Richard Blumenthal

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I want to thank all of our colleagues who have come today and thank Senator Murphy, my friend and teammate in this cause and in so many other causes, and just bring us back to the issue of why we are here today. Senator Murphy, Senator Booker of New Jersey, and I have come to the floor to make three essential points. I am going to ask my colleague from Connecticut whether I have hit these points--the reasons that have brought us here today, along with so many eloquent colleagues, I might add. I am deeply grateful to them. We are here debating an appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, and Science. But we are here on a much larger issue. Why is this debate different? Why is this day different? Orlando has hopefully brought us to a tipping point, changed the dynamic, and enabled us to break through the paralysis and the complicity by inaction that has characterized the U.S. Senate on the issue of stopping acts of terror and hatred in our country. Those acts may emanate from abroad. We have to fight the terrorism that is inspired or supported by our enemies abroad, as well as people who are motivated by the twisted, insidious ideology that may be inspired or supported abroad, the pernicious hatred and bigotry that may be exemplified by Orlando and mental illness or whatever the cause. There are three simple points, are there not? There will be no business as usual until there is action. Enough is enough. We are here to say the time for business as usual on a routine appropriations bill, CJS appropriations--that time is done. We are here to make a historic point and seek to change the dynamic and seize this moment of national tragedy and demand action. That is what the American people want, and that is the second point. There is a national consensus that it is not only our opportunity but our obligation to protect the American people, to make our Nation safer, to assure that whether it is twisted ideology, pernicious bigotry and hatred, mental illness, or any other cause, we can and we will take steps to stop it. Third, closing the terrorist loophole must be accompanied by universal background checks. For someone to be too dangerous to board a plane and still be able to buy a gun makes no sense. But beyond the intellectual, nonsensical quality of it, there are real, practical safety implications. Somebody who is too dangerous to board a plane, to travel by air, should be deemed too dangerous to buy a gun and as dangerous as a convicted felon already precluded by law from buying a gun. But that terrorist now, even if he were barred from buying a gun, could easily go to a gun show and buy a gun because there is no check whatsoever at those gun shows, not on the NICS system, let alone on the terrorist watch list. The two measures--closing the gun show loophole or the background check gap and closing the terrorist gap or loophole-- go hand in hand. They are a start. They are not a panacea. They are not a complete solution. We are going to be talking throughout the evening about other measures that can be taken. Those three points are essential: No business as usual--enough is enough; a national consensus in favor of commonsense, sensible measures to make our Nation safer from gun violence and from acts of terror and hate, inspired and supported by forces of evil abroad and at home; and, finally, combining these two measures, closing the terrorist gap loophole and also making sure there are background checks on all gun sales in the country. Are those not our essential points, I ask Senator Murphy?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Those points really should be bipartisan. They should attract support from both sides of the aisle. There is nothing Republican or Democratic about any of these points, is there?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. And proudly so, along with our colleague from New Jersey standing with you as a team here, joined by so many colleagues. I thank the Senator from Minnesota. I see that Senator Murray of Washington State has joined us. Thank you so much. I am going to ask a quick question, and then I have other questions I am going to ask afterward, but I want to pursue a point our distinguished colleague from Vermont raised about the perception of Americans who can't get that we can't get things done here. There are many issues and problems beyond our control. There are many issues and problems we cannot affect. The state of the economy, perhaps, we can impact. World problems seem intractable a lot of the time. Here are commonsense, straightforward measures where the Senate of the United States and the Congress can get the job done--at least save lives. It is really that important. We can save lives if we do the right thing. The Senate has been complicit by its inaction in the loss of those lives--30,000 every year. Some of them at least could be saved by saying and putting into law the very simple proposition that if somebody is too dangerous to fly, if that person is on a watch list under an investigation, then they should be deemed too dangerous to buy a gun. They are at least as dangerous as a convicted felon who is now barred from buying a gun. I wish to ask my colleague from Connecticut--the two of us have spoken to so many people across the country, some of them survivors of gun violence, families who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and others who are simply citizens who watch this carnage, not only in Sandy Hook and Orlando but on the streets of Hartford, moms and dads who have lost children and brothers and sisters. Isn't this issue of gun violence and terrorist attacks one of the signature issues of our time in showing the American people our government can work? We have talked about the message it sends to our allies. I asked a question about that point. We have talked about the message it sends to law enforcement, such as the FBI, but to the American people the failure to act not only makes the Senate complicit in a moral sense in those lives lost but undermines the credibility and trust of the American people in their government to protect them, to achieve the most basic assignment they give us, to make America safe and secure--safe and secure from the bad men like Adam Lanza, who killed 20 innocent children and sixth- grade educators, or the homegrown terrorist inspired and supported by ISIS or sent here by some foreign terrorist organization, or the twisted haters who are bigoted against LGBT or some other group. This signature issue is about keeping America safe and giving our law enforcement authorities and our protectors the powers they need to do their job. So I ask my colleague from Connecticut--we have joined today in this effort--is there a message to the American people here, that we are sending the message that enough is enough but also enough killing is enough, enough inaction is enough, we have seen enough, the time for action is now?