheimer's causes untold family grief. It cost $236 billion a year. Left unchecked, the cost in 2050 would be more than our Nation spends on national defense. Dr. Collins' other predictions are equally breathtaking. Using pluripotent stem cells, doctors could use a patient's own cells to rebuild his or her heart. This personalized rebuilt heart, Dr. Collins said, would make transplant waiting lists and anti-rejection drugs obsolete. I had a phone call from Doug Oliver in Nashville, 54 years old, a medical technician. Vanderbilt Eye Institute pronounced him legally blind. They said: No treatment, no cure, but check the Internet. Last August, he went to Florida for a clinical trial. The doctors took cells from his hip bone using an FDA-cleared device, put them through a centrifuge, and injected them into both eyes. Within 2 days, he was beginning to see. He now has his driver's license back. He is ready to go back to work. He is sending us emails about our legislation urging us to pass it and give more Americans a chance to have the kinds of treatments he had that have restored his sight. Continuing with Dr. Collins' predictions for the next 10 years, he expects the development of an artificial pancreas to help diabetes patients by tracking blood glucose levels and by creating precise doses of insulin. He said that a Zika vaccine should be widely available by 2018 and a universal flu vaccine--flu killed 30,000 people last year--and an HIV/ AIDS vaccine available within a decade. Dr. Collins said that to relieve suffering and deal with the epidemic of opioid addiction that led to 28,000 overdose deaths in America in 2014, there will be new nonaddictive medicines to manage pain. Our Senate HELP Committee has approved 50 bipartisan strategies designed to make predictions like these of Dr. Collins come true. These include faster approval of breakthrough medical devices, such as the highly successful breakthrough path for medicines enacted in 2012, and making the problem-plagued electronic health records system interoperable and less burdensome for doctors and more available to patients. We would make it easier for the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration to hire the experts needed to supervise research and evaluate safety and effectiveness. We approved measures to target rare diseases and runaway superbugs that resist antibiotics. As Drs. Frist and Coburn--the former Senators--wrote in their Wall Street Journal op-ed that this 21st century cures legislation ``touches every American'' and that ``[m]illions of patients and the medical community are counting on Congress.'' The House has already passed by a vote of 344 to 77 companion legislation called 21st century cures, including a surge of funding for the National Institutes of Health. The President has his Precision Medicine Initiative. The Vice President started his Moonshot to cure cancer. The Senate HELP Committee has passed 19 bipartisan bills, as I said, either unanimously or by a wide margin. There is no excuse whatsoever for us not to get a result this year. It would be extraordinarily disappointing to millions of Americans if we did not. If the Senate finishes its work and passes these bipartisan biomedical innovation bills, as well as a surge of funding for the National Institutes of Health, and takes advantage of these advancements in science, we can help more patients live longer and healthier lives and help more researchers who want to look the parent of a small child in the eye and say: We found a cure. I notice that the Senator from Pennsylvania has come to the floor. I am ready to yield my time, but before I do--and I see the Senator from Missouri as well--before I do, I want to say of both of them, the Senator from Pennsylvania has been a critical component of the 21st century cures committee work in the Senate. Several of the 19 bills that our committee approved were sponsored by him. I thank him for his work. The Senator from Missouri--I spoke a little earlier about the mental health focus and consensus that we are developing and how we hope to get a result this year on mental health in the Senate, as well as 21st century cures. The Senator from Missouri has been key in both of them. Last year, working with Senator Murray, he was the principal architect of a boost of $2 billion in funding to the National Institutes of Health. This year, he is pushing hard for advances in mental health. So with this kind of bipartisan cooperation, we ought to be able to get a result in June or early July, and I am pledged to try to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval is about protecting the right of ordinary Americans to retire. That is what this is about. We are trying to stop the Labor Department's so-called fiduciary rule, which will restrict access to basic retirement planning advice for all but the wealthiest Americans and will force ordinary Americans to go it alone and to try to make the best guess they can about how to manage their money for retirement. Here is how. The administration's new rule updates the rules and requirements for