Richard Blumenthal

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration en bloc of the following resolutions, which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 202, S. Res. 204, S. Res. 205, and S. Res. 206.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 44, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I further ask that the bill be read three times and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2611, which is at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to express my strong support for the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill and take a moment to explain an amendment that I have filed to this bill that ensures that men and women who have bravely served our country cannot be discriminated against in the housing assistance these appropriations provide. I wish to thank Senator Murray and Senator Collins for their leadership, as well as other colleagues. One of the problems I have heard described to me by veterans relates to discrimination when they return home after serving our country abroad and they become a civilian. One of the first things they often try to do is find a new home, often in a location far from their original home where they may not be known, where they enlisted but now have left. It may also be far from the military installation where they used to call home. Fortunately, almost all Americans across our country rightly welcome our heroes home, and they welcome them with open arms. Unfortunately, I have seen reports, and I have heard descriptions of instances where landlords would not rent to veterans simply because they served our country in uniform, and I find this practice absolutely unconscionable. I wish to tell you about the case of SGT Joel Morgan, a combat veteran who bravely served our country in Iraq. Sergeant Morgan, upon leaving the military, wished to rent an apartment in Boston. He found one that he liked. Unfortunately, after hearing about Sergeant Morgan's service to our country, the landlord said she wouldn't feel comfortable renting the apartment to Sergeant Morgan because she opposed the war in which he fought. According to Sergeant Morgan, the landlord said: I would suggest you do the right thing and look for a place less politically active or controversial. The place where he wanted to live was Boston. This kind of treatment is simply unacceptable to our veterans who have sacrificed so much. It is a matter of common knowledge that veterans of these recent wars have high unemployment rates, higher than we should accept, higher than is conscionable for this country to accept. Among younger veterans, that unemployment rate is intolerably high, and many landlords may believe that an unemployed veteran simply isn't a good prospect for paying the rent. My amendment would prohibit any funding in this bill from going to people or organizations that discriminate against veterans in housing. It would allow anyone who sees a discriminatory practice to report it to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and directly to that agency's inspector general. It also allows HUD to continue its existing programs to support veterans and servicemembers. This amendment will ensure that those who fight for our freedoms will not have to find or fight for a place to call home. Discrimination against anyone, including men and women who have valiantly served, has no place in our Nation. I look forward to working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has done so much to protect Americans from discriminatory housing practices, on ways we can ensure that servicemembers and veterans are not the victims of discrimination. As we work for a permanent solution on so many of these difficult problems--providing veterans with counseling, health care, jobs counseling, training, and education that they need and keeping faith with them so that we leave no veteran behind--we should make sure we leave no veteran out of housing because of discrimination. One of the solutions will be amending the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to ensure that housing protections are extended to all who have served in uniform. I believe this amendment is an important step forward. Simply put, it will protect all who have protected our country. Protecting them is a matter of keeping faith and making sure that we leave no veteran behind. I know the Veterans' Affairs Committee is hard at work on many of these issues. I am proud to serve on that committee and thank Chairman Sanders for his profoundly important leadership on this issue, along with Ranking Member Burr. I look forward to extending and expanding these protections for our bravest and finest men and women who have helped to protect our Nation. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague, Chris Murphy. Senator Murphy has been a long-time champion on this issue. My colleagues may wonder why two Senators from Connecticut, both of our Senators, are here on the floor and part of this working group seeking to lead on this critically important issue of health care delivery. The answer is we come from a State where it is working. We have seen the future in Connecticut's health care delivery system. It is still a work in progress, a lot of work still to be done, but Connecticut hospitals and providers and insurers and patients know it has to be our future, that cutting cost is essential to preserving and enhancing quality. Let me emphasize how important that basic principle is, because a lot of our colleagues believe there is a choice here between cutting costs and quality, that quality cannot be enhanced if we cut costs. In fact, the opposite is true. Cutting the cost of health care is key to enhancing and improving quality. It is the way we will reduce premature discharges from hospitals, that we will diminish the number of discharges from hospitals without proper rehabilitation plans, and cut the number of hospital-acquired infections. It is not only possible to do but it is essential. It is a way we avoid