Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to talk about an amendment that has had lots of attention. It is an amendment that I offered on the floor a couple of weeks ago. We weren't able--the leader didn't want to get to it at the time, but the majority leader brought it up for me yesterday, and I am glad he did. I am glad we are able to talk about it. This is an amendment that would allow religious belief or moral conviction to be an important factor in whether people comply with new health care mandates. We have long had this exemption for hiring mandates. In fact, when I served in the House of Representatives, I had been the president of a Southern Baptist university and I understood the importance of these institutions, I thought, in maintaining their faith distinctions as part of why they provide education and health care and daycare and other things. So I have long been an advocate of the principle that the Supreme Court upheld a few weeks ago 9 to 0 that there is a difference in these faith-based institutions. Now that we have health care mandates being complied with by these institutions, all this amendment does is extend the same privilege to them and others who have a religious belief or a moral conviction so that they would be able to defend their moral conviction. We don't do anything about the mandate itself. It is important to understand that the administration--this one or any other--if the Affordable Health Care Act is still in force, can issue all the mandates that the act would allow. In fact, if a person doesn't comply with those mandates, they would have the penalties that the act would allow. But the difference is if the government wouldn't recognize a person's religious belief or moral conviction, as I think they would likely do. For example, the archdiocese in Washington, DC, is saying this is something we have long held as a tenet of our faith that we don't believe should happen, we shouldn't be a part of, and we don't want it to be a part of the insurance policies of our schools, our hospitals. My guess is if we pass this amendment, without any question, the Justice Department would say, Well, you are certainly going to be able to defend that because that has been your belief for centuries, the belief of your faith. This amendment doesn't mention any procedure of any kind. In fact, this morning we had a reporter call the office who said we can't find the word ``contraception'' in this amendment anywhere. How is this a vote on contraception? Of course we were able to say, as we have said for 4 days, the word ``contraception'' is not in there because this is not about a specific procedure, it is about a faith principle that the first amendment guarantees. This exact language of religious belief or moral conviction was first used in 1973 in the Public Health Services Act. It was brought to the Senate floor by Senator Church from Idaho, who I believe was considered one of the liberals of the Senate at the time, protecting health care providers from having to be involved in procedures they didn't agree with. It is part of the Legal Services Corporation limitation in 1974, the foreign aid funding limitation in 1986, the refusal to participate in executions or prosecutions of capital crimes in 1994, the vaccination bill wherein a person comes to this country as a nonresident and they don't want to have vaccinations that are otherwise required, they don't have to have them if they have a religious belief or moral conviction against them. The list goes on and on: The Medicare and Medicaid Counseling Act, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan of 1998, the contraception coverage for federal employees in 1999, the DC contraception mandate in 2000, the United States Leadership Against AIDS Act in 2003. Then this exact same language even more specifically has been in bills that weren't passed. In 1994, Senator Moynihan from New York brought a bill to the floor that Mrs. Clinton--later Senator Clinton, now Secretary Clinton--was very involved in, this 1994 health discussion. That bill said: Nothing in this title shall be construed to prevent any employer from contributing to the purchase of a standard benefits package which excludes coverage for abortion or other services if the employer objects to such services on the basis of religious belief or moral conviction. This is Senator Moynihan less than 20 years ago in what was considered a liberal piece of legislation, putting what the country had thought since the beginning of government-paid health care was a natural part of every health care bill. In fact, the bill we are talking about that this amendment would impact is the first time the Federal Government has passed a health care bill that didn't include this language--the first time it didn't include this language. If one is not offended by the current mandate that some religions are, I think it is important to think of what one would be offended by. What in one's faith would be an offensive thing to be told one had to be a part of, and then imagine the government saying, no, a person has to be a part of that? Even if a person doesn't do it themselves, they have to pay for it, or they have to be sure that a person's employees, their associates, are a part of this thing that is offensive to that person because of religious belief or moral conviction. Before I yield to my good friend Senator Johanns, who understands this issue so well, let me also say that, as I said, we didn't eliminate a mandate, so we can still have a mandate. The Federal Government can still come in and say: You are not offering these services so you have to pay a penalty, and then you have to go to court and prove that you have a long-held belief that this is wrong. The Court, in 1965, when this particular phrase became the boilerplate language for the law, said, You can't become a conscientious objector the day you get your draft notice, in essence; you have to have these two principles. You have to have a religious belief, a strong moral conviction, and you have to be able to go to court and prove that. All of the fiction writers out there, in fundraising letters and otherwise, saying things such as women who have contraceptive services today wouldn't have them, of course that is not true. Of course that is not true. The women who have those services today either have them because they have found a way to pay for them themselves or they have an employer who is providing that as part of health care. That employer is not going to be able to turn around and say, I am not for that anymore because I object for some religious reason that I didn't have all the time I was providing it. This is an important issue. It is a first amendment issue. It is an issue that group after group after group thinks violates the Religious Freedom Act--RFRA. There are six lawsuits already. I suspect they have a good chance of prevailing because it does exactly what the religious freedom law says you can't do and it needlessly forces people to participate in activities that are against their moral principles, their religious principles. The circumstance in the country is we have 220 years of history on this. We have almost 50 years of history of government-paid health care for one group or another that always included an exemption such as this exemption. To not do this assumes that the government can make people do things that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and others specifically said were among the rights we should defend the most vigorously; that we should hold the most dear; that we should not let a government interfere in these basic rights of conscience, a phrase of Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the New London Methodist in 1809. These rights of conscience are an area that we should not let the government get between the American people and their religious beliefs. Our laws since then, whether it is for hiring or in the case of any health care discussion, have always anticipated the protection of this first amendment right--not a specific thing but, again, if you are not offended by the things that some people are concerned about today, it is important to think about what you would be offended by, what your religious belief leads you to believe would be wrong and how you would feel if the government says now you have to be a part of that activity. I wish to turn to my good friend from Nebraska who has been a real advocate in understanding the importance of the first amendment and the role it plays in our society.