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I would be pleased to yield to other colleagues for their questions, but let me just ask the Senator one more quick question. Again, somebody unfamiliar with this topic might be wondering. Convicted felons under law are barred from buying firearms. So someone who has been to prison, paid the price, done probation, been out of our prisons for years and years, and done nothing to repeat that criminal episode--whatever it was--is still barred from buying a gun. Yet someone who is deemed dangerous enough to be on a watch list or a no- fly list--the consolidated list that the Senator from Connecticut referred to earlier--is free to walk into any gun store or any gun show and, in 7 minutes--a reporter of the Philadelphia Inquirer, I believe, was able to do it in 7 minutes--simply present the money and walk out with an AR-15 automatic weapon, a firearm designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible, designed for combat and largely manufactured and used around the world to kill people--not predominantly for hunting or recreation. It is designed to kill people. Isn't there an irony to this kind of an inconsistency? Irony is probably a euphemism. Or isn't that an outrage that the terrorist watch list people can buy an AR-15--no questions asked--in 7 minutes or less or slightly more? And a convicted felon, having committed a serious crime, having paid his dues to society, having paid a fine, having served time in prison, done and out--and we talk a lot now about a second-chance society, about their being able to live normal lives and work and so forth--is barred, even though that person may be far less dangerous, far less a threat to innocent people in Orlando or at Virginia Tech or in Newtown, CT, or to the 30,000 people every year who either are killed or kill themselves because of this easy availability of guns to people who are dangerous. The terrorist watch list--again, not a panacea, not a single solution--barring those people from buying guns will not fix this problem alone, but it is a start. It sends a message, and it will provide hope to those families who have looked in our eyes, the families of Newtown, families across the country who have lost loved ones and who say: Why can't Congress act? That is why we are here saying enough is enough, if I am correct.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Senator Murphy. I want just to pursue some of the questions, the excellent inquiries that have been posed by our colleague from West Virginia and just to say that some folks in America who may be listening or watching or may hear afterward about this debate may say to themselves: Somebody who has been put on that watch list erroneously, someone who is precluded from boarding a plane or traveling in the United States--regardless of whether they can buy a gun or not--aren't they entitled to the due process right to correct that list? The answer, in my view, is very simply yes, as a matter of constitutional right and due process, as a matter of equal protection, as a matter of the right to travel freely in the United States of America. If someone is on that list erroneously, he or she deserves the right to have that record corrected. I am going to pose that question to my colleague from Connecticut now. But I have a second question, which is also probably on the minds of a number of our Connecticut constituents who are watching or listening or may hear about it afterwards: Don't we have some of the strongest gun protection laws in the United States of America, and isn't that enough? Why are we worried about this terrorist watch list? Why are we worried about background checks for the Nation as a whole when Connecticut has helped to lead the Nation; when Illinois, as a matter of fact, has strong gun laws, perhaps in theory; when California or other States pass their own laws? Why are we here on the floor of the Senate seeking action and saying enough is enough? Why are we so outraged and passionate about achieving gun violence protection barring people on a terrorist watch list from buying guns, making sure that we have universal background checks, a ban on straw trafficking, and illegal importation across State borders? I think the answer is these measures are necessary because even the strongest State laws are basically ineffective--at least to protect many people--as long as stolen guns, lost guns, can be transported across State boundaries. Guns have no respect for State boundaries. In Connecticut we are vulnerable because of the weaker laws in other States. So this national protection is vitally important. Is that not the case, I ask Senator Murphy?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. We need to be realistic, don't we, I ask Senator Murphy? The President has said we are not going to prevent every death from gun violence. I think we owe the President a great debt of thanks for his leadership and courage and strength for advancing the debate on gun violence and seeking specific, constructive steps that will help to stop it, but we know we are not going to be successful in preventing every single death as a result of gun violence. This kind of set of measures is a start. My colleague from Connecticut has said it is an easy start. It is easy to understand and it is easy to see the effect and the tangible difference it can make. But obviously, if it were easy to achieve, it would have been done long ago. Unfortunately, as he and I have said all too often and as we have had to say to those families from Connecticut and around the country who have come to us at the vigils and the townhalls and the public meetings and in our offices, there is no one single solution, and Congress has been complicit by its inaction on any solution to this problem. So we are not going to completely prevent all 30,000 deaths or every act of potential terror and hatred, like Orlando, but we can make a start, can't we?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank Senator Murphy. I wish to draw out a point he was making by posing another question. There is no one- size-fits-all fix to the problem of hatred and terrorist attacks in this country that involve gun violence. The kind of attack that we saw in Orlando may have been motivated by an insidious bigotry that involves deep-seated hatred or pernicious extremist ideology inspired by ISIS or some enemy abroad or mental illness. The facts are developing. We will know more, as the Senator from Connecticut knows. The point is that the laws we now have enable our enemies to weaponize the people in this country who may be prone to use assault weapons that are designed to kill as many people as possible and as quickly as possible. This idea of weaponizing our enemies or homegrown terrorists or people who can be inspired by the twisted insidious ideology that ISIS spawns should really bring us to recognize that there is not only a security threat abroad but one at home as well. I ask my colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, whether people who are too dangerous to be permitted to board a plane should be in some way stopped from buying one of these guns that can be used--whatever their motive--to do the kind of destruction that we saw with such unspeakable horror in Orlando, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Columbine, and our own town of Newtown? We have met with these families in our State and in towns and cities across the country. We have heard their cries beseeching us to do something. Is there more that we can do?