Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, the library of Congress is at a critical juncture. We seldom talk about the Library because there have only been 13 Librarians who have served in the Library of Congress in the entire history of the Library, dating back to the starting of the Federal Government here in Washington. It is an important time for the Library to have a chance to really focus on the technologies available to us today. I am the chairman of the Rules Committee, and the ranking Democrat on that committee, Senator Schumer, and I proposed legislation earlier in the year that would set a limit--for the first time--for the Library of Congress. This nomination is the first nomination for a Librarian to have a term limit. That 10-year term will replace what was previously a lifetime appointment. It is a critically important 10 years for the Library. Congress unanimously agreed to make this change, and then the nomination of Dr. Carla Hayden was received by the Rules Committee at the end of February this year. Since that time, the committee has thoroughly vetted Dr. Hayden. We reviewed her qualifications, writings, experience, and in particular, her role in leading the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore for the past 23 years. She oversaw the expansion and modernization of the library and how it could be made more available to people. This committee spent more time reviewing this nomination than any previous nomination for this position. I think she has an extraordinary professional background. By the way, the longest serving Librarian of Congress was a librarian, and she brings that skill in ways that nobody else has in the past. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in library science. She served as an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, and spent 40 years working in her chosen profession of leading library systems in Chicago and Baltimore. She has been endorsed by librarians around the country, associations, and higher education entities in many States, including my State. Missouri State University and the University of Missouri in Kansas City have both endorsed her service. The librarian in Ferguson, MO, served on panels with her and has endorsed her. The libraries in both Ferguson and Baltimore played their own roles in dealing with the stress that those communities have faced over the last 2 years. Dr. Hayden led the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. This is the national organization for librarians. In 2001, before she began her tenure as President, the organization's council voted to challenge the Children's Internet Protection Act on First Amendment grounds. This act requires libraries receiving public funding to install Internet content filters on public computers. This requirement helps protect children from harmful Internet content in public libraries, and, of course, I support its implementation. In 2003, right before Dr. Hayden became president of the association, the Supreme Court upheld the law, and she was actually the president of the association not when they challenged the law but when they implemented the law. I specifically asked her about her position on the Children's Internet Protection Act during our public hearing on the nomination, and I wish to make a couple of points about her response to my questions. She explained to the committee that the American Library Association's concerns were focused on unintentionally restricting access to nonpornographic materials, including health information related topics like breast cancer. At the time, according to Dr. Hayden, the filters were not as sophisticated as they are today, and they had a tendency to overfilter in some areas. However, she made it clear that her view of pornography was that it has no place in public libraries and noted that her library, the Enoch Pratt library, has installed filters consistent with the requirement of the law. I will quote her testimony at this point because this has been the one area where some Members have expressed concern. She said: Technology has improved and the filters that are installed to receive federal funding . . . have improved. And, the need to be vigilant is also something that libraries are doing in not only the technological aspect, but just plain physical arrangement of computers, making sure that there are face-out positioning of computer monitors, as well as very few, if any, cubicles that contain computers as well, and education and making sure people know that pornography is illegal and we do not support that in any shape or form. The committee went through a thorough process. She was unanimously approved by the committee. I certainly agree with Senator Mikulski when she said that this is an important time. We have taken the time to look at this, and we don't need to wait any longer. I urge my colleagues to approve this nomination. Mr. President, I also ask that Senator Cardin have a chance to speak about Dr. Hayden. He also knows her very well.

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

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 2:45 p.m., in room SD- 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Campus Safety: Improving Prevention and Response Efforts.''

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., in Room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Researching the Potential Medical Benefits and Risks of Marijuana.''

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015: Ensuring Successful Implementation of Physician Payment Reforms.''

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Health Care of the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Alzheimer's Disease: The Struggle for Families, a Looming Crisis for Medicare.''

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 11:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 10:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``U.S. Policy Options in the South China Sea.''

Mr. BLUNT. 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 July 13, 2016, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., in room SR- 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a Subcommittee hearing entitled ``NASA at a Crossroads: Reasserting American Leadership in Space Exploration.''