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, my colleague, the Senator from Illinois, and I live in a part of the country where these terrible weather events--tornadoes and other things--are not unusual for us. But as Senator Durbin has pointed out, we did have them last night in a number of places in southern Missouri, including Branson, the tourism strip, at one theater and one tourism location after another, as well as in Branson, Lebanon, Dallas County, and other places in southern Missouri. We had way too much experience with this last year. As my friend has pointed out, the Federal Emergency Management people are quickly there. We had a year of experience with this, particularly after the Joplin tornado. They were terrific. We want to remember too the first responders are always our neighbors, and neighbors are coming forward to help families whose houses were lost and possessions were scattered, and even in this particular case where there are occasions where people are injured and lives have been lost as well. Senator McCaskill and I join with Senator Kirk and Senator Durbin in their efforts in this regard. Amendment No. 1520 Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my Republican colleagues for 60 minutes.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. There are a number of waivers on this. The administration has given over 1,700 waivers to 4 million people. If you have a plan that is better than the government plan, if you have a plan that might be taxed under the law because it has been negotiated as part of collective bargaining, if you are a fast food institution that has insurance but, apparently, with high deductibles--those were all reasons to create a waiver. You would think that a faith-based belief would also be a reason that a waiver could have been granted. This amendment just assures that we can have the same kind of opportunity to exercise our religious beliefs going forward as every American has in health care, in labor, in hiring, and other areas up until right now. I would like to turn to my friend, the Senator from Texas.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I thank my friend for those good additions to what we are talking about. I might say, also, even if there is some accounting issue that makes this appear that maybe someone you are hiring is paying for it instead of you, if this is something you are opposed to for religious grounds, it is not about the cost; it is about the fact that this is something you do not believe you should be part of. In my particular faith, the contraception part of this is not troublesome for me. But it does not mean I should be less troubled that it bothers others or that I should care less about their religious freedom than I do mine or that I should not care about the government using the heavy hand of these fines to force people to do something. The other point I would like to make, before I go to my friend from Idaho, is, if the government chooses to fine people, people actually have to go to court and prove they have a deep religious belief. I do not think that would be very hard for Creighton University. The entire history of the university is founded on the principles of faith that would say: This is something we do not want to be part of. If that is the case, maybe that Justice Department would not take them to court or would not make them go to court rather than pay the fine. But they could. We are not saying that anybody can do anything they want to do. We are just creating a way that we can assert your first amendment rights if we choose to do that. As the Governor of Idaho, Senator Risch was responsible for lots of people who worked for the State of Idaho. He knows about this both from a faith perspective and an employer's perspective, and I am glad he came down to the floor.

Mr. BLUNT. I do too. I hope we find out now that while we do not have as much bipartisan support as we would like to have, we will have some. Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, along with Senator Ayotte from New Hampshire and Senator Rubio from Florida and I introduced this bill in August of last year. This is not just something we came up with recently. Members who were in the Senate when the health care act, the affordable health care act passed, said they believed if it had passed in a more normal way, this would have been in the final bill, that would have been an understanding, as it was in the Patients' Bill of Rights draft and legislation that was introduced in 1994 or the health care bill in 1999. This same language was an accepted and bipartisan part of who we are as a country enforcing the first amendment. In fact, in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it says: ``Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.'' Even a rule that would generally apply, the government should not burden a person's exercise of religion unless it demonstrates a burden that it is in the furtherance of a compelling government interest. I cannot imagine--nobody has had to do this ever before. Why would suddenly defining insurance policies beyond the faith beliefs of individuals and groups that were long held, why is that a sudden compelling government interest or it is the least restrictive means of furthering that government interest? Surely not. Again, I am going to repeat for what may be the third or fourth time: We do not do anything in this amendment that would end the mandate. That is for another debate at another time. The government can still have a mandate. The government can still say: Here is what we are telling you a health care plan has to look like. But this allows people who have a faith-based first amendment right to object to that to have a way to do it. One of the original cosponsors of the bill; that is, the amendment we are debating today, has joined us and that is Senator Ayotte from New Hampshire. She is an advocate of the first amendment, as a former attorney general. I am glad she is here.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I want to go next to my neighbor in the Congress, and now my neighbor in the Senate, and my neighbor in real life from northwest Arkansas. I am from southwest Missouri. I am glad Senator Boozman came down to discuss this issue.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, let me conclude in the next few minutes by first saying that a growing list of groups support this amendment: Home School Legal Defense Association, Family Research Council, Southern Baptist Convention, Americans United for Life, American Center for Law and Justice, Susan B. Anthony List, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Focus on the Family, Christian Medical Association, National Right to Life, National Association of Evangelicals, Orthodox Union of Jewish Congregations, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, Religious Freedom Coalition, CatholicVote.org, American Family Association, Catholic Advocate, Traditional Values Coalition, Christus Medicus Foundation, Alliance Defense Fund, Christian Coalition, Advanced USA, American Association of Christian Schools, American Principles Project, Wallbuilders, Let Freedom Ring Liberty Consulting, Liberty Counsel Action, Free Congress Foundation, Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Students for Life of America, Heritage Action, and there are others that are supporting this amendment. We can go back to 1965 and a Supreme Court case where the determination of how a conscientious objection would be defined was clearly established in ways that led to this religious belief and moral conviction becoming the standard. It is not just something we came up with for this amendment, it has been the standard since that 1965 case. It said: These are the elements you have to have. You cannot suddenly decide you have a religious conviction. This is a conviction that has to be a provable part of who you are. The Public Health Service Act in 1973, where Senator Church brought this language into the public health arena, is really the first major legislation after Medicare and the Medicaid discussion. There was also the Legal Services Corporation limitation, the foreign aid funding limitation, and the refusal to participate in executions or in prosecutions of capital crimes limitation. This language was good enough for those things, and almost every Member of the current Senate, if they were there then, voted for these, and since, including the action Senator Coats talked about earlier. The Medicare and Medicaid Counseling and Referral Act, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, contraceptive coverage for Federal employees in 1999, the DC contraceptive mandate in 2000, and the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act in 2003 all included this language. We had to get to the affordable health care act, which passed the Senate, and then suddenly it wasn't possible to go through the final process of legislating here. There was no conference committee, no House bill. My belief is that almost nobody who voted for that act originally thought that would be the final bill. Frankly, I think that if we had ever had a more normal process, this normal element of protecting the first amendment would have been added, as it was every other