the false choice--and it is a false choice--between preserving Medicare on the one hand and avoiding increasing copays, decreasing benefits, or increasing taxes, as my colleague from Connecticut has said. I reject every one of those options as necessary to preserving Medicare. Increasing copays, decreasing benefits, or increasing taxes is not the way. In fact, increasing efficiencies and avoiding unnecessary wasteful and indeed harmful costs are necessary to preserve Medicare. My mother taught me a number of things. She said, No. 1, if you don't have something nice to say about someone, don't say anything. So I am not here to say not-so-nice things about the folks who say we ought to cut Medicare benefits. But I would oppose those kinds of cuts as unnecessary and harmful. She also said an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In fact, that basic truth is what will help save our health care system. Prevention of costs, prevention of illness, prevention of obesity and smoking, and other kinds of diseases and conditions that lead to increased health care costs are essential to this effort. My mother said also listen to your younger brother. My brother, Dr. David Blumenthal, has been a pioneer and an expert in this area. As much as it pains me to acknowledge that my younger brother knows a lot more about this subject than I do, in fact, he has been able to enlighten me and many of our colleagues here on this point. I mention him and the others who are experts and pioneers in this effort. He is one of many who have advised and provided that kind of enlightenment. Because there is no more kind of guesswork as to whether advances can be made in this area by cutting costs and raising quality. It has been documented. There are projections. It can be costed out. It can be scored, in my view. It can be the basis for action by my colleagues here in seeking to cut costs that are skyrocketing out of control. I have seen these reforms at work throughout the State of Connecticut. This issue is of national importance, but it hits hospitals and providers in every one of our States. I have seen it and listened to folks who work at places such as St. Vincent's and Bridgeport Hospital, in Bridgeport; St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury; Yale-New Haven and Greenwich Hospital, Middlesex Hospital. All around the State of Connecticut, I have seen the checklists at work, the protocols for hand washing, the increased attention to quality care that has helped reduce costs. They have helped improve patient care while reducing cost. They reject this false choice between quality and cost cutting. Both are possible. Both are essential. We hear so much rhetoric about the Affordable Care Act in Washington. But in Connecticut, we see tangible examples of how it is working and making a difference. The implementation of the Affordable Care Act is a historic opportunity for continuing this work and expanding it nationwide. We need to continue our dedication to health care reform. My colleagues and I have come to the floor today to call for smart reform that helps patients and avoids harm to them, and does not discourage providers from being a part of a Federal health care program. In fact, we need to identify areas of reforms within the health care system that we can address that will strengthen health care in this country and address the serious concerns about the skyrocketing costs of health care. We have seen a slowdown in the growth of national health care expenditures over the past year. But slow growth certainly does not mean a decrease in overall expenditures. Smart policy decisions require that we address the ongoing problem of health care spending in this country, and turn a corner for the good by reducing the current costs. I am concerned that there are shortsighted strategies, such as taking money from the Prevention and Public Health Care Fund established under the ACA, which has been a tactic unfortunately used by both parties in financing programs. That tactic will undermine our long-term efforts at reducing health care spending. The Prevention and Public Health Fund is used in Connecticut for programs such as mental health services and substance abuse prevention, as well as public health research and surveillance. These measures will ultimately result in lower health care spending through prevention and preventive health care. But we need to stay committed and stay the course. What we need to do now is to continue to work toward developing a sustainable health care system, through structural reforms such as the accountable care organizations, health maintenance organizations, patient-centered medical homes that have provided advances in this area, and have created provider organizations that lead to greater provider acceptance of responsibility for health care outcomes in their patients. Measuring the success of those organizations requires taking a closer look at whether the savings and outcome improvements actually materialize. We have to be hard-headed and clear-eyed about whether they are working. The metrics must be applied. We need to measure success. Measurements are possible; as I said at the outset, no longer a matter of guesswork. There are scientific-based measurements. The success of these organizations will have more to do with how they are run than with how they are structured. As sophisticated as many of our health systems are, the development of process goals has only recently become a consideration. The Association of American Medical Colleges recommends, for example, the use of surgery checklists through their best practices program. Peer-reviewed studies have shown that the use of comprehensive checklists is associated with reductions in complications and mortality during surgery. But they are most successful when health care organizations subscribe to a culture of safety. That culture of safety and prevention is essential. Some hospitals in Connecticut have been rewarded through the Medicare Program for their commitment to