retirement advisers, now requiring them to act as ``fiduciaries.'' That, like many of the administration's rules, sounds good and sounds helpful, but in practice it is going to cause great harm. The administration has created new legal liability, and that liability is so risky that advisers will only take on that liability and risk if they are advising individuals with big assets, so that the potential return outweighs the risk. In other words, good retirement advice will be available only to the rich under this rule. We know this because a similar rule was implemented in the United Kingdom in 2013. The result was that people with smaller savings accounts lost access to retirement advice. Many firms quit providing face-to-face advice for small accounts. A quarter of all small firms were forced to close shop altogether. The United Kingdom's four largest banks have all raised the minimum levels of assets for clients to receive advice--$80,000 at one bank, $160,000 at another, $355,000 at a third, and $800,000 at a fourth--due to the new rules. So to access retirement accounts at the United Kingdom's biggest banks, you have to have at least $80,000 in your account. So what would that look like here in the United States? Well, 77 percent of 401(k) balances in the United States are below $80,000, the lowest threshold, and 99.2 percent of the 401(k) balances in the United States are below the $800,000 threshold. So if the banks of the United States respond like the United Kingdom's banks did to this rule, we might find that less than 1 percent of Americans will be rich enough to receive retirement advice at one of our Nation's largest banks. We should call this ``Only the Rich Retire'' rule. Americans with smaller retirement savings or Americans who are just getting started saving for retirement are at the greatest risk for losing access to affordable retirement advice. Unless you have at least $80,000, you may not be able to get advice. Your small amount may not be worth the liability to the adviser. This will force middle- and low- income Americans to invest on their own without advice. This means they may not save at all or may make poor decisions at critical times like market downturns. Younger Americans, minorities, and women are the most likely to be hurt. Ninety-five percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 with 401(k) plans have balances under $80,000. Seventy-five percent of Black households and 80 percent of Latino households age 25 to 64 have less than $10,000 in retirement savings, compared with 50 percent of White households. The median IRA balance is $25,969 for American women compared to $81,700 for men. Even left-leaning economists estimate that this rule would cost middle-class Americans as much as $80 billion in lost savings. The late Chet Atkins, the prominent guitarist from Nashville, said: ``In life you have to be mighty careful where you aim because you are likely to get there.'' Well, retirement is all about planning. If you don't know how to plan, it is going to be pretty hard to retire. In Chet Atkins' terms, if you are not able to make a plan, it is hard to retire. Retirement planning is complicated. Our tax system is a mess. Most working Americans don't have time to learn about all the financial vehicles available for them to save and to understand exactly what steps they must take to have enough money to enjoy life when they end their careers. This rule comes at a time when many Americans are beginning to save money again after surviving the worst recession since the Great Depression and the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. This rule is allegedly to protect individuals from misleading investment advice, but in practice the new rule will make retirement planning unaffordable for lower to middle-income Americans whose accounts are not valuable enough for advisers to take on the new legal liability created by this rule. One of the most radical and out-of-touch aspects of the Obama administration's agenda has been its labor policies. Take the overtime rule. At colleges, this rule could force students to pay more tuition. One Tennessee college estimates $850 more per student. The President is running around talking about keeping college costs down. Why is it that this administration is coming out with a rule that would raise tuition $850 per student? At workplaces, this overtime rule could result in workers having their hours and benefits cut, fewer opportunities for advancement, less flexibility, and less control over their work arrangements. Then there is the joint employer decision. Through this National Labor Relations Board decision, the administration is trying to steal the American dream from owners of the Nation's 780,000 franchise businesses and from millions of contractors by destroying the franchise model that has helped so many Americans go from cashier to business owner. Then there is ObamaCare. The health care law defines full-time work as only 30 hours. That really sounds more like France than the United States. It has forced employers to cut their workers' hours