Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 12, 2016, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining America's Role in the World.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 12, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 12, 2016.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 12, 2016, at 2 p.m., in room SH-219 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 12, 2016, at 9 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Examining Due Process in Administrative Hearings.''

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following disposition of H.R. 2028, the Energy and Water appropriations bill, the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 2577, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill; further, that the pending amendments be withdrawn and that Senator Cochran or his designee be recognized to offer a substitute amendment that contains the text of S. 2844 and S. 2806 as reported by the Appropriations Committee with a technical citation correction in section 237 of S. 2844; further, that the substitute amendment be considered an Appropriations Committee amendment for the purpose of rule XVI and that H.R. 2577 serve as the basis for defense of germaneness under rule XVI for the division of the substitute that contains S. 2844 and that H.R. 4974, as reported by the House Appropriations Committee, serve as the basis for defense of germaneness under rule XVI for the division of the substitute that contains S. 2806; finally, that floor amendments be drafted to one of the two divisions and use the corresponding House text for defense of germaneness and that rule XVI discipline apply during consideration of this measure.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in about 15 minutes, the Senate will vote on final passage of the Energy and Water appropriations bill that the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, and I have been working on with Members of the Senate for the last few weeks. The Senate began consideration of this bill on Wednesday, April 20. According to the Congressional Research Service, this is the earliest date the Senate has begun debating an appropriations bill in the last 40 years. When we finish today, this will be the earliest the Senate has passed an appropriations bill in the last 40 years. Eighty Senators either submitted requests or offered amendments to the bill. Senator Feinstein and I have worked hard to accommodate most of those. The last time this bill, the Energy and Water appropriations bill, was considered by the Senate and passed in regular order was in the year 2009. By ``regular order,'' I mean it came to the floor, it had an open amendment process, all 100 Senators had a chance to participate in it, instead of just the 30 on the Appropriations Committee, and it was eventually voted on and approved. Yesterday, the Senate voted to end debate on the substitute amendment by a vote of 97 to 2. As I mentioned, today we are ready for final passage in about 15 minutes. By the end of this process, we will have considered 21 amendments and adopted 14. I appreciate my colleagues supporting the regular appropriations process. I thank Senators who offered germane and relevant amendments, and I hope we can now overwhelmingly pass the bill. I begin by pointing something out. It is appropriate that we have in the chair the Senator from Georgia, who has devoted so much of his time this year to reforming our budget process. This is the part of the budget that we are working on. It is a little more than a trillion dollars, and it is not the Federal spending problem that we have. This is 2008 through about today, and you can see that spending levels are pretty flat. This is the projection by the Congressional Budget Office about where spending for this part of the budget will go over the next several years. What is in this blue line? It is all of our national defense; all of the work we need, such as in this bill, to deepen the harbors in Savannah and in Charleston; all the money for our national laboratories; all the money for our Pell grants for college students; and the money for the National Institutes of Health for treatments and cancer cures. In this part of the budget--in this trillion dollars that we work on--there are very important matters that virtually everyone who votes for us would like to see us address. I believe those of us on the Appropriations Committee have done a good job of oversight of this trillion dollars in spending. Here is where the problem is--this red line. This is the entitlement spending. It gets to be three times as much as this blue line. It is up toward $4 trillion. This is $1 trillion. This is where we need to go to work. Sometimes Senators of each party will come to the floor and beat their chests, bragging about cutting this blue line as if they were doing something about the red line. I hope we will stop that. I hope we will go to work and figure out what we are going to do to responsibly keep this line under control as we go forward. What we have done--with the cooperation of the Senate in the last couple of weeks--is to pass the first of the Senate appropriations bills and to do it earlier than it has been done in the last 4 years. I see the Senator from California has arrived. I wish to acknowledge her leadership and thank her for it. In her words, we give and we take. We have a process whereby we stick to our principles, but we do our best to come to a result, which we have done. It is a great pleasure to work with her. I am going to cease my remarks 5 minutes or 6 minutes before the vote so that Senator Feinstein will have a chance to speak if she would like to speak.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I also wish to thank the staffs for their work on this bill. They have been remarkably good. In Senator Feinstein's staff are Doug Clapp, Chris Hanson, Samantha Nelson, and Tim Dykstra. The staff on my side includes Tyler Owens, Adam DeMella, Meyer Seligman, Jen Armstrong, Haley Alexander, David Cleary, Allison Martin, Mackenzie Burt, Lucas DaPieve, Kayla McMurray, and John Rivard. Then I thank the Republican floor staff, who have had to put up with us as we have had tried to work through the amendments: Laura Dove, Robert Duncan, Megan Mercer, Chris Tuck, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Hanagan, Mike Smith, and Katherine Kilroy. I thank the Democratic floor staff as well for working with us and making this possible. I will make a few remarks about this bill. This bill is almost half and half defense and nondefense, about $37.5 billion. It supports several Federal agencies that do important work, including the U.S. Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, National Nuclear Security Administration, which has to do with our nuclear weapons, and the Appalachian Regional Commission. It invests in our waterways. It repairs our locks. It deepens our harbors. It puts us one step closer to doubling basic energy research. It helps to resolve the nuclear waste stalemate that our country has been in for 25 years, finding appropriate places to put used nuclear fuel so we can continue to have a strong nuclear power program--which produces 60 percent of all the carbon-free electricity we have in this country--and it cleans up hazardous materials at Cold War sites. I mentioned earlier that I thought we had done a good job of being stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. That is this blue line here. We have kept this under control. For example, Senator Feinstein and I have again recommended--and the Senate has agreed--to eliminate funding for a fusion project in France. That saves us $125 million. We worked together to help keep big projects such as the uranium facility at Oak Ridge on time and on budget. We are working with Senator Graham, Senator Scott, and Senator McCain to try to take the big MOX facility in South Carolina and see what we can do about the huge expense of what we are doing there. We are being good stewards. The President cut $1.4 billion from the Corps of Engineers. Well, we put it back. We set a new record level of funding for the Corps. There is no funding line in this budget that more Senators are concerned with. It includes $1.3 billion for the Harbor Maintenance Fund. It is the third consecutive year that we have done that, consistent with the recommendations of our authorizing committees. That deepens harbors in Gulfport, Charleston, Mobile, Texas harbors, Louisiana harbors, Anchorage Harbor, and Savannah Harbor. There is money for the west coast harbors as well. We take a step toward doubling basic energy research. Our top priority was the Office of Science, which for the second consecutive year has a record level of funding for an appropriations bill. There is $325 million for ARPA-E, an agency we value because of the good work it does. We support the administration's request to keep the United States at the forefront of supercomputing in the world. As I mentioned, we support nuclear power, especially efforts to find places to put used nuclear fuel. We have again included the pilot program Senator Feinstein authored, and which I support, and support for private waste facilities that could also serve that same function. We have money for advanced reactors and for safely extending the length of time nuclear plants can operate, which is the easiest way to keep the largest amount of reliable carbon-free electricity available over the next several years. In terms of the National Nuclear Security Administration, we support the warhead life extension programs and the Ohio-class replacement submarine. We have $575 million for the uranium facility, and $5.4 billion for cleaning up hazardous wastesites left over from the Cold War. I am proud of the bill, but I am even more proud of the process which we have gone through. This has almost been a learning process for the Senate. More than half of the Senators have never been through a process where we take more than one appropriations bill, take it through committee, consult with every Member of the Senate, bring it on the floor, and give all 100 Members a chance to offer amendments and consider their amendments. We have processed 21 amendments and have adopted 14. Almost any Senator who had a contribution to make that they wanted to make to this bill has had a chance to do that. There is a great deal included in here that every Senator can be proud of. I suspect that is why on the last vote that we had to cut off debate and move toward final passage, the vote was 97 to 2. I hope we have that same enthusiasm when it comes time in a few moments to have a vote on final passage of the bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would like to reiterate something I am sure Senator Feinstein would agree with. First, I thank the majority leader for scheduling our bill early. He scheduled it earlier than any appropriations bill has been scheduled in the last 40 years. The reason I am sure she agrees with that is because she told me that and because not only did the majority leader make this a priority but so did the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, and all of the Democratic Senators. We worked hard to try to set an example for the Senate for the next 11 appropriations bills. According to the Congressional Research Service, this is the earliest the Senate has passed an appropriations bill in the last 40 years. More than that, the vote was 90 to 8, which is an unusually large bipartisan vote for such a large and complex bill. I think that reflects on the fact that more than 80 Senators made contributions to this bill. We processed more than 21 amendments. Our experience is, when Senators have a lot of input into a bill, they are more comfortable with it and more likely to support it. I especially thank not just the leaders but the Republican and the Democratic floor staffs for helping us with this. Passing a bill like this is more of an exercise in human nature sometimes than it is an exercise in policy, and they are the essential grease in making that happen. I thank them very much for it. This is the basic constitutional work of the U.S. Senate. Both the Republican and Democratic leaders have gotten us back on track in doing this. I appreciate having the chance to be a part of it. I thank the Senators for their cooperation with Senator Feinstein and me as we set out to get what I believe is an excellent result for the people of this country.