improving quality through the use of process measures: Bridgeport Hospital, St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, Middlesex Hospital have all seen increases in reimbursement rates through the Value Based Purchasing Program. Again, the Federal Government can provide incentives and encourage and support this effort. Manchester Memorial Hospital, Hartford Hospital, and Rockville General Hospital all have avoided Medicare penalties by lowering their readmission rates. While payment differences for these programs represent a small portion of the overall Medicare payment, hospitals should continue to be rewarded for addressing these issues. I want to conclude by drawing attention to some of the innovative work being done in my State of Connecticut around delivery reform and data collection. I have mentioned the importance of measurements and metrics. Much of the work is supported by grants that were made available through the Affordable Care Act. But it has been the State itself that has decided how exactly to use these funds. While Connecticut has established a working group around innovative reforms which continues to work on specific proposals and recommendations for reforming the health care system, one of the areas of focus has been to ensure integrated clinical data exchange between health care providers. Connecticut has invested in interoperable health information technology systems and developing an all payers claims data base to create comparable, transparent information that can be better used to understand utilization patterns and enhance care access. One of the most basic aspects of reforming any system should be a clear understanding of where the biggest problems lie, and yet we still lack the data necessary in many systems to truly understand where the unnecessary spending is taking place. It is like a diagnosis of any kind of medical condition. Facts are essential. Data is key, and I believe an investment in information technology and data collection activities will help inform payers and consumers about where our health care dollars are being spent, where they are being spent most effectively, and where we can reduce spending that will ultimately enhance health care outcomes. Connecticut is taking a considered and insightful approach to obtaining and utilizing data while considering the needs of consumers and looking toward developing stronger programs for telemedicine and provider coordination. Technology is advancing. Data collection can help implement technology where it does the most good. We need tangible goals for long-term reform, and that is part of the work that we have described and we are undertaking as part of our task force. I know my colleagues this evening all agree with me that we need to continue this work and take advantage of advancing technology, the metrics that are now being sampled, of good practices, leadership of providers, the medical community, and good ideas wherever they are and whoever is willing to offer them. I wish to thank my colleagues for joining in this effort, and I look forward to returning on this subject.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. As I said, I commend the FBI and I thank them for this effective action and Mr. Comey for his commitment to continuing that crackdown on human trafficking. I also thank his wife and his family, his five children, for their generosity in becoming an adoption family; that is, adopting children, through the licensed foster parents program in Connecticut. I thank them for becoming foster parents, I should say more accurately, and caring for infants and toddlers. They have also donated money to create a foundation to support children who age out of foster care. He is truly a man dedicated to public service. We will be proud of him as an effective and able leader of the FBI in a challenging time. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I wish to thank and join my friend and colleague from Minnesota Senator Klobuchar in her remarks about Todd Jones. He is one of two very distinguished law enforcement nominees who will come before this body for confirmation in the coming days. I wish to join my friend in enthusiastically praising Acting Director Jones for his perseverance and courage in the past months, indeed years, he has served in this critical position. When we recently went through the debate on sensible commonsense gun violence measures--which, unfortunately, did not pass this body--we often heard about the need for more prosecutions, more effective investigation and pursuit of cases against lawbreakers involving guns. Todd Jones is committed to that task. I believe--with many others--that there needs to be more prosecutions and more effective enforcement of these laws. ATF needs more resources to do those prosecutions and it needs more leadership, which Todd Jones can provide if he is confirmed and given the mandate from the Senate that he needs and the agency deserves to do its work more effectively. In just a few minutes, we will hear from my great friend and colleague from Connecticut about the continuing scourge of gun violence and how it continues to take a toll in the absence of effective measures from the Congress. I join my colleague in urging that this body fulfill its obligation, mandate, and responsibility from the American people to do more and do it more effectively. We need to adopt sensible measures, such as national background checks, a ban on illegal trafficking and straw purchases, a more effective mental health initiative, and school safety measures, which Todd Jones will bring to this office. He will address gun violence and all of the responsibilities within the important purview of the ATF. The Alcohol, Traffic, and Firearms Bureau has a long, storied, and distinguished history, and Todd Jones will make it more so through his leadership. Equally important, this afternoon we will vote on James Comey--I am proud to say he is a resident of Fairfield, CT--as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I