or reduce hiring altogether in order to escape ObamaCare's mandate and its unaffordable penalties. Then there are micro-unions. This National Labor Relations Board decision will allow collective bargaining units made up of subsets of employees within the same company. It will divide workplaces. It will make it harder and more expensive for employers to manage their workplace and do business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted recently: ``The overtime regulation joins the recently finalized fiduciary rule which will reduce the ability of small business to provide retirement benefits; the EEOC's proposed revised EEO-1 form that will explode the burden on employers for reporting compensation by micro-demographics; OSHA's just-released injury reporting regulation that will result in sensitive employer data being posted on the Internet for use by unions and trial lawyers; and the Department of Labor's recently issued `persuader' regulation that is intended to chill the ability of employers to retain competent labor counsel during union organizing campaigns.'' This retirement rule is only the most recent in a series of actions that make it much harder for employers to add jobs and much harder for workers to climb the economic ladder of opportunity. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of my opening statement last week to the HELP Committee regarding oversight of the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in 1867, when the naturalist John Muir first walked into the Cumberland Mountains, he wrote: ``The scenery is far grander than any I ever before beheld. . . . Such an ocean of wooded, waving, swelling mountain beauty and grandeur is not to be described.'' In January, Apex Clean Energy announced that it would spoil that mountain beauty by building twenty-three 45-story wind turbines in Cumberland County. I can still recall walking into Grassy Cove in Cumberland County one spectacular day in 1978 during my campaign for Governor. I had not seen a prettier site. Over the last few decades, pleasant weather and natural beauty have attracted thousands of retirees from Tennessee and across America to the Cumberland Plateau. The proposed Crab Orchard Wind project would be built less than 10 miles from Cumberland Mountain State Park, where for half a century Tennesseans and tourists have camped, fished, and canoed alongside herons and belted kingfishers and around Byrd Lake. It will be less than 5 miles from the scenic Ozone Falls State Natural Area, where the 110-foot waterfall is so picturesque, it was filmed as scenery in the movie ``Jungle Book.'' So here are my 10 questions for the citizens of Cumberland County and the people of Tennessee: How big are these wind turbines? I have a picture somewhere; maybe it will show up in the next few minutes. Each one is over two times as tall as the skyboxes at the University of Tennessee football stadium, three times as tall as Ozone Falls, and taller than the Statute of Liberty. The blades on each one are as long as a football field. Their blinking lights can be seen for 20 miles. They are not your grandma's windmills. Question No. 2: Will they disturb the neighborhood? Here is what a New York Times review of the documentary ``Windfall'' said about New York residents debating such turbines: Turbines are huge . . . with blades weighing seven tons and spinning at 150 miles an hour. They can fall over or send parts flying; struck by lightning, say, they can catch fire . . . and can generate a disorienting strobe effect in sunlight. Giant flickering shadows can tarnish a sunset's glow on a landscape. Question No. 3: How much electricity can the project produce? A puny amount--71 megawatts. But that is only when the wind is blowing, which in Tennessee is only 18.4 percent of the time, according to the Energy Information Administration. Question No. 4: Does TVA need this electricity? The answer is no. Last year TVA said there is ``no immediate need for new base load plants after Watts Bar Unit 2 comes online.'' That is a nuclear reactor. And just last week TVA put up for sale its unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant. Question No. 5: Do we need wind power's carbon-free electricity to help with climate change? No, we don't. Nuclear power is a more reliable option. Nuclear produces over 60 percent of our country's carbon-free electricity, which is available 92 percent of the time. Wind produces 15 percent of our country's carbon-free electricity, but the wind often blows at night when electricity is not needed. Question No. 6: How many wind turbines would it take to equal one nuclear reactor? To equal the production of the new Watts Bar reactor, you would have to run three rows of these huge wind turbines along I-40 from Memphis to Knoxville. And don't forget the transmission lines. Four reactors, each occupying roughly 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. Relying on wind power to produce electricity when nuclear reactors are available is the energy equivalent of going to war in sailboats when a nuclear navy is