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 10 a.m., in Room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 13, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Zika in the Western Hemisphere: Risks and Response.''

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to Jo Ann Emerson for her tireless dedication and service to both her State and her country. I had the pleasure of serving with Jo Ann in the House of Representatives. She has always been well-respected by her constituents, her colleagues in Congress, and the many individuals and families whose problems she dealt with as if they were her family. When Congresswoman Emerson left the Congress, she became the CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, NRECA. She worked hard across the country for the kinds of communities and families she understands so well in our State of Missouri. It would be difficult for me to convey just how great an impact she has always had on those she encountered better than the remarks made by Jeffrey Connor, interim CEO, on June 13 at the NRECA summer board meeting. I ask unanimous consent to have his remarks printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 3055 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I was interested to hear my good friend talk about the uncertainty of the appropriations process. Frankly, I think we could debate no issue that would change the Congress more totally than the issue of getting back to the certainty of the appropriations process. For 200 years, the principal work of the Congress--the House and the Senate--was to set our national priorities based on how we spend our national trust of the money given to this government by the people who pay taxes, the revenue of the government. We have gotten out of the habit of doing that. Frankly, one of the reasons we have an authorizing process--and have always had that--and an appropriating process is because that gave the Congress the annual ability to look at those programs, see how they were working, see if they were still working, and gave the Congress the ability to reach out to a program and have that program answer every question because there was an annual review of how we spent the money. If there is an incredible indictment over the last 7 years, it is that the Senate has stopped doing that work. The Republican-led Appropriations Committees over the last 2 years have had all the bills ready for the first time in a long time--ready to do the work and ready to talk about the priorities of the country and, maybe more importantly, ready for the 30 people who serve on the Appropriations Committee to not be the only people who get to offer amendments, to not be the only people who ask and answer questions, and to not be the only people who get a say in this process. That is why these bills need to be on the floor. What a tragedy this week and last week that the Defense appropriations bill--the primary responsibility of the Federal Government to defend the country--that bill isn't even allowed to be debated by the minority because they say: We want to see what the final bill will say before we are ready to debate the Senate version. There is no government--bicameral, two legislative body chart in the world-- that shows how one group decides what the final bill looks like before the other body of the Congress is allowed to pass a bill. That is just not the way this works. There is a Senate bill, there is a House bill, and those two bills come together. The country, for good reasons, has forgotten the basic civics of how our democracy works because the Senate particularly has been such an obstacle to that democracy working for 7 years now. For 5 years, we were not able to amend the bills, and that was a reason not to go forward, and by the way it was a good reason not to go forward. Then, for 2 years, we didn't want to debate the bills because apparently we didn't know what they were going to say before they got to the President's desk. That is not how this process is supposed to work. Last month, for the first time in 7 years, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education passed a bipartisan bill. It came out of the full committee 29 to 1. That is a good vote, but that still means 70 of the Senators haven't gotten to weigh in on what that bill should look like. If that was the case, it could be that other Senators who are concerned about opioid abuse-- which I want to talk about in a minute--the Senators who are concerned about whether that is going to be funded would be less concerned if they knew we were back to the constitutional way of running the government. As chairman of the Labor and Health and Human Services Committee, I was pleased we were able to write that bipartisan bill. Certainly, Senator Murray, the leading Democrat, didn't get everything she wanted in this bill, and I didn't get everything I wanted in this bill, but we were willing to set priorities. One of the priorities I want to talk about for a few minutes, before we all go home and have a chance to talk about the good things that could happen in the country if we will just do our job--one of those priorities will be returning to year- round Pell grants. Pell grants are the grants available to people who, because of their family income or their personal income, qualify for not a student loan but actually a student grant. Until 2008, we had several years where you could go to school, and you could go to school year-round, and still have access to those Pell grant funds. Recently, I was at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis. I was at Mineral Area College, I was at Ozarks Technical College, Missouri State University in Springfield, and I was at Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff talking about what happens if people are able to stay in school once they get in school. One of the students I talked to at Harris-Stowe is Tierra Wilson, a 21- year-old senior who was about to graduate. She was going to school pretty much on her own resources, her