know this agency well because I worked with agents of the FBI day in and day out when I was U.S. attorney in Connecticut for 4\1/2\ years. I know it well because I have seen his work as attorney general of Connecticut. I know it well because over the years I have come to know the extraordinary men and women of the FBI. They are extraordinary in their bravery, perseverance, and skill. They are extraordinary in their expertise, experience, and their respect for the law, which is so critical. They have a sense of balance and mission along with their dedication to making America safer. Their mandate and purview has expanded over the years from the days when car thefts and kidnapping comprised a major part of their caseload to now cybersecurity, terrorism, and computer hacking. Jim Comey is a man for the modern FBI, an agency with a long and distinguished history that now faces new threats and new responsibilities. He is truly a prosecutor's prosecutor. His life's work has been about law enforcement. He began in the U.S. Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. He rose to become Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. He soon moved to the job of managing assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where his superiors recognized his exceptional ability, his remarkable combination of scholarship, and practical sense of investigation. When they assigned to him responsibility for the terrorist attack on the Khobar barracks in Saudi Arabia, he quickly delivered 14 indictments and earned another promotion. This time he was promoted to become the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. His service there was recognized as remarkably distinguished and successful, especially in overseeing that office's terrorism investigations and prosecutions. He made a priority of corporate crime--white-collar crime. He never feared to take on the toughest of challenges. He prosecuted big businesses but also terrorism. He received the Director's Award for superior performance and the Henry L. Stimson Medal from the New York City Bar Association. He became Deputy Attorney General, the second highest ranking official at the Department of Justice. In that job--and much has been written about this incident in his professional life--he demonstrated unbelievable and passionate dedication to the rule of law by standing up to his own superiors and in speaking truth to power on a variety of issues but most especially when he stood up to some of the President's men, and his own superiors, in saying he would stand for personal constitutional rights at a time when they were threatened. He has been a person of integrity and dedication to the rule of law--bigger than any single person throughout his career--even in the face of that kind of tremendous pressure. In my conversations with him, he has also committed himself to the vigorous and zealous pursuit of gun violence. I have spoken to him publicly and privately about this issue. He testified in response to my questions, and others, and clearly demonstrated his commitment to effective enforcement of existing and improved laws, such as background checks and a ban on straw purchases and illegal trafficking. He has also committed himself publicly, and in his conversation with me, to a continued crackdown on human trafficking. I wish to thank and commend the FBI for its stunningly successful arrests of 150 pimps. They rescued 105 children in a nationwide crackdown--literally within the past 24 to 48 hours--including 6 children in New Haven, CT. This stunning success shows dramatically--including the rescue of six children in Connecticut--how this invisible, pernicious scourge can hit close to home. It has hit home in Connecticut. I saw it, as attorney general of our State, as a crime, a predatory scourge that hits men and women and children--most searingly and heartbreakingly, children who are forced into labor or into sexual exploitation. The FBI's crackdown shows that an effective partnership involving local police--like law enforcement in New Haven, CT, where six children were rescued--along with State and Federal law enforcement can effectively crack down on this scourge. The FBI is to be commended and so is Mr. Comey for his commitment to combat this problem.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I wish to join with my two very good friends and colleagues who have highlighted an issue that concerns the whole country, not just Hawaii, Rhode Island--and no two States are farther apart geographically--but we share this very dire and dangerous problem, often characterized as climate change. I think it is climate disruption. It is global destruction. One of the myths that surrounds this area that my two colleagues have sought to expose is the supposed incompatibility of reducing destruction of our planet and, at the same time, growing our economy. Often, economic growth is thought to be in conflict with environmental protection and responsibility. In fact, ecology and economy go together. We can expand our economy by developing new sources of fuel, renewables such as wind and solar, but also fuel cells, which in my State of Connecticut are a growing source of energy responsibility and economic growth. Far from being incompatible, these two goals are complementary. More jobs, more economic growth, can be the result of controlling carbon pollution. In fact, the President's program for controlling carbon pollution, which would dramatically cut the magnitude of our air contamination and make us a more responsible nation, will increase jobs and economic growth. It will also put us in a position of leadership around the globe and enable us to regain the position of trust and leadership that we have exercised on so many other issues. We cannot be a leader if we don't lead ourselves. We cannot tell others what to do when we don't follow the example that we should be setting. It should be and it must be leadership by example. My colleague Senator Murphy and I--and he will be shortly