available. Question No. 7: Can you easily store large amounts of wind power and use it later when you need it? The answer is no. Question No. 8: So even if you build wind turbines, do you still need nuclear, coal, or gas plants for the 80 percent of the time when the wind isn't blowing in Tennessee? The answer is yes. Question No. 9: Then why would anyone want to build wind power that TVA doesn't need? Because billions of dollars of wasteful Federal taxpayer subsidies allow wind producers in some markets to give away wind power and still make a profit. The 10th question: Who is going to guarantee that these giant wind turbines get taken down when they wear out in 20 years and after the subsidies go away? Good question. The picture that was just put up--and I have another slide as well--is what Palm Springs, CA, looks like after it has been littered with these massive wind turbines. My question for the people of Tennessee is, Do you want Cumberland County and Tennessee to look like that? That is the question we need to ask ourselves. Many communities 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. For example, watch the documentary ``Windfall'' that I mentioned earlier. 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 neighborhood. 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.'' Take a look, and you can see why. In Kent County, MD, the same company that is trying to put turbines in Cumberland County--Apex Clean Energy--tried to put down twenty-five to thirty-five 500-foot turbines a quarter to a half mile apart across thousands of acres of farmland where the air serves as a route for migratory geese. According to the Baltimore Sun, Stephen S. Hershey, Jr., a local State legislator, had introduced a bill that would give county officials the right to veto any large-scale wind project in their jurisdiction. Hershey said he put the bill in after learning that the turbines would be nearly 500 feet tall and spread across an area of thousands of acres. He called that a ``massive'' footprint ``in a relatively rural and bucolic area.'' William Pickrum, president of the Board of County Commissioners, wrote the Senate committee that the project ``will certainly have a negative effect'' on farming, boating, and tourism in the county and hurt property values. The legislation had the support of local conservation groups and of Washington College in Chestertown. The school's interim president, Jack S. Griswold, warned in a letter to school staff and supporters that the turbines would ``despoil this scenic landscape.'' I mentioned a little earlier how big these wind turbines are. These are not your grandma's windmills. I happen to know, even though the Presiding Officer is from North Carolina, he was born in Tennessee and knows a little bit about the football stadium in Knoxville. This is one wind turbine, when placed in Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, which will hold 102,000 people. The turbine is over twice as tall as the skyboxes. Its blades go the whole length of the football field. Its blinking lights can be seen for 20 miles. These are not your grandma's windmills. As a U.S. Senator, I voted to save our mountaintops from destructive mining techniques. I am just as eager to protect mountaintops from unsightly wind turbines. I have voted for Federal clean air legislation and supported TVA's plan to build carbon-free nuclear reactors, phase out its older, dirtier coal plants, and put pollution control equipment on the remaining coal plants. Already the air is cleaner and our view of the mountains is better. I hope citizens of Cumberland County--and all Tennesseans--will say a loud ``no'' to the out-of-State wind producers that are encouraged by billions in wasteful taxpayer subsidies to destroy our mountains and make them look like that. Some say tourists will come to see the giant turbines. They may-- once. But do we really think tourists or most Tennesseans want to exchange a drive through the natural beauty of the Cumberland Mountains for a drive along 23 towers that are more than twice as tall as Neyland Stadium and whose flashing lights can be seen for 20 miles? If you do, just take another look at the photograph of what has happened in Palm Springs, CA. If there is one thing Tennesseans agree on, it is the pride in the natural beauty of our State. There are few places more beautiful than Cumberland County. We should not allow anyone to destroy the environment of our State in the name of saving. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1:45 p.m. on Thursday, today, May 12, all postcloture time be considered expired and that following the disposition of the Alexander substitute amendment, the cloture motion on H.R. 2028 be withdrawn, the bill be read a third time, and the Senate vote on passage of the bill, as amended.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in morning business for 20 minutes, equally divided.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 12, 2016, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 12, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.