own part-time job. She needed to get done as soon as she could so she decided to take summer classes, but since she didn't have the opportunity for a year-round Pell--she could only get the Pell grant for two semesters instead of the way it was until 2008--she could only get that money for two semesters so she had to borrow the $3,000 it took her to finish her degree sooner. The good news is, she is going to finish her degree. The bad news for her is, she has an additional $3,000 debt that she wouldn't have had. The newspaper the Joplin Globe recently shared a story about another student who also recently has gone to school on Pell grants, Andy Hamon. He is a senior. His mom and dad run a small business. According to that story, he has always depended on financial aid because his family didn't have the resources to pay tuition. He said it hasn't been easy. He said he had to take classes in the summer, and when he did take classes in the summer, he had to borrow or out-of-pocket come up with the $800 to $10,000 the Pell grant will not cover. When I was at Mineral Area Community College, the president of Mineral Area Community College, Dr. Steve Kurtz, said, when you talk about affordability and accessibility, you are right in the middle of this discussion on what happens if you have access to help year-round as opposed to just two semesters a year. Jean Merrill-Doss, who serves as the dean of student services at that college, says approximately 60 percent of their student body is dependent on Pell grants to attend school. As a college student, I went to school as quickly as I could. Nobody in my family had graduated from college before. I went three years, three summers. It took 124 credit hours to graduate with a bachelor's degree. I had 124 credit hours. I didn't have an extra hour. I couldn't pay for an extra hour, in my view, and I needed to get college behind me or I might not be the first person in my family to graduate from college. In fact, the first teaching job I took at Marshfield High School--my grandfather was the janitor. He had been the janitor, when I was growing up, at the school where I took my first job as a college graduate. Students like Tierra, students like Andy need to have the opportunity we can give them to go to school and finish school. Pell grants benefit about 7.5 million students annually. The maximum two-semester Pell grant will be $5,815 in the school year that begins next fall. The $5,815 pays for tuition, fees, books at every community college in Missouri, and we have a big community college system. So for people who have the most economic need, we already have free 2 years of college in our State, and in a couple of our universities you can still get all your tuition, all your books, all the fees paid for with a Pell grant. What is the advantage of being able to stay in school once you get started in school? The Presiding Officer and I are two of the three university presidents here in the Senate. So we have talked to many students who had to have financial aid and had to have help to go. If you are the first person in your family to graduate from college or you are going back to school--maybe you are taking a break, you didn't go to college, or college didn't work out--and you are an adult and totally responsible for all of your college expenses if you are going to go, staying in school makes a big difference. If you decide you can't go that summer semester because you can't afford the tuition and you get the full-time summer job, it is real easy for the full-time summer job to turn into this: Well, I will do this job one more semester, and I will get into school in January. In January it is easy to think: Well, I will go ahead and finish my job and save a little more money, and I will get back into school at the regular time next fall. Before you know it, life gets in the way, things happen, and you intend to continue to go to school, finish, and get your degree, but it somehow doesn't happen. Those students who want to continue their class work year-round should have access to the Pell grant help that you would have if you were a little more flexible and had a little more ability to take a part-time job in the summer, live at home with your mom and dad, and do whatever you are doing there and start back in the fall. Year-round Pell is not for everybody, but it is expected that an estimated 1 million students of the 7.7 million students that get Pell would take advantage of year-round Pell, and that includes 20,000 Missouri students who would take advantage of year-round Pell. They would get an average of $1,650 each to take advantage of that other semester-- another semester to catch up, another semester to get ahead, or another semester to just graduate faster. This is something we need to do and should do. Opioid Epidemic Mr. President, I want to speak for a couple of minutes about the other topic that was just discussed--opioids. Clearly, this is a problem. About 1,000 Missourians every year die from opioid overdoses. In St. Louis alone, deaths related to opioid abuse have increased three times since 2007. An estimated 5.9 million American adults have an opioid use disorder. This is truly a public health crisis in every corner of the nation, from our major cities to our rural communities. There is some evidence that rural communities even have a bigger problem with opioid abuse than in the city. I was visiting over the Fourth of July weekend with some St. Louis firefighters who were also in the first responder team, and it is clear that this is something where 10 or 15 times a day, and even more on weekends, they are responding to opioid overdoses. If you are in a fire department in America today that also has a first responder unit, you are three times more likely to go to an overdose than you are to go to a fire. The good news is there is treatment. Seventy-two percent of the Missourians who went through the State's opioid treatment program, having been tested, were found to be negative afterward with any random