time. This is about the first amendment. I understand the fundraising ability to make it about something else. I understand the PR ability to make it about something else. But it is not about anything else. A minute ago, we had three Protestants on the floor on the contraception issue who probably have no religious problem at all. There may be other elements I have problems with, but it doesn't matter if I have a problem. What matters is that I represent lots of people who do have a problem with it, and the Constitution is specifically designed to protect those strongly held religious views. As Senator Coats said, it was the first thing in the first amendment. It was exact in its duplication in 1994 in the great health care effort made then, whether it was the protection of religious freedom or the Patients' Bill of Rights or the effort First Lady Clinton worked hard to do. This wasn't even really a debatable item then because everybody understood this was a necessary part of protecting the first amendment to the Constitution. Again, I would say if these two or three things that are most objectionable to the Catholic community right now--and many of the people who are opposed to this are opposed to this because they wonder what they could be opposed to that the government would decide they had to participate in, they had to be a provider of, they had to pay the bill for. I would ask my colleagues to think of something in their religious view that they would not want to be forced by the government to be part of, and let's give all Americans that same capacity who have these strongly held religious beliefs. I would encourage my colleagues to support the first amendment. I am grateful for those groups around the country that have rallied around the first amendment. Freedom of religion defines who we are and has defined who we are since the very beginning of constitutional government, where the first thing added to the Constitution was the Bill of Rights. And the first thing in the Bill of Rights is respect for religion. We need to not give that away just to prove that everybody has to do what the government says because the government knows best rather than our conscience and our personal views. This is not about whether people provide health care or not, it is about whether they are required to provide elements of health care they believe are fundamentally wrong, and how the government can force people to do things they believe and have a provable religious conviction are fundamentally wrong. Mr. President, I think we have used the hour we had, but this debate will go on. There will be a vote tomorrow, but this debate will go on until this important freedom is soundly protected in health care, in hiring, in all of the elements that create that faith distinctive in our individuals and institutions that make us uniquely who we are. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, if I may make a final point. Every other country in the world looks at its natural resources, and the first two words they think of are ``economic advantage'' or ``economic opportunity.'' That is what the Canadians are doing. Only in the United States do we have any significant number of leaders who look at our natural resources, and the first words they think of are ``environmental hazard'' and ``what is the worst thing that could happen?'' And ``what if that happened every day?'' The Canadian Prime Minister was in China just in the last month talking about selling their oil to the Chinese, who want to buy it. That is what the Canadians should be doing. They would prefer to sell it to us. We should buy it. But they are not going to decide that if our most logical partner doesn't want it, we will just let our economy suffer and not do anything with it. Nobody else looks at energy resources that way. We should not either, and we should not expect the Canadians to do that. That pipeline is either going to go south to our refinery or west to the coast, where they will ship that oil to Asia. We should not let that happen. They don't want it to happen. We should not be upset with them if we will not buy it and they decide they are going to benefit from their own resources, as they should.

Mr. BLUNT. Well, I do. I think I will quickly yield to my good friend from Ohio and then speak again. Actually, I just met with disabled veterans who are here in town today. I told them I was going to be talking about energy, and they said the long-term effort of the Veterans' Administration to get veterans to their health care appointments is dramatically impacted by these high gas prices--just like for veterans and retirees of all kinds with the number of dollars going into their gas tanks. As they see the price of that tank of gas go up $10, maybe they decide: I am going to have to quit because that is all the money I have with me or I am going to fill up the tank and see it go to $40, $50, $60. As families look at that, as retirees look at that, as veterans look at that, they have got to be thinking as that gas tank number changes, something else they were going to do that week is something they are not going to be able to do. This has dramatic impact on families; it has dramatic impact on the way we live; it has dramatic impact on the confidence people have in our economy. If you look at any charts of gas prices going up, you see consumer confidence going down. It happens in States such as the Senator's or in States in the middle of the country such as Missouri or Senator Portman's State of Ohio. I know we have all been home. I am sure you cannot have been home and not have heard a lot about gas prices.

Mr. BLUNT. I was asked the other day when I was home: Does the administration have a plan? I said: Well, if you listen to what they say, this is their plan, for these gas prices to go up. We are not Europe. In spite of what the Secretary of Energy may have said the month before he was named as Secretary, that our big problem was our gas was not as high as gasoline in Europe, that was, according to him, our big problem. The President who appointed him said a few weeks before that, at the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board: Under my energy policies, energy prices will skyrocket. So apparently they are well along on the plan. As I mentioned a couple of times already, gasoline is twice as high as it was in January of 2009. We are not Europe. We are a big country that is dependent on transportation. We drive farther to go to work than most Europeans do. We transport our goods more than most Europeans do. We have this big agricultural economy that feeds a whole lot of the world and only works with affordable energy. There are two points both Senators have made that I wish to drive home. One is that more American energy means more American jobs, and not just the jobs to build something such as the Keystone Pipeline but also the jobs at the refinery when that 800,000 barrels of oil a day gets to our refinery. They are American workers running that refinery. If our economy is prosperous, there are more people working in manufacturing and transportation and all of the things that we do for a living. The shortest path to more American jobs is more American energy. We should be working on that, and then the impact on families. You know, as families see what is happening at the gas pump, as I said earlier, they give up on other things they would hope to do. The President said at the State of the Union that he was for an all- of-the-above strategy. Apparently the regulators do not know about this. The regulators the President has appointed seem to have no clue that the all-of-the-above strategy of coal, of natural gas, of oil, needs to be part of what we are doing as we invest in the future. Nobody is opposed to looking for what comes next after fossil fuel. The concern is we are not there. Even if we knew we were going there, we would not get there for a long time. Even if we knew what would power our cars 30 years from now, most cars 20 or 25 years from now will still be pulling up to a gas pump. Most trucks will still be pulling up to a gas pump. Frankly, the economy could not absorb it any other way. And we do not know yet what is the likely next thing. I am for seeing us invest in that. I am for conservation so we use our energy more wisely. But let me say, the poorest people are the last ones who get the new high- mileage vehicles or the energy-efficient refrigerator or the new windows. Retired Americans, Americans struggling to get by, are going to be the last people to benefit, in most cases, from those ideas. Let's conserve our way out of this or let's price our way out of this. More American energy is good for us. Energy from our friend and next-door neighbor is the next best thing to energy we produce ourselves. We ought to do all we can to produce all the competitive energy we can on our own. We then ought to do all we can to encourage our closest trading partner, our most equitable trading partner. When we send them a dollar, they send us almost a dollar back every single time. Regarding energy security, the odds that we are going to have a problem with our Canadian neighbor are a lot less than the odds that something will happen in the Middle East that will be a problem for us. Because of these new finds in gas shale, oil shale, tar sands, and other things, we can now use small platforms to access it that would not be disruptive in a significant way; a small drilling platform doesn't do that. I thank our good friend, Senator Hutchison from Texas, for putting this discussion together and for being such a leader on energy issues. Senator Hoeven, when he was Governor, saw what could happen in the economy of a State when we decide we are going to make the most of our natural resources. The economy of North Dakota changed dramatically while he was Governor because it became an energy producer and is now one of the biggest energy producers in our country. He wants to talk about the Keystone Pipeline, and I wish to hear that if the Senator is ready. We can go back to the Senator from Texas, and then we will hear from Senator Hoeven.