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you to my friend and colleague from Connecticut for yielding for a question and his holding the floor. I want to follow a question that was asked by our colleague from New Jersey. I have heard him speak so eloquently about the people in his city of Newark, and, in fact, children dying in his arms as victims of gun violence. Those kinds of acts of violence are unpredictable. The FBI was investigating the killer in the Orlando tragedy and knew of his potential dangerousness, but there are countless individuals who commit these acts of murder. Thirty thousand deaths every year occur as a result of gun violence. Many of them are unpredictable and perhaps unpreventable under current law, but they could be prevented with stronger laws. So my question to my colleague from Connecticut is whether this measure will enhance the fact-finding and investigative powers of the FBI in seeking to stop gun violence where we know it may occur and--in fact, as much as I deeply respect the diligence and dedication of the FBI--whether additional resources combined with this kind of measure will enhance their ability to stop these acts of hatred and terror such as we saw so tragically in Orlando.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I thank the Senator for yielding for a question only. I want to ask more specifically about a point he made so well at the very beginning of this conversation; that the fight against gun violence and extremism abroad and at home is not an either/or, that we need to fight the violent extremism abroad, whether it is called jihadism or radical Islam or violent extremists, whatever label we give it. This fight is about that battle and about enlisting our allies abroad in supporting us in that battle and combating the homegrown terrorists, the extremists who are supportive or inspired by ISIS or others abroad. We do not have an either/or situation here, as the Senator said so well. They are complementary. My question to my colleague from Connecticut is whether these kinds of measures that we are seeking to advance on the floor today also empower and enable a stronger alliance with our allies abroad that are joining us in this fight. I ask that question of him because he as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, as I am a member of the Armed Services Committee, is aware of the importance of acting with our allies abroad. These measures, do they not, enable us to form and enlist and advance those alliances?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, the amendment I filed, Blumenthal No. 4255, will not be made pending, but I want to emphasize the importance of the amendment and hope I can work with my colleagues on the substance of it because it is so profoundly important to fairness in the workplace and the protection of American workers. My friend and colleague, the Senator from Washington, Patty Murray, has spoken on this issue within the last few minutes, and I join her in supporting the critical Executive order issued by the President called the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order. This effort requires companies doing business by the Federal Government to disclose whether they violated any of the 14 longstanding labor laws protecting American workers included in this Executive order. There is no requirement to disclose a mere allegation or claim of a violation of one of those laws, rather, the Executive order requires, very simply, disclosure of a determination by a court or administrative body of an actual violation. In effect, this Executive order would be gutted by the National Defense Authorization Act now on the floor of this Congress, and the amendment I was intending to offer is the very same amendment that was offered in the NDAA markup and supported by groups like Easter Seals and Paralyzed Veterans of America. They worry that the language in this law that we now have before us will do a damaging injustice to our veterans and constituents with disabilities and thousands of other employees working under Federal contracts. I am proud to be joined in this effort by not only Senator Murray but also Senators Franken, Gillibrand, Brown, Sanders, Leahy, Baldwin, Merkley, Boxer, Casey, and the ranking member of the committee with jurisdiction over this bill, Senator Jack Reed of the Armed Services Committee, where the Presiding Officer and I sit. We need to ensure that the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order applies across all Federal agencies and to all workers, or as many as possible at least, strengthening this vital effort to protect workers and taxpayer dollars. It is not only about workers, it is also about taxpayer dollars. The laws that are covered here are sort of the bread-and-butter protections of all Federal workers and all workers, generally, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Civil Rights Act. Other laws that may be more obscure are also covered, but they have been around for decades, and this measure and those laws are designed to protect veterans and women from harmful, debilitating discrimination, among other wrongful practices. Let's be very clear. Most companies covered by Federal contracts play by the rules and obey the law. All they would need to do is literally check a box confirming that they are in compliance. There are no big administrative expenses or elaborate bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. They just need to check a box to confirm that they are in compliance. For the small subset of companies with compliance issues, the contracting agency would take information about violations into consideration in the procurement process. This is not to bar them. They can still be considered, but they would then try to work with the company to make sure it comes into compliance with the law. The basic theory of this Executive order is a matter of common sense. It is not about blacklisting companies. It is about ensuring that companies that want to do business with the Federal Government follow the law and provide a safe, equitable, and fair workplace. Those are the companies we can trust in being our partners in carrying out the Federal Government's work, as long as they obey the law and are in compliance with it. Companies that violate those laws should not receive taxpayer dollars. Companies that violate the law, very bluntly, are creating an unlevel playing field and forcing law-abiding companies into an unfair competition for contracts. They can cut corners, save money by in effect skirting the law, present lowball offers, and when they are hired, provide poor performance--again, wasting Federal funds to the detriment of taxpayers. Of course, it is not just about dollars--important to the taxpayer-- but about workers. Every year, tens of thousands of American workers are denied overtime wages. Unlawfully discriminated against in hiring and pay, they have their health and safety put at risk by Federal contractors who cut those corners on workers' safety or otherwise deny a basic safe workplace, and that is another reason we need full force and effect to this Executive order, not the gutting of it that is contained now in the NDAA before us. Some have called the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive order one of the most important advances for workers achieved by this administration, and it is. According to the Department of Labor, one in five Americans are employed by companies that do business with the Federal Government, an enormous source of leverage requiring compliance with Federal protections, not just in letter but in spirit. We must very simply allow for consistent and appropriate application of this Executive order to ensure that workers or contractors under the defense laws have the same protections as other workers. The NDAA provision that guts this Executive order must be removed at some point. It may not happen in our consideration of this measure now, but my hope is that we can work with colleagues and overcome the potentially harmful effects of this provision. I look forward, in fact, to a collegial effort to make sure that we provide long-term protections to American workers through this Executive order. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I rise to speak on an amendment I filed last week to the Transportation appropriations bill. The bill passed the Senate last week. I did not offer my amendment for a vote, but it has been willfully mischaracterized by an industry campaign, so I wanted to take a few minutes to explain it. My amendment, Blumenthal amendment No. 4002, would improve the safety of our roads. America depends on truck drivers to move our goods around; truckers and the trucking industry perform a vital service. But truckers who work too many hours in a week, like any other drivers who spend too much time behind the wheel, get tired and can't drive safely. So since the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, there have been limits placed on the number of hours they can work in a week. In 2003, President Bush raised the limit from 60 hours on duty in a 7-day week, where it had been for decades, to 82 hours in a 7-day week. This increased truck drivers' fatigue. So in 2013, President Obama sought to make some changes, bringing the limit back down to 70 hours and ensuring that drivers could rest when the body needs it most: at night. The Obama administration's rule was based on sound science, thousands of comments, and, most importantly, a prioritization of safety over profits, but it was opposed by many trucking companies, who were accustomed to working their drivers to the max, regardless of the consequences for other drivers on the road. Over the past few years, in a process I will not describe in detail here, the trucking industry succeeded in gutting the new rule, not through legislation in the Commerce Committee, which has both the jurisdiction and the expertise, but through the appropriations process. Language on appropriations bills suspended the rule and required cumbersome studies before it could return. The bill before us continues this trend, including language to make it clear that the Bush administration rules will return after the study, and it enshrines a statutory cap on truck drivers' working hours, one that will be extremely difficult to change even in the face of new data or scientific evidence. This is terrible precedent. It encourages truck drivers to put in nearly double an average work week behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound big rig, the last place in the world we want someone who is falling asleep. My amendment would let us go back to the rules that existed in 2013, rather than this mess, masquerading as a solution. It would give us the opportunity to debate this issue fully and to put aside the counterproductive language in this appropriations bill. However, while I am not pushing for a vote on this amendment, it is supported by the ranking member of the Commerce committee, Senator Nelson, and my Commerce colleagues, Senators Markey and Booker. Unfortunately, due to a campaign of misinformation, it has become controversial. And I believe the underlying measure, including critical funding to fight the Zika virus, must not be delayed. But I am pushing for a commitment from my colleagues to work with me in conference and, in the long-term, to find a solution. Four thousand people die a year in truck crashes, and countless truck drivers report nodding off behind the wheel. This is something we have a duty to address.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am here to thank my colleagues for their strong, overwhelming, bipartisan support for the Sexual Assault Survivors' Bill of Rights, an act that I have been proud to help lead and champion, along with my colleagues, Senators Shaheen and Leahy. It is a cause that I championed as a prosecutor and law enforcer in my State, as the Federal prosecutor, U.S. attorney, and then as our attorney general in the State of Connecticut. It is a cause that deserves this kind of overwhelming, bipartisan support because for too long survivors of sexual assault have been denied the basic care and rights they need and deserve, and for too long they have been victimized twice--first by an assailant who fundamentally violated their rights and then by the court system and a law enforcement system that failed to respect and recognize their need for those rights to be enforced effectively. When a survivor of sexual assault engages the criminal justice system, she must be secure, absolutely confident and trusting in her rights and empowered to make informed decisions. Reporting sexual assault requires incredible courage, bravery beyond the imagination of many who fail to understand how much courage is required, and too often the system fails to respect those rights. She deserves a system that is worthy of that bravery. Too often, survivors are simply uninformed about what is happening, not told about basic evidence and proceedings, and they find that vital evidence was destroyed without their consent or encounter Byzantine procedural barriers to justice. That is wrong. This bill represents important steps toward a system that mirrors unsparing prosecution of people who commit these heinous offenses with sensitive and fair treatment of survivors. Currently, depending on the jurisdiction, there are a wide array of different practices and procedures. Sexual assault victims often experience a complex and cryptic maze of policies that deter those survivors from pursuing justice. This legislation will address unique challenges faced by sexual assault survivors, particularly regarding notice, access, and preservation of evidence. The preservation of evidence is particularly important because the sexual assault evidence collection kits are absolutely vital to justice and successful prosecution. This bill would empower survivors to make more informed decisions throughout the criminal justice process by supporting State efforts to better notify survivors of available resources as well as applicable State rights and policies. Finally, the bill will establish a joint Department of Justice and Health and Human Services working group to more effectively implement best practices regarding the care and treatment of survivors across the country--a beacon of information and leadership from the Federal Government to assure that sexual assault survivors are treated with the respect they need and deserve. It is that simple. This legislation does not address every barrier faced by victims of sexual assault. There is no question that more action is needed. To achieve that, State and local governments must follow suit and must create a culture, a changed culture of compassion for