test. So there is a solution here. The problem is that only about 10 percent of the people who have the problem get into the program to solve the problem. That is why yesterday the bill was passed that I co-sponsored that dealt with the idea of opioid abuse. This agreement expands access to evidence-based treatment and recovery services and focuses on proven strategies that strengthen people's ability not to get addicted and, if they are addicted, to figure out how to no longer be addicted. In this appropriation, we recommended a 93-percent increase in the money available. One of the issues that Senator Wyden was concerned about was whether there would be enough money. Between last year and this year, we increased the money by 542 percent. It takes an unbelievably effective government agency to deal with a more than 542- percent increase. We are going to continue to watch the bill, to watch the need, to see and do everything possible to see that the money is available. The House has ideas here. We do too. First responders are not the people who need to be primarily focused on this job. They need to be there when they need to be there, but we have to do something that solves this problem. People need a place to go. That is why the Excellence in Mental Health Act will have at least 6 States, and as many as 24 States, on January 1, treating mental health like all other health, providing an important access point for mental health issues of all kinds and opioid issues that can only be dealt with in that context of overall health involving mental health. I hope we will begin to work more openly, more transparently, and more committed to solving problems than we are committed to just complaining about problems. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, that is accurate. Let me be clear, the conference report provides the same access to birth control services as the administration's request by allowing reimbursement through public health plans, which includes Medicaid. In addition, the conference agreement goes even further than the administration's request by expanding access to services through more robust funding to community health centers, public health departments, and hospitals in areas most affected by the Zika virus.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I want to follow up on the remarks of our friend Senator Nelson from Florida. Let me first say a couple of things about the bill that is on the floor. This is a challenging bill to bring to the floor. Senator Shelby is the chairman of the committee. He has done a great job on bringing a bill to the floor. It is not the bill he would have written if he were writing the bill by himself. Senator Mikulski has done the same thing. By having these bills on the floor, we have a chance to let all the Senators express their views by offering amendments and voting on amendments. This bill has some excellent things in it at a critical time and pursues a national network of manufacturing centers. A couple of years ago, Senator Brown and I were able to get Advanced Manufacturing Centers of Excellence into the law in a way that the Commerce Department could do things that they otherwise are not able to do. This fully funds an important program that the administration zeros out every year. The victims of child abuse advocacy centers are centers where kids can go who have either been the victims of a crime or the witness to a crime and have the interview that needs to be had and have it one time, in almost all cases by somebody who knows what they are doing--a forensic interview that puts that crime on the record in a way that kids don't have to constantly relive that moment because somebody who might be very good at interviewing adults isn't very good at interviewing kids, someone who doesn't understand how traumatic that moment is if you are 2, 5, or 15. Senator Coons and I were able to put legislation on the books that extended that program a few years ago, and I am grateful to see the program fully funded, even though I am annually puzzled by why the Justice Department says we don't need these programs for these victims. That is taken care of here. Lots of things happened, as we should be focusing on the law enforcement community. Once again, after what happened Sunday morning, we are praising the law enforcement community. We are praising the equipment they have. I haven't heard anybody critical of the fact that there were armored vehicles--not armed vehicles but armored vehicles-- there, the BearCat they used that could perforate the wall. Those weren't in the State capital, and the local police didn't have to call and ask: Is it OK if we get the armored vehicle brought down here from Tallahassee? They had a vehicle. Many of these vehicles were bought under programs that uniquely allow either funding or equipment to be transferred. When you see those holes in the wall where victims got out and law enforcement officials got in, that was the very kind of vehicle that many in this Congress were critical of just a couple of years ago when those same vehicles were being used to save lives, bring people out who had been injured in our country, and we heard a lot about the militarization of the police. We didn't hear any of that over the weekend, and thank goodness we didn't hear that. I am pleased the Senate has responded to Senator Rubio and Senator Nelson's resolution that expresses our gratitude for those who helped in this tragedy, gratitude to the law enforcement community, gratitude to first responders, gratitude to people in the community who stepped forward to donate blood, people in Orlando and around the country who sent in national support groups to offer counseling at a time when a lot of counseling is necessary. It is hard to imagine what it would have been like to be in that nightclub. It is hard to imagine what it would have been like. One father I heard yesterday had a message from his son, over his son's iPhone, that he thought was the last time he would ever hear from his son, and only