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for putting this discussion together this morning. I think it is a serious discussion, unlike this budget, which is clearly not a serious budget. The President doesn't expect it to be voted on. The majority leader in the Senate said it wouldn't be voted on. When the White House spokesman was asked if they had a position on the fact that the Senate wasn't going to produce a budget-- this budget could be voted on but it won't be debated and there won't be a companion Senate budget apparently that goes along with it--the White House spokesman said no, they didn't have a position on the fact that the majority leader said there would be no Senate budget this year. Remember, this is the budget that is required by law to be passed by April 15 of every year, and I guess this will be the fourth straight time that April 15 will be missed without having passed a budget. What we have here, unlike a budget document that does what the Senator from Nebraska did as Governor or what my son Matt did as Governor of Missouri--he had a $1 billion deficit, and they had to make up for that, and they did. The Senator from Nebraska made up for the deficit in his State. Governor and now Senator Risch was responsible to see that the numbers added up. These numbers don't add up. This is a budget that spends too much and taxes too much and it borrows too much. Spending goes up in this budget. In this budget year we are spending $3.8 trillion, fiscal year 2013, the budget year we are talking about now. Seven years from now, fiscal year 2022--9 years from now--we are spending almost $6 trillion, from $3.8 trillion to $5.8 trillion. Clearly, the spending problem isn't solved by this budget. This budget makes the spending problem worse. This budget adds almost $2 trillion in new taxes. So it spends too much, it taxes too much, and then it borrows too much. We are going to increase the debt again. We have a deficit of almost $1 trillion in each of the Obama years of responsibility during this first term. It cannot be allowed to continue. But when we look at this budget document--the 10-year projections--there is no indication that we change any of these trends. We all understand these trends are unacceptable. The Federal Government's total debt has now surpassed the size of the economy. The potential of our economy to produce goods and services, the so-called GDP number, is now exceeded by our debt. We know what happened in Greece when their debt exceeded the capacity of their economy to produce goods and services. We know what happened in Italy. We know what happened in Ireland. We know what happened in Portugal. Why don't we think that is going to happen to us? Because it will, and we have to make these numbers add up. The Senator from Nebraska as a Governor had to produce a budget. Governor Risch produced a budget. I will turn to him in a second to talk about the responsibility of the Executive to lead and then, frankly, the responsibility of the Senate to do its job. I am continually surprised that we can miss this absolute deadline in the law year after year after year and there is not a press outcry. There is more of a public outcry than a press outcry. My sense is that if when I was in the House of Representatives we had missed this deadline once as opposed to over and over and over, there would have been a marshaling of people around the country to come and stand on the steps of the Capitol to say, Why isn't the majority in the House doing its job? This is something the current majority in the Senate has walked away from in ways I can't understand. When we talk to Americans, getting people back to work and getting control of Federal spending are the No. 1 and No. 2 domestic priorities, but I don't see those priorities in this budget. I turn to my friend from Idaho to see what he has thought of, as we have now had a few hours to look at the specifics of the President's budget.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, I think my first thought is, the insight is not that difficult; it is just that we need to do our job. We cannot expect to solve these problems if the Senate does not do the job it is supposed to do. And we cannot expect to solve these problems if we keep letting the size of our government get out of proportion to the capacity of our economy. In 2008--the year before the administration started--the deficit was higher than I thought it should be by a lot. It was $459 billion. That was 3 percent of GDP, and I thought that was unacceptable. The very next year--the first year of this administration--it went to 10 percent of GDP, $1.4 trillion. Then after that, it has been a trillion, a trillion, a trillion--$1.4 trillion, $1.3 trillion, $1.3 trillion--$1.3 trillion in the year we are in now. This does not change that trajectory at all. And in the budget the President submitted, for the first time any President has said this, the President says the Social Security trust fund, during this 10-year window, will run out of money--that the money coming in, for the first time ever, will not equal the money going out--but proposes nothing to do anything about that. This is a commitment the Federal Government has made to Americans. Social Security can continue to work if you periodically look at the facts, the demographics, and adjust it. We have about worn out the Tip O'Neill-Ronald Reagan example on Social Security. But I say to the Senators, that was in 1983. On the supposed third rail of politics that a President will not touch, in the very next year, Ronald Reagan carried 49 States. This would have been a great year in divided government to solve this problem because one side could not spend the rest of the time blaming the other. I do not think the changes in Social Security, made in 1983, to my knowledge, have ever been an issue in any political campaign anywhere. Because they were made in a way that anticipated people's needs to adjust, we are just now, 30 years later, getting to the final phase-in of the new retirement age--30 years later. But if you do not get that started, you will never get there, whether it is Social Security or the Social Security insurance fund, which gets into trouble even quicker, according to the President, in 2018, and there is no proposal to do anything about that. For people who are absolutely dependent on that safety net--family members, dependent children--if something happens to the worker who is paying into Social Security, 5 years from now the President says that is in big trouble. But you go through all of these papers, and you see no indication anywhere of what we should do about that. These are issues that have to be dealt with, and I suggest the most fundamental way to deal with them is for the Senate to do its job, for the Senate to produce a budget, for the Senate to get focused--as Senator Risch suggested we need to focus--not on some phony pay-for 10 years out that never materializes, but what are we going to do this year to change the course of the country, to change the trajectory. One thing you learn in artillery is, you do not have to change the trajectory, you do not have to change the level of the artillery piece very much to make a big difference out there in the distance. But if you do not change it at all, you keep landing at exactly the same place. And this is a budget that actually lands in even a worse place because it spends more money, it spends too much, it taxes too much, it borrows too much, and the American people know we cannot continue to do that, as was the case made very well by Senator Risch. I ask the Senator, does he have any other thoughts on what we need to be doing and how we need to be doing it?