speaking about another subject--brought together a very powerful coalition in Connecticut last week to highlight this issue of climate change and to dramatize how many different interests and ages have commonality in this goal: labor leaders, environmental activists, young people wearing T-shirts and carrying signs. They get it. They know. The science is there. The reality is pressing, urgent, and we must address it. I wish to thank all of my colleagues who are uniting on this historic cause. I hope we can join together in colloquies going forward. The Presiding Officer has been a leader in the House and will be now in the Senate; most especially, my friend and colleague Senator Whitehouse, who literally week after week, in many different themes and widely diverse ways, has brought our attention, riveting our minds, on this very important subject. I congratulate him on the 40th speech, and I look forward to participating more with him.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, while my colleague from West Virginia is here, I wish to thank him for his leadership on this issue and for the very hard work he and other colleagues have devoted to this profoundly difficult, challenging but important issue. I rise with regret to oppose the compromise agreement that has been reached with the help of our colleagues from Illinois and Maine and across the aisle. It is a compromise, and compromises are to be sought in this day and it is bipartisan and that, too, is an objective. It is a bipartisan compromise, but the fact is, it is a bad deal. We can do better. We must do better. This Nation can do better. We have a moral and historic obligation to do better for the students of today and their brothers and sisters who will be following them over the next 10 years. This deal offers the illusion of lower rates in the short term while delivering higher rates, in some cases, in as little as 2 years from now. It forces students back into a system of market-based loans that have failed in the past and will fail in the future. It subjects students to economic uncertainties which are wholly unrelated to the actual cost of higher education. We know we need to reduce the cost of tuition and higher education. We know we need to address the overhanging $1 trillion-plus of debt that exists from past loans. This deal exacerbates the problem instead of easing the problem. Yes, it has caps on the interest rates students may pay, but they creep to more than double where student loan rates were at the beginning of this month. It has a low rate, but it is, in effect, a teaser rate. As the Presiding Officer said so well, it is a teaser rate that has nowhere to go but up. It lowers the deficit, yes, but it does so by having the Federal Government reach into the pockets of students and take billions more on top of the $51 billion already extracted in this fiscal year from them and from their hard-working parents. At the heart of this bill is a mistaken premise. It is the premise that it is OK to profit off the backs of students and that it is all right to regard students as a revenue source or a profit center. That premise reverses a historic promise, which is: We will invest in students, not profit from them. We will support their efforts to gain higher education so they can better themselves and better the country with the skills and education they acquired. We are not supposed to hamper or handicap them and exact from them a crushing burden of debt in the future. That premise reverses a historic promise, and we cannot allow it to go forward without a fight. Every dollar we extract from those students is a dollar they can't spend on a down payment for a house, a car, a business or an investment. These young people are the economic drivers of our future. Let's be purely selfish about it. How can they build a family, buy a home, start a business if they are hit with an 8-percent interest rate or higher at a time when we can make it more affordable? It makes no sense. I have spoken to students across the State of Connecticut over these past weeks, and they have done the math. They know the results. As many as 86,000 students who attend our colleges and universities--and I have spoken to many of them, their families, the staff and teachers who are also doing this math--and they know the best way to reduce our deficit is not to profit from students but to make possible their higher education so they can bring their innovation and experience and expertise to the marketplace, and not make the marketplace dictate the variable rates they are charged, but enable them to contribute to the marketplace and the American dream by going to college. IS understand the temptation of this deal, but we must reject a compromise that saves the American dream for one sibling in a family by taking away from another. My colleague from Rhode Island made this point very eloquently earlier today. If a person is a student in high school right now, they will do pretty well under this bill when they begin college next year, but not their younger brother and sister. The sister will be paying for the current student. The brother will be paying more and, in fact, may be denied the opportunity the present student has next year because the parents cannot afford to send him to college. The issue of loan rates is complicated, but the math is pretty simple. There is already more than $1 trillion of crushing loan debt that this bill is not refinancing. The bill provides no debt forgiveness, just market rates that will lead to higher payments and more student debt as we zoom past that $1 trillion mark and raise it even further. The irony here is that the majority of this body has already voted to return to 3.4 percent. This compromise betrays the majority will of the Senate. Instead, it allows rates to rise as high as 8.25 percent, graduate Stafford rates as high as 9.5 percent, and PLUS rates as high as 10.5 percent. So we are saying to parents of two children: You can send one to college now with a loan that you take