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I wish to honor David Quam, deputy director for policy with the National Governors Association, or NGA. Senator Manchin and Senator Rounds both join me in honoring David, who concluded his tenure with NGA after 13 years of service to the Nation's Governors on April 29. As he begins a new chapter in his distinguished professional career, I would like to highlight the important work David led at NGA, the bipartisan organization of the Governors of the 55 States, territories, and Commonwealths. David has been a strong voice for the Nation's Governors in the areas of State taxation, telecommunications and technology, budget and appropriations, national security, veterans affairs, the National Guard, and the critical role of States in responding to the great recession and natural disasters. He testified before Congress 15 times, principally on State taxation matters. David also helped launch NGA's international program, leading a series of subnational trade conferences in Salt Lake City and Beijing between U.S. and Chinese Governors under a bilateral agreement between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Since 2003, David has helped frame and convey the bipartisan views of U.S. Governors to Members of Congress, Presidential administrations and Federal executive branch officials, private sector executives, and international leaders. He has represented the consensus positions of Governors through numerous television appearances and print interviews with publications, including: the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, CNN, National Public Radio, Congressional Quarterly, Bureau of National Affairs, Politico, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal- Constitution, Denver Post, and the Bond Buyer. David relished his role as chief advocate presenting the collective voice of the Nation's Governors, often describing it as the ``best job in Washington, D.C.'' He executed it well. Through David's leadership of the Office of Federal Relations, NGA holds a respected record in developing policy solutions and effectively advocating the Governors' collective policy priorities before Congress and the administration. David and his team of professionals have helped to maintain a seat at the table for the Nation's Governors on many critical national issues. On behalf of all of my Senate colleagues who are former Governors, especially Senator Manchin and Senator Rounds, many of whom have worked directly with David Quam for years, I wish to express our thanks for his zealous bipartisan advocacy on behalf of the Nation's Governors, sound counsel, good humor, and tireless defense of the Tenth Amendment on behalf of the States.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in about 5 or 6 minutes, the Senate will proceed to the scheduled vote on the Cotton amendment on the Energy and Water appropriations bill. Actually, it will be cloture on the Cotton amendment. Before that vote, I ask unanimous consent that I first be allowed to speak for a few minutes, and following me, Senator Feinstein, and then we vote.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I will save most of my remarks for after the vote, but I wish to make two kinds of remarks. One is to give an update on the bill, where we are. The second remark is to restate my reasons why I will not vote for cloture on the Cotton amendment. First, in terms of where we are, we have the Cotton amendment at 10:30. The Senator from California and I have agreed--and I think our staffs and the Republican and Democratic leaders have discussed it--that there could be a vote for Senator Cardin and Senator Fischer at 60 votes, a voice vote on Senator Flake. That is it. Then we would have another cloture vote if we need it and a vote on final passage. In my view, and I believe in terms of Senator Feinstein's view, we ought to easily be able to finish the bill today. I think we should finish it today. I thank the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, for starting the appropriations process earlier this year than it ever has been started before. I thank the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, for working with us through some difficult issues we had on this first bill that we didn't expect and to make it possible for us to come to what looks like a prompt conclusion. This is an important bill. The Senators know that. We have had nearly 80 Senators contribute parts of this bill. Some are very important to their States and this country. Whether it deepens the Mobile port or the west coast ports or rebuilds locks in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee or whether it properly funds the national laboratories across the country or moves ahead with our nuclear weapons program, this is one of the most important appropriations bills that we have. Today we will have spent 2 weeks on it, not counting the week we had for recess. We will have processed 21 amendments, if I go through the amendments I just described. If we succeed today in finishing the bill, it will be the first time since 2009 that the Energy and Water appropriations bill has gone across the floor in regular order. Senator Feinstein and I have worked pretty hard together, and as she likes to say, both of us have engaged in some give and some take in order to create a result that the Senate can be proud of and set a good example for the next 11 appropriations bills. We have a lot waiting to be done. The majority leader has already announced he would like to move ahead with the transportation and military construction bill. On both sides of the aisle, there is concern about moving ahead with Zika, which could be done during that bill. The Defense authorization bill needs to be dealt with before we get to the next recess. We have nine more appropriations bills to deal with, and there is a very important biomedical research bill called the 21st Century Cures Act. I hope we get to that bill sometime before July. Amendment No. 3878 Mr. President, I have one other thing to say. Senator Feinstein and I have worked hard to give all the Senators who had germane, relevant amendments a vote on their amendments, and we succeeded very well with that. We processed 21 