hours later he saw a video of his son. He was one of the people who was being helped out of the building. Only then did he know his son was alive. A lot of counseling needs to happen for a lot of people who lost their loved ones, people who have lost people who mean so much to them. Forty-nine innocent people were killed on Sunday. Fifty-three people are still suffering injuries, and many more people are suffering the trauma of what happens when you are there or when this is your community or this is your family. We need to be thinking about that, and the resolution recognizes that. People need help at times like this. After a tragedy such as this, we are almost certain to hear two debates; one is about the Second Amendment, and one is about how big of a problem is the mental health problem of this. We have now added to this debate Orlando, San Bernardino, and other places around the world. We now have to deal with radical Islamic terrorism being used as a motivator, those who have taken faith out of any rational concept of faith and have used it as an excuse for violence. We will have debates about the no-fly list and terror watch list. By the way, those are two very different lists. The no-fly list is a relatively small list. The terror watch list has about 1 million people on it. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I am still waiting to hear a better explanation as to why a terror suspect was taken off the list other than them coming to the conclusion that the interview was inconclusive. The Senator from Florida said that was the reason for the decision that was made by the FBI Director. ``Inconclusive'' is not a good enough answer. I would think that if there is a reason an individual is on that list, there should be a conclusive reason that person is taken off the list and not an inconclusive reason for being taken off the list. I suggest we need to be thoughtful here. When the government can put people on the list outside the normal justice system and because the government has put your name on a list, somehow you lose rights you might otherwise have--that is the kind of thing we wouldn't assume our government would be able to do. To put somebody on a list who needs to be watched is a different thing, and how they get on and off that list is a different debate. But just the idea that we could have a government put your name or my name or the name of anybody listening to this on a list and that because you are on that list, certain things could happen that wouldn't happen otherwise, is concerning to me. Senator Stabenow and I have been working for a long time now to try to create an opportunity for States--back to the counseling element of this--to treat all health care, including mental health care, the same. We have a bill, the Expand Excellence in Mental Health Act, where we have had 24 States that have applied for the grant process to make a proposal to the Federal Government that would allow them to try this program for a couple of years so they can see what happens. The 8 to 24 States that are able to do this will likely find out that not only is this the right thing to do on all fronts, but it is the right thing to do in terms of health care costs generally. If we treat mental health care like we treat all other health care, all of those costs will go down. The last bill President Kennedy signed into law was the Community Mental Health Act at the end of October 1963. The law was meant to free the thousands of Americans who suffered from mental illness and were institutionalized. The only problem was that once those mental health institutions closed, no other alternatives had been made available in the way they should have been. According to the National Institutes of Health, one in four adult Americans has a diagnosable and almost always treatable mental health issue, and they say that one in nine adult Americans has a mental health issue that impacts how they live every day. This brings me to one of the points I wanted to be sure to make today. We always talk about mental health after one of these tragedies occurs. People with a mental health issue are much more likely to be the victim of a crime than they are to be the perpetrator of a crime. As we have this discussion, we want to be careful that we don't drive people further away from an interest in seeking treatment. If one out of four adult Americans has a diagnosable mental health issue, this is not unique. If one out of nine adult Americans has a diagnosable mental health issue that impacts how they live every day, we should be talking about this as a health care issue. Clearly, somebody who does irrational things may have a mental health concern, but we don't ever want to make the mistake that mental health and crime are somehow the same thing. I will repeat this one more time: If you have a mental health issue, you are much more likely to be the victim of a crime than the perpetrator of a crime. For far too long, we have allowed the law enforcement community and the emergency rooms in this country to be the de facto mental health care delivery system. We are doing significant and helpful things in this bill for law enforcement. Let's look for other opportunities to do the right thing for law enforcement by being sure that we take one of their daily obligations--the mental health care delivery system obligation--and look for every way we can to minimize that by creating opportunities to have mental health care treated like all other forms of health care. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, for the information of Senators, the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill will occur immediately following the official photo at 2:15 p.m. today.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each until 12:30 p.m. today; further, that at 12:30 p.m. the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair; and that notwithstanding rule XXII, the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2578 occur when the Senate reconvenes from this recess.