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am, of course disappointed not being able to offer this amendment today, but it is an amendment we talked about for some time. It was a bipartisan amendment. It was a bipartisan piece of legislation. Senator Nelson from Nebraska and I wish to offer it and wish to offer it as soon as possible. I have the highest regard for both of our leaders, both the majority leader and minority leader, and understand they have a job to do, but this highway bill is clearly going to take some time. This is a 4-page amendment that I would be glad to see voted on on Monday. It has been widely studied all week, this week. I would have been glad to see it voted on when I filed the bill in August. There was not a rule then either, but both Mr. Nelson and I, Senator Rubio, Senator Ayotte, and others were anticipating that we were going to begin to see exactly the kinds of things this discussion this week has brought about. This is about the first amendment. It is about religious beliefs. It is not about any one issue. In fact, this amendment specifically does not mention a specific issue. It refers to the issue of conscience. In the amendment itself the reference is made to the letter that in 1809 Thomas Jefferson sent to the New London Methodist, where he says: of all the principles in the Constitution, the one that we perhaps hold most dear, if I could paraphrase it a little bit, is the right of conscience and that no government should be able to come in and impose itself between the people and their faith-based principles. In health care we have never had this before. Why didn't we need this amendment or why didn't we need the bill that was filed in August 5 years ago or 1 year ago or 2 years ago or 3 years ago? Because only with the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act did we have the government in a position, for the first time ever, to begin to give specific mandates to health care providers. This bill would simply say those health care providers do not have to follow that mandate if it violates their faith principles, faith principles that are part of a health care delivery system. That could be through any number of different faith groups, and I have talked to a lot of them. Frankly, some of those faith group views of health care do not agree with my views or my faith's views of health care. But that is not the point here. This is not about whether I agree with what that faith group wants to do. It is whether they are allowed to do it; whether the representative of that view of health care and how it affects people is able to say to their government: No, this is something that is protected by the Constitution. It is protected by the first amendment. You cannot require me to provide a service-- through a faith-based institution--that I do not agree with or you cannot require me as a health care provider to provide a service that I do not agree with because of my faith. It doesn't mean you cannot get it somewhere else if it is something that can legally be done. It just means people of faith or institutions of faith do not have to do it. That is why in almost every Catholic church in America, the last two weekends, a letter has been read from the bishop or the archbishop that said this is unacceptable, it should not be complied with. That is why the Chaplain to the Army, the Chief Archbishop to the Army, Bishop Broglio, sent out a letter to be read at Catholic mass at Army posts all over the country. Initially that letter was not going to be read because it did not agree with the tenets the government was pursuing at the time--which is the violation that people would see most offensive, I think, that the government would actually begin to say to people of faith you cannot even talk about it. You cannot even have that letter read on a military post, from the person who is responsible to the chaplains and the Catholic chaplains in the military. Maybe it is a faith view of how to deliver health care that somebody in the Christian Science community has or somebody in the Seventh Day Adventist community has or the Southern Baptist community or whatever that might be. The specific thing is not the issue here. The issue here is can government require a faith-based institution to go beyond the tenets of its faith. I know the Democratic leader, the majority leader, said there is not even a rule yet. The White House said--the administration said there would be a rule. And to make it even more offensive, they said: And, by the way, here is what the rule is going to be and we are going to give you a year to figure out how to adjust your views to accommodate the rule. I would have been less offended if they said here is the rule and we understand it is in violation of your views but here is what is going to be the rule and you will have to comply with it. The idea they could change your views, your religious views, your religious beliefs, in a year or a lifetime because some Federal regulator says you need to is unbelievably offensive in our country based on the principles that we hold most dear in the Constitution itself. So this amendment, which is bipartisan in nature and I think easily understood because it is so fundamental to who we are, is an amendment that could be quickly debated, it could be quickly voted on. The Senate of the United States could express its view. I believe that view would be one supportive of institutions of faith. By the way, also, the administration saying we gave an exemption for the church itself--No. 1, I do not know how long that exemption would last. And, No. 2, I think that shows a lack of understanding of the work of the church or the work of the synagogue or the work of the mosque or the work of people of coming together. If the only thing that matters in their work is what happens within the four walls of the church or whoever works in the four walls of the church every day, these institutions are not what I believe they are. The great schools, the great hospitals, the great community-providing institutions of America have, so many of them for so long, been based on faith principles. This amendment would say for health care, those faith principles would still be the overriding principle. For health care, if someone does not agree with the direction of the government, they do not have to perform that service. They do not have to provide that specific kind of insurance to their employees. Remember, the underlying bill here, the underlying rule that has been announced, even though it may not have been officially issued, is one that talks about people who have chosen to go to work for, to get a paycheck for, to work at the direction of a faith-based community. Then to tell that community what your insurance has to look like--that is just one of the many steps. If the government can do that, what can't the government do? If the government can do that, where does the government stop? If the government can do that--when you say this is something I don't believe in so I don't want to be part of this particular health care issue, this health care moment, this health care episode--whatever you want to call it, you say, oh, well, you have to do it because the government says you have to do it and the first amendment does not matter, the protection of conscience doesn't matter, the Jefferson letter to New London Methodist doesn't matter. Until the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, this was never an issue and nothing would happen if this amendment was approved and became the law of the land. Nothing would be different tomorrow than it was a year ago, because a year ago people were not doing this. Five years ago nobody would have even thought it was possible, that the Federal Government would tell a faith-based hospital what their insurance plan exactly had to look like, the plan that they offered their employees or would tell faith-based health care providers what they could do and what they could not do or would say if you are not going to do everything the government will pay for, we will not pay you to do anything the government pays for. This is an issue many people in the country feel strongly about, many people in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, feel strongly about. We can let this go on and create the anxiety it creates for the faith community or we can bring this amendment up, debate it--and, frankly, I think it is pretty well understood--debate it, vote on it, and let the country know that we still support the Constitution of the United States. While I am disappointed I did not get to offer this amendment today, I will be back and I am going to do my best to get this amendment offered at the earliest possible time, and I would be glad to see the Senate join me, and the majority join me, in saying let's get this important issue off the minds of the American people and let them know the Constitution still matters and religious liberty is still the first amendment to the Constitution in the United States. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at this time to offer amendment No. 1520 to the underlying bill, S. 1813.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. That is a good point. I wish also to say that this is not about just about one set of religious beliefs. The current discussion is about specific items in a health care plan, but there are lots of faith-based groups with different views of how you deliver health services that have been working on these issues for some time now, and I met with a lot of these groups. This is an issue of conscience, whether it is the Catholic Church, the Christian Science Church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Baptist Church that I am a member of. There may be different views of this, but the views are not views that can be put forth by the government, and that becomes the government view. There was a recent Supreme Court case, Hosanna Tabor Lutheran Evangelical Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where the Court voted 9 to 0 that faith-based institutions have privileges that others do not have because that is what makes them faith-based institutions. The hiring decisions, the firing decisions, the workplace decisions are different because if they are not different, it is just another school or another hospital that might happen to have a theology department or might happen to have a chapel once a week. That is what it is. Senator Ayotte, Senator Rubio, and I have worked on various ways to approach this. We offered a bill some weeks ago on these issues of conscience that would create a respect for rights of conscience. The Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which was drafted early last year, has the full support of the major groups that are concerned about these conscience issues. The Christian Medical Association, the Becket Fund, and others have said that we need to be concerned about these issues, whether it is a hiring decision now or a health care decision, and what do we do to protect health care providers and insurers, including purchasers, from being forced to violate their own principles by buying a policy or offering a policy that provides things they don't believe in their faith group are the right things to offer. I saw one of the President's advisers early this morning beginning to back away from this and say: Suddenly this one year has become--we are just seeking information during this year. That is not what they were doing at all. What they are doing is saying, you are going to comply with this rule and we are going to give you a year to figure out how to compromise your principles in a way that applies, and that is the wrong thing to do. Whether it is the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act or other legislation, if the administration doesn't take care of this administratively, I believe it will be taken care of legislatively. When you have bishops, church leaders, and people who have spent their lives dedicated to hospitals, schools, and other institutions that reflect their faith principles, you cannot suddenly decide that those don't matter or they can be changed in a year. They also will need to have some legal cause of action to pursue this, just like the Religious Freedom Act in 1993 created cause of action. One cannot go in and have an unreasonable incursion on the faith beliefs of people under the first amendment. No matter how good you think the cause might be, it is not good enough to violate that fundamental principle. Senator Ayotte has had lots of contact--I think many of us have. If you were in a military service last week, you might have heard one of these letters read. I saw the line that had to be taken out of the letter apparently that the Army wouldn't otherwise--was standing in front of, but was read in the other services, which was the line that said: We cannot, we will not comply with this unjust law. When the government begins to tell people to do things that violate their faith principles, the government has gone too far.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I want to talk about this recent HHS directive to faith-based organizations on health care and suggest that it is exactly the kind of problem many of us were concerned would develop when the government said it was going to take a greater role in deciding what health care would be like and who would make health care decisions. In this case, what kind of insurance could an employer give its employees if it is a religious organization? There are several pieces of legislation that might deal with this issue. My guess is there will be several more unless the administration deals with it quickly and withdraws the position they have taken, which is that faith-based institutions would have to offer health insurance policies that violated their faith principles. It is a fundamental first amendment right of Americans to have the ability to pursue their faith-based principles. In the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, passed by a Congress with a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate and signed by President Clinton, it appears to be clear that this is an incursion that the law itself, as well as the Constitution, does not allow. One of the most objectionable issues about the White House position--the administration's position--is that we want you to change your principles, and we are going to give you a year to accommodate that change. Principles based on faith cannot be accommodated in a year. In fact, they should not be accommodated in a lifetime. They are exactly that; they are principles based on faith. This is about institutions that run hospitals, schools, daycare centers, all sorts of things under the umbrella of the mission of who they are. This is about how their employees relate to them as providers of health care insurance and the kind of insurance they provide. This is not about just anybody you might run into; this is someone who has chosen to work for one of these institutions. This is someone who has chosen to affiliate themselves with one of these faith-based organizations. Clearly, the Catholic bishops are outraged. I have a letter here from Bishop Carlson in St. Louis that was read in Missouri churches last week talking about this, and it says: In so ruling, the administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. As a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences or to drop health coverage for our employees and suffer the penalties for doing so. The administration's sole concession was to give nonprofit employers, like hospitals and universities, which do not currently provide such coverage--the coverage which the administration was demanding--one year in which to comply. I have another report from the chief of the Catholic military chaplains who wanted to send a letter to be read and which the military initially said could not be read. The U.S. Army said that the letter written and sent by the archbishop in charge of Catholic military chaplains could not be read in services. And after a discussion with the Secretary of the Army, that was changed but apparently only if some of the letter would be taken out. This is way over the line of where the government should be. Unfortunately, it is exactly the line that many of us feared would be crossed whenever the government begins to think that the government is the person to make health care decisions, whether that is a decision that you and your doctor should be making between the two of you or the kind of insurance you and your family choose to have or, in this case, the kind of insurance you and the institution you represent chooses to offer to the people who are working there. This is wrong. I think people know it is wrong. This is something that cannot be allowed to stand, and I wish to turn to my friend from New Hampshire to talk about this with me for a little bit.