people who have experienced this heinous crime. It is a crime, and it should be treated as one of the most serious and outrageous crimes that anyone can commit. Today the Senate has sent a message that we side with survivors. We are on their side. We will do everything in our power to lighten the burden and pain they bear and help them seek both justice and healing, which they truly deserve. I thank my great friends and colleagues Senator Shaheen and Senator Leahy for their leadership on this issue. I have been proud to join with them. I thank the Connecticut groups CONNSACS, the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, and the many leaders in Connecticut who have made our State such an important engineer of progress in this area. Again, it is a journey that must be continued. The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women has done great work and provided important leadership in this area. I thank Amanda Nguyen for her courage and hard work to make this day a reality. All of my colleagues who joined today in supporting this measure can be proud of the work we have done, the leadership we have shown, and the bipartisanship it took. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I yield to Senator Markey.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I thank the Presiding Officer. The elimination of the fees for checked bags is not a panacea. It is not going to solve this problem alone. But it will, along with other measures, help reduce lines that result from screening. I commend Admiral Neffenger for his very close and prompt attention to this matter and for a number of the initiatives he has taken. We heard about them in the Commerce Committee this morning. I also thank Secretary Johnson for supporting elimination of the fees for checked bags. I think his leadership will be important. There are a number of other initiatives that can and should be taken. There is automated equipment that can expedite the screening of those carry-on bags. The use of additional screeners is important. The number has been reduced over the last 3 years by about 5,800. The addition of another close to 800 will help compensate. But again, alone, none of these solutions will provide the answer. As far as the automated equipment is concerned, the cost for the 20 busiest airports is about $30 million--a pittance compared to the $3.8 billion in revenue the airlines make every year as a result of the fees for checked baggage. I will repeat that: $3.8 billion is going to airlines as a result of their purposefully charging for bags checked instead of carried on. Many of those bags that go through screening now wind up in the holds of those airplanes anyway because there isn't room for them on the plane, so they wind up being checked at the gate. That simply adds to the cost and inconvenience of passengers: delayed flights, missed flights, flights that are in effect late because of the boarding problems. All of these accumulating issues are reasons to eliminate these fees and also give passengers the benefit of lower costs. My hope is that the airlines will voluntarily eliminate these fees for checked bags. After the meeting we had today with Admiral Neffenger, I am encouraged that the TSA will take initiative and help to implement other measures as well. In the meantime, we need the airlines to show some leadership as well, and I am hopeful they will do the right thing. The U.S. Travel Association has called it a national crisis. The evidence is irrefutable. At checkpoints that have no fee charges for bags, the carry-ons are 27 percent lower, so the numbers of carry-ons definitely diminish as the fees are eliminated. This evidence is irrefutable and argues powerfully that the airlines should not keep their passengers waiting in line. They should make some sacrifice to their bottom line and should not be profiting at the expense of their passengers. I will conclude by saying on this point--and I am so glad to see my colleague and friend from Massachusetts--that we need this initiative now, and we need it to happen. I also want to advocate on behalf of the safety of our roads. Blumenthal amendment No. 4002 will not be called up in part because it had been willfully mischaracterized by an industry campaign. In effect, we need to make truck drivers more safely empowered on the roads to take steps to protect themselves. Drivers who spend too much time behind the wheel are tired. They can't drive as safely. This amendment would enable them to drive more safely, give them the rest they need, protect them, and enable the roads to be safer not only for them but for people generally.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, as I mentioned earlier, the Senator from Massachusetts and I have been partners in this effort, and I hope we can prevail.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from Illinois for his leadership on this issue and his support for the initiative that Senator Markey and I first raised, which he has supported so very helpfully, and essentially that is to persuade the airlines to stop charging for bags that are checked onto planes as opposed to being carried on. Obviously, the fee for checking those bags adds to the number of carry-ons and provides an incentive for larger numbers of carry-ons. In fact, TSA itself reports that there has been an increase in carry-ons due to these fees. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, as the ranking member of the VA Committee, I want to join my colleague from New York, and having worked with Senator McCain on this amendment, I am very pleased that the McCain-Blumenthal amendment has been made pending and that we have an agreement to authorize those VA leases that were requested over the last fiscal year when we turned to the National Defense Authorization Act. I want to stress that these leases have been requested over the last several fiscal years, and this agreement embodies a situation that has to be addressed. I thank my colleague from Arizona for working with me on the amendment and now being so understanding on these requests, at least in committing to make sure that we address this very strongly felt need. I also want to thank my colleague from Virginia for his work on this issue and for his work on the infrastructure spending measure that he has offered and that I have supported for years. I hope that we can get it done because the infrastructure of our Nation, as well as that of my State, requires that we commit the money as an investment. It is not funding. It is not spending. It is an investment in our future. We can't have a 21st century economy unless we have a 21st century infrastructure--roads, bridges, rail, airports. I am pleased and proud to join him in this effort. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I hope very strongly that my colleague and friend the Senator from New York and Senator McCain will succeed in resolving this potential roadblock to amendment No. 4039, because I very fervently support it. The amendment would extend the temporary Veterans Choice Program for an additional 3 years and provide funding to do so. The extension of this program is vital, and the current authorization is coming to an end. At this point, we lack a path forward on any of the proposals to overhaul the VA's care in the community program. While the Veterans Choice Program has been far from perfect, requiring multiple legislative and administrative changes to make it function for veterans, extending it for an additional 3 years will allow us to address these necessary changes that Senators Tester and Burr have provided in a bipartisan way in the committee earlier this year. I remain committed to working with them and with Chairman Isakson to make further changes to the program as well as continuing to improve access to care within the VA, which is the preferred choice for many veterans. In addition to extending Choice, this amendment also would allow the VA to move closer to consolidating existing programs for care in the community, eliminating some of the bureaucratic hurdles to smooth contracting for the VA. I thank my colleague from Arizona Senator McCain for championing this cause because this amendment will ensure that all veterans currently using Project ARCH to access care through the VA will be grandfathered into the Veterans Choice Program. This is important for some veterans in rural areas to maintain continuity in care. It is of great interest to our colleagues from Maine and Kansas and other States where these veterans live, primarily, but to all of us who care about veterans health care. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment as well as to support The Veterans First Act, another bipartisan bill I was pleased to work on with Chairman Isakson to achieve--that bill makes additional changes to veterans health care to improve opioid therapy, access to chiropractic care, as well as ensuring strong accountability within the Department. Again, I express my appreciation to my colleague and friend Senator McCain and say that I look forward to working with him closely on this amendment, which would be helpful, in my view, to the Veterans Choice Program. Without this extension, the Veterans Choice Program would expire next year before Congress enacts long-term reform for veterans health. The stability provided by this extension and funding will help ensure maximum participation by doctors, hospitals, and clinics in the community who wish to treat our veterans. This amendment is one I support, having worked with my colleague Senator McCain on it, and I am very hopeful we can move forward with the support of this body. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I am very honored and I feel very privileged to be a member of this body today as we commemorate the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. I thank my colleagues, the distinguished Senator from Delaware, and most especially my very good friend and colleague from Virginia for his very eloquent and powerful remarks and also for bringing us together in this colloquy today. Sixty-two years ago on this day, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down as unconstitutional the segregation of schools by race, declaring that ``separate but unequal schools are inherently unequal.'' Today, that proposition seems so obvious as to be indisputable and the fact of a unanimous Supreme Court seems inevitable, but it was hardly inevitable 62 years ago. It is a triumph and tribute to American justice that it happened and that it happened at all given the staunch and implacable resistance that there was to that proposition 62 years ago. In fact, the Supreme Court courageously stepped forward to advance American justice and establish a milestone and reestablish the principle that it is enshrined in our Constitution that every citizen is entitled to equal protection under law. The battle to upend years of racial and educational inequity remains unfinished today. If we emerge from this colloquy with any message, it must be that the work remains unfinished and there is so much more work to be done in the spirit and letter of the law. The culmination of decades-long work and strategy by innovative lawyers, community organizations organizers, and other advocates of social change was that decision. It is a tribute to their work as well and a reminder that individuals can make a difference in our system, can litigate to a successful conclusion, can advocate principles that are a matter of moral imperative. It took an act of the Supreme Court, of an independent judiciary, to declare educational segregation unconstitutional and integration the law of the land. As a law clerk on the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1974-1975 term, working for Justice Harry Blackmun, I had the chance to watch arguments, some of them on pressing issues of the time, but also to talk with some of the Justices who watched or even participated in the Brown decision, including Justice Thurgood Marshall, the chief counsel for the plaintiffs in Brown. Anybody who thinks that decision was inevitable should talk to some of the lawyers who were involved in the litigation and who eventually advanced it to the Supreme Court and to its successful conclusion and read the history of the controversy within the Court and the internal debate that took place about the proper role of the Court and the principles to be applied. It was far from inevitable. But it also shows how the branches of government, working together and collaboratively advancing justice in America, are important to the fundamental dynamic of our constitutional system. The Brown decision took enforcement. President Dwight Eisenhower led that effort in one of the toughest tests in the massive protest in Little Rock, AR, just 3 years after Brown. Ten years after Brown, Congress expanded the logic of this great decision to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 making segregation in public places like restaurants illegal as well. Reading and reviewing the dynamics of the Court at the time, one wonders what would have happened if there had been only eight members. How history might have been different. Justice might have been delayed and perhaps history changed for the far worse, justice denied as a result of that delay. The group of Justices who unanimously issued the decision was no intellectual monolith; they were members nominated to the Court by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower. Before the Court came an issue of major significance, which they came together to evaluate on principles of law that we all share, that discrimination is invidious and intolerable and violations of the Constitution will be held unacceptable in the Court. Today, congressional Republicans, very frankly, hamper the ability of the Supreme Court to answer important legal questions of our time by refusing to hold even a hearing or a vote for Judge Merrick Garland. Their doing so has left the bench of the Supreme Court with only eight Justices. That lack of a ninth Justice diminishes and in many respects even disables the Court, as we saw just yesterday in a decision that might well have been decided otherwise if there had been nine Justices to give a majority to one point of view or another. Justice Scalia warned against this very issue, stating that ``eight justices raise the possibility that, by reason of a tie vote, [the Court] will find itself unable to resolve the significant legal issue presented by the case. . . . Even one unnecessary recusal impairs the functioning of the Court.'' Justice Scalia's foresight was prescient. In two recent cases, even