Mr. BLUNT

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

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, this week, as we are debating the National Defense Authorization Act, we also celebrate the 72nd anniversary of D- day. On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 allied troops, including 70,000 brave Americans, did something that no one had ever tried before--a cross-channel landing the size and scope of which had never been envisioned as a reality by warriors. These brave soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy. I had an opportunity a few years ago to visit the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. I walked through the cemetery with a Belgian guide who had a great appreciation for everything our American soldiers had done to try to bring freedom to Europe again. By the way, later that summer he visited the National World War I Memorial in Kansas City, MO. We talked about the cemetery. One of my sons and one of my grandsons were with us, and they had a chance to identify two brothers buried side by side and a father and son who were buried side by side. These Missourians had given their life on D-day. Our guide sat us down on this low wall with the English Channel behind us where the Atlantic Ocean flows in and out and with the 8,000 or so graves in front of us. He then opened up his computer, and there was a picture of General Eisenhower and Walter Cronkite sitting in exactly the same place 20 years after the D-day landing, June 6, 1964. Former President Eisenhower said something like this: You know, Walter, my son graduated from West Point on D-day, and many times over the last 20 years, I thought about the family that he and his wife have had a chance to raise and the experiences they shared, and I thought about these young men who didn't have those 20 years because of what they were asked to do. To hear those words spoken by the person who was ultimately the one who asked these brave soldiers to do what they did showed the responsibility he felt 20 years later for the many lives that were lost and those bodies that were brought back to the United States. That Normandy cemetery doesn't even begin to reflect the lives that were lost. It really made me think when he said: Many times over the last 20 years, I thought about these young men and the lives they didn't get to have because of what they were asked to do. We have debated this bill for over 50 years now, and we have passed this bill every single year. Every time we debate this bill, we should think of what those who defend us are asked to do. We should think about men and women who are carrying on the legacy of that generation of D-day and World War II and Vietnam and Korea and wars before that and after and the obligation we have to be sure that they have every possible advantage in any fight. Frankly, we never want to see Americans in a fair fight; we want it to be an unfair fight. We want those who defend us to have the best weapons, best training, best support, and the best of everything so they have every possible advantage when they do what they are asked to do. This bill came out of committee with three ``no'' votes. It has strong bipartisan support. It is time to get this work done just as the Senate has done for 54 straight years. This will be the 55th year. I am particularly glad that this bill takes new steps toward recognizing the sacrifice we ask military families to make. GEN Ray Odierno, the immediate last Chief of Staff of the Army, said that the strength of a country is its military and the strength of the military is its families. This legislation includes language that Senator Gillibrand and I introduced last fall which, for the first time ever, would give families more flexibility if there is a job or educational opportunity for a spouse. Many times, military families are asked to move a little quicker or stay a little longer. If our language is in the final bill and the President signs it, for the first time ever it will allow families--without being questioned in any detail beyond whether they meet the conditions of the Military Families Stability Act--to go ahead and move so the kids can start school on time, or whatever the case may be, and the servicemember would stay or a family could stay a little longer so that their spouse can complete any career obligations they may have so they can continue to do what they do. Too many of our military spouses are unemployed and don't want to be or underemployed and don't want to be because their careers are constantly impacted, and the cost of maintaining two residences that those families now have to bear really makes no sense at all. This bill allows us to move forward on that issue. The men and women