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

Mr. BLUNT

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

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, the House yesterday passed a bill that included an effort to move forward on the Keystone XL Pipeline project, and I wish to talk about that project for a while today and American energy generally. We all agree private sector job creation needs to be the No. 1 priority in Washington. One of the best ways to jump-start job creation is simply through good energy projects. The shortest path to more American jobs is more American energy. Unfortunately, the President and the administration have delayed one of the largest domestic, shovel-ready projects until after the election next year. This is a project that is ready to go. The States this project would go through have cleared the way for the project. There is no government money involved. This just takes a government OK, saying: Yes, it is all right to create these jobs. These jobs not only have the short-term impact of creating the jobs that are created to build the pipeline but the long-term impact of all the economic activity that occurs because of this new North American energy to which we would have access. In delaying this program, the President is simply stalling the creation of thousands of jobs and postponing not only the growth in our economy but also a move toward more energy security. Not too many years ago, I don't think one could say with a straight face that we need to do everything we can to create something that closely resembles energy independence. We are in a situation now with North American energy where we can do that. The numbers on the Keystone XL project speak for themselves. This project would create 20,000 direct jobs during the construction phase--20,000 jobs. That is why the labor union movement in the country supports this project. Twenty thousand jobs to build the pipeline. It would generate $20.9 billion in new private sector spending. It would generate around $5 billion in new State, local, and Federal revenue when this project is being built and when this project is completed. Nationwide, the project would benefit 1,400 American job creators. The Keystone XL project would also help reinforce America's energy security by reducing our dependence on other parts of the world. With Canada, our largest trading partner, it is a miracle relationship, this large border that we don't worry very much about, all the back-and- forth economic activity that occurs. In fact, for every $1 we would send to Canada for that energy, they would send 91 cents back. So this is $1 we are spending to get 91 cents back, to be more of an energy partner with our closest neighbor--we have clearly a bigger border with Canada than we do with Mexico--to be an energy partner with our closest neighbor rather than to worry about energy in places where, frankly, they don't like us very well. If they do like us, they don't get the money back to us in the same way. In fact, by comparison, of the 91 cents we would get back for every $1 we send to Canada for North American energy coming out of Canada, we get 49 cents back from Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean Saudi Arabia is a bad trading partner. It just means they are not as good a trading partner as the Canadians are. We get 33 cents back from Venezuela. So why would we want to send $1 to Venezuela or $1 to Saudi Arabia for energy if we could send $1 to Canada and almost all of that $1 comes right back to us? Domestically, this project would help encourage more oil production in the Bakken formation in the Upper Great Plains. The Bakken formation--which I sure didn't know about 15 years ago and I don't know that anybody did--is thought to be the greatest new energy development since Prudhoe Bay in the 1960s. I read somewhere the other day that North Dakota has become the fourth or fifth energy-producing State in the country, passing Oklahoma. This is a great resource right at the incoming border of where this new pipeline and all this energy activity would be. Regardless of the White House's decision to delay this project, the Canadian oil sands will be developed. It is not a question of whether there is going to be a market; it is who gets the market. The Canadians have said, as they should: If we don't build a pipeline through the United States to the refineries in the Southern part of the United States, we are going to build that same pipeline in another direction. Most likely, the pipeline will go to the Pacific coast and then the energy goes to Asia. Why would we want energy going to Asia from a trading partner where we get 91 cents back rather than energy coming here? Why would we want to buy more energy from the Middle East and less energy than we could buy from our neighbor? Why would we think for a minute that the energy security of the country would be better served in any other way than this one? So this is going to most likely go to Asia. If it doesn't go to Asia, I guess it can go to the Atlantic coast and go to Europe. But what everybody believes is, if it doesn't come here, they just turn the pipeline to the west instead of the south, and those oil sands, that great energy resource goes somewhere else rather than where it makes more sense for us to get it or more sense for them to send it. This is as close to an energy no-brainer as I can think of. But the majority leader says this project is dead on arrival in the Senate. I don't believe he meant just dead on arrival if it was part of a package that extended the payroll tax. I think the quote was: ``It is dead on arrival.'' It is not going to go anywhere in the coming year, at a time when we need those jobs. Eventually, we all know as quickly as we can get it, we need to be more dependent on North American energy and less dependent on energy everywhere else. There have been many reports that say the administration's timing is in consideration for the reelection effort. This appears to be about one American job instead of more American jobs, and we need to be concerned about more American jobs. Some reports have noted that the President's advisers ``fear that a decision in favor of the project could dampen enthusiasm among volunteers needed for door-to-door campaigning in battleground States.'' I thought that bus went to battleground States. That should be enough to get to battleground States. We shouldn't have to worry about not having these volunteers because we choose to do what makes sense for us in the energy situation. Others have noted that ``the President decided to punt on this project in order to placate parts of the coalition that elected him in 2008.'' Americans are looking for jobs, not more of the same from Washington. This isn't time for politics. We need to jump-start the private sector economy. Again, I will say, the quickest road to more American jobs is more American energies. For the better part of 60 years, we have used more energy than we could produce. The marketplace is there. The consumer is there. The user is there. This is what capitalism is all about. It is what free enterprise is all about, figuring out how to connect the product with the consumer. So we know the consumer is there. Let's do what we can to connect that consumer with the energy needs they have. According to a Gallup poll, the sharp decline in the workforce last month may have more of a reflection on the large number of Americans deciding to give up looking for work. Let's do things that energize the economy and energize the American workforce. I am glad to be a sponsor of the North American Energy Security Act. The House again pursued this week a similar policy as part of their effort to vote on a payroll tax extension, with this as an effort to create new jobs. Whether it is the Keystone Pipeline or the Utility MACT rule that slows down people's decisions to make a job-creating decision or other EPA rules and potential rules that make people think twice and three times and eventually enough times you don't do it about job creation or what we need to do to get to the oil and gas shale reserves of the country or oil in the Gulf of Mexico, let's do what is necessary for North America. Let's make North American energy work for America. I don't know a better way to do that at less government cost or less government involvement than the Keystone Pipeline. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, on Veterans Day, November 11, 2011, I was fortunate enough to attend a service project at Walnut Grove Elementary School in St. Louis, MO, alongside nearly 100 veteran and civilian volunteers. These volunteers recognized that Veterans Day is not just an opportunity to thank veterans but also an opportunity to recognize them as the civic assets they are and to demonstrate that their skills and leadership are very much needed in our communities. This group spent nearly 7 hours working on a wide variety of academic and artistic projects that will improve the learning environment at Walnut Grove Elementary. This experience was only possible through a Missouri organization called The Mission Continues, headquartered in St. Louis. Founded in 2007 after CEO Eric Greitens returned home from service in Iraq as a Navy SEAL, The Mission Continues is the only national nonprofit dedicated to empowering post-9/11 veterans to rebuild purpose through community service. They have recognized that many veterans struggle to find purpose at home without the structure, mission, and camaraderie of a military unit. The Mission Continues challenges our veterans to apply their military skill sets to address critical needs within our communities by serving as citizen leaders. This unique approach gives veterans renewed purpose and strengthens our communities for future generations. The Mission Continues engages post-9/11 veterans to serve in their communities through 28-week service fellowships at nonprofit organizations. This fellowship program provides our former military men and women with the opportunity to translate their military experience into civilian skills. To date, The Mission Continues has awarded nearly 200 successful fellowships in 30 States and the District of Columbia. Additionally, the organization recognizes our veterans as civic assets and brings veterans and civilians together to serve their country by leading in their local communities. We must remind ourselves that while our veterans are often told ``thank you,'' they also need to hear, ``we still need you.'' Through their work, The Mission Continues is fundamentally changing the way our Nation welcomes home our servicemembers. In addition to the fellowship program, they are contributing to comprehensive academic research, have established innovative partnerships between public and private organizations that support our veterans in their transition, and provide an experienced voice as the Nation tackles veterans' issues. I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to recognize the work that The Mission Continues performs every day. As a nation, we are all invested in the post-military careers of the men and women in uniform who have defended our country. I encourage all Members to stand with The Mission Continues as they challenge our veterans to be citizen leaders in their communities.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate my good friend from Illinois allowing me to go ahead and talk about the Defense bill at this time, but doing it in the context of where we are on the floor right now. Mr. President, defending the country is the Congress's most important constitutional responsibility. Abraham Lincoln said that government should do for people only those things that people cannot better do for themselves. If there is anything at the top of that list, this is at the top of that list. So it is critical that we have this discussion, that we pass this bill as soon as possible in order to give our men and women in uniform the tools they need to do their job and the certainty we need to know how that job is going to be done from the point of view of what the Government can and needs to provide. While this bill we are debating today is only about next year's defense program, we should not lose sight of the fact that our budget environment is more challenging all the time and whether the automatic budget cuts to future defense happen, we do know we are going to have to be more thoughtful, more cautious about how we get the most for our investment in defense. Everybody else in America has spent the last 20 years figuring out how you focus on a better result from less investment, and defense is going to have to be there as well. Still, that does not mean it is not a top priority for the Federal Government. I appreciate the work my friends Senator Levin and Senator McCain have done to get this bill to the floor. I am proud to represent a State that is involved in our national defense. Missouri is the home of Fort Leonard Wood, of Whiteman Air Force Base, of the Marine Corps Mobilization Command Center in Kansas City. We have dozens of National Guard and Reserve facilities in our State. Our State has 17,184 active- duty soldiers, marines, and airmen right now; 34,000 Guard and Reservists. We are the home of large and small defense contractors that provide thousands of jobs in our State. Those defense contractors can do their work better and our defense dollars are better spent if we know what the plan is. The only real way to know what the plan is is to have an authorization bill that works. Since the beginning of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, 134 Missourians have given their lives and over a thousand have been wounded in the line of duty. In fact, one of the amendments I have that I hope finds its way into this bill is research associated with rehabilitating those wounded warriors who have eye injuries. Thousands of vision-related injuries have occurred as a result of the wars we are fighting now. Tremendous work is being done by St. John's Hospital and Missouri State University in Springfield to see what can be done to develop better ways to deal with those eye wounds. With IEDs as a principal tool of our opponents, our enemies in this war, your eyes are the hardest thing ultimately to protect. Twelve percent of our wounded warriors have eye wounds. Hopefully we can look to see what we can do to provide greater protection and greater recovery from those wounds. I join all Missourians in thanking those who serve. I think all of us will show greater commitment to those who serve by actually having a Defense authorization bill that sets out a plan for the future. I am particularly pleased that this bill contains funding for modifications of the B-2 bomber's mixed load capacity. Most of our Stealth bombers operate out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and we discovered, as recently as the operation in Libya, that operations with our B-2 bombers are not as efficient as they need to be or could be, simply by making that loading capacity work differently. That is the kind of thing we are going to have to do as we look at more difficult-to-get defense dollars. We are going to have to figure out how we spend those defense dollars in the best possible way. I hope the Senate language as it is in the bill now prevails in a final bill. I also want to call attention to the bill's full authorization of the development of the next generation long-range strike bomber and I am pleased with the funding in this bill for a vehicle maintenance facility at Fort Leonard Wood and weapons storage at Whiteman. I filed a few amendments to this bill and I will mention a couple of them. One I am working on with Senator Gillibrand is an amendment to ensure National Guard soldiers mobilized for domestic emergency operations are entitled to the same employment rights as others are when they come back. Senator Gillibrand and I also worked on a bill to ensure that people in the Guard and Reserve, and their families, have access to financial and marital and other kinds of counseling as they try to put their other life back together. I thank my colleagues for bringing this bill to the floor. We face a wide variety of threats today, including some that are new and constantly evolving--cyber-warfare, WMD, all things that we need to take seriously. This is a principal responsibility of the Federal Government. I am looking forward to seeing this bill passing the Senate today and then to work with the House to get a bill on the President's desk so that all who are involved in the defense of the country know what the long-term plan is. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

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

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I yield back the Republican time.