before the one yesterday, the Court deadlocked, unable to reach a definitive pronouncement on the law, because of a 4-to-4 tie. Unnecessary circuit splits cause uncertainty, which in turn hampers the activities of ordinary citizens, of small businesses wondering what rules will apply to them, whether it is banking rules or investment regulations, hampering their ability to plan and create jobs. The Washington Post recently reported that the Court's acceptance of new cases has slowed significantly, leaving crucial unresolved legal questions without definitive answers. That is not how our system is supposed to work. That is not how the Founders saw it. That is not how the Supreme Court could resolve the Brown v. Board of Education challenge. The Supreme Court must have a full complement of Justices to effectively address these complex, challenging, urgent issues faced by our Nation today. I reject the notion that the Senate's refusal to act, as laid out in no uncertain terms by our Republican colleagues, fulfills our constitutional obligation. It is our obligation to advise and consent on the President's nominee. We ``shall'' do so. That is the constitutional mandate--not when it is politically convenient, not when we think it is advantageous, but when the President nominates, whoever the President is, whether it is President Eisenhower nominating Earl Warren or Presidents Truman and Roosevelt, who nominated other Justices on the Supreme Court who decided Brown v. Board of Education. We cannot afford to weaken the Federal judiciary's credibility, the trust and confidence of the American people in the authority of our judiciary. Its authority depends on it being above politics. Alas, what the Senate is doing is dragging the U.S. Supreme Court into the muck of partisan bickering. Brown v. Board of Education became the law of the land because of the U.S. Supreme Court's credibility. The Supreme Court had no police force to enforce it. It had no armies or mandatory physical force. It had its credibility and its authority, its moral authority because it was above politics in the minds of most Americans. That is the reason President Eisenhower was able to do what he succeeded in enforcing at Little Rock and the Presidents afterward have done similarly. Most importantly, I hope we all take time today to reflect on the importance of the Brown decision and recognize the grit and courage of the men and women who fought to end school segregation only 62 years ago. The best way of honoring their legacy is to do our job and our duty constitutionally, to fulfill that duty and their legacy by considering Judge Garland's nomination without further delay. I yield the floor and recognize my distinguished colleague from New Jersey.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, there is an urgent need that we must address--I hope it will be later in the day--which is emergency funding to facilitate a rapid response to a spreading public health crisis--now in Puerto Rico but threatening the rest of our Nation. There must be a rapid, robust response to the public health emergency the Zika virus poses. Zika is a vicious, virulent virus capable of crippling and killing. We have seen its effects in some cases of developmental disability that has resulted to children. It poses a threat to 4 million people in the Americas. Connecticut may not be generally thought to have a warm climate, but the mosquitoes are swarming and spawning there. They include a type of mosquito--the Asian tiger--that has now been documented to carry Zika. This poses an immediate and urgent threat for Connecticut and for the entire eastern coast and Northeast United States. There is a way that Connecticut is contributing to a solution. Two of our companies in Connecticut, Quest and Protein Sciences, are actively working on a vaccine. I visited Protein Sciences recently and saw firsthand the work that is being done there, but the scientists at that company and others working on a vaccine need this emergency funding. That is their plea to us, and I hope we will respond to it today--not just because the vaccine is needed, but it must be part of a broader effort, to include eliminating and eradicating mosquitoes wherever possible, educating the public on how to protect themselves and particularly their children and pregnant women against this disease. In Connecticut, there have already been six Zika diagnoses to date. There have been none resulting from infections in Connecticut but still affecting pregnant women. Our experience documents that any State in our country may be eventually affected. My plea today is that we use this opportunity to pass emergency funding and not deplete or gut a critical resource--the Prevention and Public Health Fund. For example, this fund has provided $324 million for section 317 immunization grant programs, which States rely on to maintain and increase vaccine coverage, particularly for uninsured Americans and for needed responses to disease outbreaks. Invading and decimating this fund will do lasting damage to the public health of America because the Prevention and Public Health Fund is the Federal Government's largest single investment in prevention. Over the past 5 years, the fund has put more than $6 billion toward overdue investments in disease prevention and public health promotion. Raiding this fund would wreak havoc on our efforts to reduce chronic disease rates, immunize our children, address infectious disease outbreaks and, ironically, lower health care costs. There is a saying I have heard numerous times on the floor of the Senate and at other public forums: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That lesson has been brought home by our experience with Ebola as well as with other public health threats. It is equally true of Zika. We should endeavor to eradicate mosquitoes and educate the public on the spread of this disease before it causes microcephaly, other developmental disabilities, and loss of vision and hearing in newborns. It is a threat to adults, as well as to newborns. Undercutting the investments we have made to date in public health is far from the right course to take. With women and families across the country looking to Congress for action, now is the time for us to take advantage of the bipartisan measures that are before us. I urge that we support those bipartisan measures that will help us increase readiness and surveillance, develop a vaccine, and educate communities about how we can better protect women and children, as well as others, from this vicious and pernicious disease. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, during our break, last Thursday the New York Times ran a story that was as heartrending and gut-wrenching as I have read in a long time. The headline was: ``One Week in April, Four Toddlers Shot and Killed Themselves.'' I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, the article included harrowing stories like this one: Sha'Quille Kornegay, 2 years old, was buried in a pink coffin, her favorite doll by her side and a tiara strategically placed to hide the self-inflicted gunshot wound to her forehead. She had been napping in bed with her father late last month when she discovered the 9-millimeter handgun he often kept under his pillow in his Kansas City, Missouri home. It was equipped with a laser sight that lit up like the red lights on her cousins' sneakers. Her father told the police he woke to see Sha'Quille by his bed, bleeding and crying, the gun at her feet. A bullet had pierced her skull. On the night of April 20th, Kanisha Shelton had placed her purse out of her 2-year-old son Kiyan's reach on the kitchen counter, but when her phone started ringing, the boy apparently pushed a chair close to the counter, climbed onto it and reached for the purse. There was also a .380-caliber Beretta pistol in it. Just after 9 p.m., Ms. Shelton heard a loud bang and rushed downstairs. There, in the kitchen, she found Kiyan lying on the floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. The police in Indianapolis said such scenes were becoming more common. As someone who has advocated for commonsense protections against gun violence for decades and now as a Senator from Connecticut, where we know all too well the horrors of gun violence and the deep wounds and death they can wreak on innocent children, and especially as a parent of four children who have been those ages, these stories, for me, are truly heartrending and gut-wrenching. My heart goes out to the families of these children and the families of countless other children who were lost as a result of these gun deaths--too many such families too often and so many of them preventable. Last year, there were 278 unintentional shootings by young children or teenagers, most of them having no idea what they were doing. In the week at the end of this April when four toddlers shot themselves, at least five other children and teenagers accidentally shot themselves or other people. Indepth investigations have strongly suggested that these shootings are significantly undercounted because of differing rules across the country and jurisdictions about how such deaths are to be reported. Some areas designate any death in which one person shoots another as a homicide, even if the shooter is 2 years old and has no intent to kill. The gun lobby relies on these misleading statistics to oppose laws that could reduce and prevent these kinds of heart-wrenching stories and deaths, such as safe storage laws or technology such as trigger locks. How could they be opposed? The gun lobby argues that these deaths are vanishingly rare, outpaced by other causes of child mortality. Of course, they perpetuate the misinformation by continuing to oppose any research, any fact-finding into gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continuing to even block our ability to better understand the problem, let alone address it. I continue to have great difficulty understanding the anti-safety advocacy of these groups. Time and again in American history we have recognized that products posing a risk to consumers--particularly to children--require regulation to make them as safe as possible, no matter what the product, no matter what the industry. That has been the American way. We put seatbelts in cars and require drivers to learn what they are doing in obtaining a license. We put childproof caps on medicine bottles and dangerous household products, even if they have domestic uses. If we have taken concrete steps to ensure that children can't open a bottle of aspirin, I am baffled that we can't do more to prevent these violent deaths. Why aren't we doing everything we can to make sure that children can't kill themselves or others or injure themselves or others with firearms? There is no lack of ideas for how to remedy this situation. President Obama recently announced that as part of the White House's anti-gun violence initiative, he will move forward to promote the development of smart gun technology which is designed to ensure that no one except the owner can fire it. Even if the gun makes it into the hands of someone who should not have it, whether a child or a criminal, the gun will not be accessible. Like other steps the President has outlined in the absence of congressional action which remains sorely needed, this smart gun initiative utilizes existing laws and resources to challenge research, innovation, and enforcement toward more effectively cutting down on gun violence. Surely, we have a consensus among the American people, among gun owners, and among anybody belonging to groups that seemingly oppose these commonsense measures that we need to do more and do it better to prevent these child deaths. On smart guns in particular, the White House will provide guidance for enhancing safety technology and help to manufacture and test smart firearms and to facilitate their purchase by State and local governments. Working in partnership with private sector innovators and local jurisdictions, this initiative holds tremendous promise. Even while smart guns that depend on advanced technology are being developed, existing mechanisms provide remedies as well--low-tech remedies. Trigger locks and indicators of whether a gun is loaded are in widespread use today. Studies have suggested that a third of accidental deaths could be prevented by the use of childproof safety locks and loading indicators. Our laws should encourage and even require their adoption. States around the country have also developed a variety of safe storage bills that prohibit storing firearms in places that are accessible to children. Tragic experience has shown us that, as important as it is for families to discuss guns with their children, simply admonishing them to avoid going near guns won't work, particularly when the children are too young to understand what guns are and what they can do, and, most especially, when they are playing with other children in other families' homes, where those guns may be accessible and loaded. The answer is to insist that adults take responsibility. They need to be held responsible for keeping firearms off limits, which is really the only realistic option to cut down these tragic deaths of children. Laws requiring that kind of responsibility and accountability are supported by two-thirds of Americans. Unfortunately, the gun lobby has continually, constantly, insistently, and consistently opposed progress in these areas. Their steadfast opposition has also prevented the Consumer Product Safety Commission--which has a praiseworthy track record of success keeping children safe from hazards and ranging from lead in toys to dangerous cribs--from regulating firearms or even issuing guidance about how they could be designed more safely for children. I have been coming to the floor of the Senate for a number of years to speak about the need for legislation to address the gun violence epidemic in this country, clearly a public health crisis. If there were a flu epidemic or another kind of contagious disease causing 30,000 deaths a year, we would have urgent, drastic action. We need to do the right thing. There are stories reported such as those last week of the unspeakable horror of a child too young to understand what is happening who encounters a gun and uses it, such as Sha'Quille, Kiyan, and Holston Cole, a 3-year-old boy with crackling energy, who would wake right before dawn. His pastor said: He loved singing ``Jesus Loves Me.'' He put a gun to his head and, unknowingly, pulled the trigger. We can avoid that type of tragedy. We can do better, and we must act. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.