amendments, and that includes the amendment by Senator Cotton, which prohibits the United States from using tax dollars to buy heavy water from Iran in the year 2017. I defended his right to have a vote on that amendment, which we are about to have, but I will vote no on that amendment because I don't believe it belongs on the bill. No. 1, I think it should be considered first by the Foreign Relations and the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees because it is filled with national security implications. No. 2, if it were adopted, I think there would be dangerous complications because it could increase the possibility that heavy water from Iran, which in the United States would be used for peaceful purposes, could be sold by Iran to another country, such as North Korea, and used to help make nuclear weapons. I don't want to have the Senate approve an amendment that would create that kind of possibility. No. 3, the President said he will veto it, which would result in not only having the Cotton amendment rejected, but the bill would fail as well. The discussion of where Iran's heavy water goes is an important discussion, and the Senator has a right to bring it up. Iran has it, and we don't want them to have it because they could use it to make nuclear weapons. We don't produce it, but we need it for medical and scientific research, so it makes sense for us to buy it. In the great scheme of things, it is not a great amount of money. But the idea of letting it go on the international market and perhaps find its way to countries building nuclear weapons is something I can't support, so I will vote no. I thank the Senator from California for working through all of these issues with us, and I am glad that following Senator Feinstein's remarks, we will vote on the Cotton amendment. I hope that with the cooperation of the majority leader and Democratic leader, we will be able to finish the bill today.

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

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arkansas for withdrawing his amendment. I defended his right to have the amendment. I opposed the amendment, and I explained before the vote why I did that, so it is not necessary for me to say more about it. As Senator Feinstein and I said before the vote, we are ready to finish the bill. We have had terrific cooperation from Senators on both sides of the aisle. We will have included 21 amendments in the bill by the time we are finished. More than 80 Senators have made a contribution to the bill. It has importance to every part of our country. It is the first bill of a series of 12 that we need to deal with. It is within the budget levels. It is not a part of the Federal debt problem because the discretionary spending we are talking about is fairly flat. It is a well-designed bill, and we are ready to finish the bill. When it will be finished, of course, is up to the majority leader and the Democratic leader as they schedule. All that remains to be done, since Senator Feinstein and I have recommended that we have votes on the Cardin and Fischer amendments at 60 and that we adopt a Flake-modified amendment by voice vote--then all that remains is a cloture vote, if necessary, and final passage. In our view, that could be done today, but there may be larger issues that have to do with the Senate schedule that would cause that to be put off until tomorrow, and we will wait for an announcement from the majority leader and the Democratic leader about what that schedule is. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. For the information of Senators and staff, there will be a vote at noon. We expect a cloture vote at noon on the bill. There may be other things to discuss at that time. Several Senators have asked me about votes, and I indicated that there were a couple and that there might not be votes until after lunch, but the plan now is to have a vote at noon on cloture on the bill. Perhaps by then we will be able to lock in some other votes, which would occur after lunch. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, within a few minutes, we will be voting for the fourth time on cloture on the bill. This time I expect it to pass. The Cotton amendment has been disposed of. Following that, if it is successful, Senator Feinstein and I have recommended to the majority leader and the Democratic leader that we move to a vote on the Cardin and Fischer amendments, at 60 votes, and a voice vote on the Flake amendment. Then, all that would be remaining would be a final cloture vote, which may or may not be necessary, and final passage. None of those votes have been agreed to yet, and we will let Senators know when they are. But in the opinion of the bill managers, we are ready to finish the bill, and we thank Senators for their cooperation to get us to this point. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on behalf of the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Cotton, I withdraw the Cotton amendment.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am glad to see an enthusiastic vote of support on the cloture motion on the fourth try. We gain a little bit every time. For the information of Senators, there will be two votes at 4:30 p.m., on the Cardin and Fischer amendments at 60 votes each. Amendments Nos. 3871, 3888, and 3876 to Amendment No. 3801 Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up the following amendments and that they be reported by number: Cardin amendment No. 3871, Fischer amendment No. 3888, and Flake amendment No. 3876; further, that the time until 4:30 p.m. be equally divided between the managers or their designees for debate on the amendments concurrently; and that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the Cardin and Fischer amendments in the order listed, with a 60-affirmative-vote threshold for adoption for amendments Nos. 3871 and 3888; I further ask that there be no second-degree amendments in order to any of these amendments.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 11, 2016.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 11, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining the Proposed FCC Privacy Rules.''

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.