of the Armed Forces, as well as the civilians and contractors who support them, work every day to meet the challenge. They have faced more than 15 years of active military engagements and have made all kinds of sacrifices so we can continue to have the freedoms that we have. The bill before us also enhances the capability of the military and security forces of allied and friendly nations to defeat ISIL, Al Qaeda, and other violent extremist organizations so they are no longer a threat to us. This bill ensures that our men and women in uniform have the advanced equipment they need to succeed in any future combats. The bill reduces strategic risk to the Nation and our military servicemembers by prioritizing the restoration of the military's readiness so they are able to conduct the full range of all of its activities. We need training dollars, training time, and airplanes that are younger than the pilots who fly them, and this legislation continues to move forward in that area. It also continues with comprehensive reform for the Defense Acquisition System that is designed to drive more innovation and ensure more accountability to not take more time than it needs to take, but to be sure that everything is being done with the interest of the taxpayers and the security of the country in mind. Finally, this bill puts the Senate on record again against the President's plan to remove terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. We apparently need to continue to do this over and over again because somebody is just not getting it. There was a front page article, I believe in the Washington Post this morning, about the absolute certainty that people who are freed from Guantanamo Bay over and over again reenter the fight and kill Americans and our allies. The people who are there now need to be kept there. The Obama administration itself admitted earlier this year that Americans have been killed by terrorists from Guantanamo. By the way, that admission came just days before another dozen inmates were transferred out of Guantanamo. According to the Director of National Intelligence, nearly one-third of terrorists who have been released from Guantanamo are either confirmed or suspected to be rejoining the fight, and those were supposedly the detainees who could be released. They were supposedly the least dangerous of the detainees. The people who are there now are clearly understood to be the most dangerous, the most likely to be back in the fight, and the most likely to inspire others to be in the fight. The number of detainees released under the Obama administration who were suspected of engaging in terrorism has doubled since July of 2015 according to the Director of National Intelligence. The President of the United States supports and appoints the Director of National Intelligence. This is not some outside person suggesting things that the Obama administration wouldn't want to hear. This is their Director of National Intelligence and ours. What we need is a President who has a real plan to defeat terrorism, and while this bill can't ensure that, this bill does provide the tools to defeat current terrorists in the Middle East and continue to secure our liberty. The No. 1 job of the Federal Government is to defend the country. The No. 1 job of those of us in the Congress is to be sure that those who defend the country have what they need to defend the country and to ensure that those who have served have every commitment that has been made to them fulfilled, and then some. It is time to pass this bill for the 55th straight year. We need to do what we should do for those who serve and protect us. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, do I have any time left?

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, we did just vote to go to conference. I would like to see the conference be able to deal with this issue. In the Ebola funds, there is still $1.2 billion left in the Ebola funds. There is still $1.2 billion left in the Ebola fund. This is $510 million that was to be used for things like reimbursing hospitals that would have an influx of Ebola patients in this country, which never happened, and other issues. The administration has said they do not need this $510 million for Ebola. They clearly would like to use it for other purposes, and in fact have used $510 million for other purposes. I would urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, in the $1.9 billion request, they would not have asked for this money because they were asking for $1.9 billion of new money, some justified and some not. I believe we worked hard to get a good start here. This can clearly be an open item in the conference, but I don't think it should be a directed item in the conference.