out at current rates, but to pay for that second child, you are going to be seeing rates more than twice as high. Do my colleagues think the income of the average middle-class American family is going up 10.5 percent? Ask the American people. Do as I have done. Go around to the States and ask the students and the parents. Let's not kid ourselves. The fact is they are not going to be able to pay. This compromise relies on a presumption that somehow, over the next 2 years, we are going to come back and revisit, revise, reshape, and avert disaster. I have only been here 2\1/2\ years, but what I have seen is it is better to know what the result is going to be than engage in potential false hope and raise the potential false expectation that somehow everything will be solved next year or the year after, before disaster strikes. We should learn something from our experience with sequestration. This bill is not based on analysis of what the rate needs to be to cover the program's cost. In fact, it requests the GAO to examine and report on what that should be. So I implore my colleagues, instead of voting first and getting the facts later, that we reserve such a life- changing decision until the GAO has advised us on the cost of student loans and we use that necessary information to set the rates going forward. There are amendments that I believe will improve this bill, and I have cosponsored them, including an amendment Senator Reed and the Presiding Officer, Senator Warren, have offered that would lower the interest rate caps in this bill to the current statutory rate. If this amendment is adopted, we can go back to the people of our States and say: At worst, you will be no worse off than under current law. We cannot say as much under this compromise bill. I have also cosponsored the Sanders amendment which would sunset this legislation after 2 years. If interest rates rise the way they are projected to do, we could be looking at dramatically higher rates within 3 years. So this sunset clause will force us to come back and revisit them. I have also filed my own amendment that would expand and make more generous loan repayment assistance programs for borrowers who are struggling right now to make payments under existing law. At a time when outstanding student debt is $1.2 trillion, we need to make sure we help and support distressed borrowers at every stage of repayment, and that is the unaddressed need this body needs to confront. I am hopeful these amendments will be adopted. In the meantime, I must respectfully and regretfully oppose this compromise. We are the greatest Nation in the history of the world, as we are fond of saying repeatedly on the floor of this body. But only one thing is certain about the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act, and that is rates will inexorably, inevitably, inexcusably go up. They will exceed current rates. We must stand and fight to prevent that kind of betrayal of the fundamental American promise of higher education and the American dream. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am here to speak on behalf of my good friend Gina McCarthy and her nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency. But before I do so, I would like to raise an issue I raised during a hearing of the Armed Services Committee. I have come directly from that hearing. I am here to express my deep dissatisfaction, in fact my outrage, at a form of military assistance that will literally waste a total of more than $1 billion in taxpayer money. In fact, we have just contracted and announced that contract in June for about 30 Russian Mi-17 helicopters that will cost American taxpayers $550 million to buy from Rosoboronexport, the Russian export agency, controlled by the Russian Government, those helicopters for the Afghan national forces that lack pilots and maintenance personnel to fly and repair and operate these helicopters. They will be sitting on the runways of Afghan airfields without any use, rusting, literally wasting American taxpayer funds. Don't believe me when I make these statements. Those facts come from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan who completed a report recently, stating succinctly, clearly, irrefutably, that we are wasting $1 billion in taxpayer money buying Russian helicopters for Afghan national forces that, very simply, cannot use them. In fact, we committed to that contract before we even have a status of forces agreement with the Afghan Government for the period after 2014 when we will be leaving that country, fortunately. If we can leave sooner, all the better. But in the meantime, we are buying equipment from the Russian export agency that is at the same time selling arms to Assad in Syria for the murder and slaughter of his own people, making money from those sales to Assad in Syria, and from the government that is harboring and providing refuge to Edward Snowden, who has illegally--I guess I should use the words allegedly illegally-- but clearly violated American law in disclosing secrets from our government. Last week I visited a National Guard helicopter repair facility in Groton, CT, where over 100 technicians--to be precise, 137 technicians--civilian employees at this facility alone have been furloughed. They are furloughed 11 days. It was originally 22, but it has been reduced to 11. Our helicopter repair function in that region, and similarly across the country, has been hampered and impeded because of the sequester and the impact in requiring furloughs. Our military readiness is suffering because of lack of funds on the part of the U.S. Government, when we are at the same time buying Russian helicopters that will have no use for the Afghan Government. In fact, they have no pilots to fly them or people to make repairs and maintain them. Something is wrong with this picture. Yet in the hearing I have just left, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, maintained to me his view that a waiver should be exercised under the National Defense Authorization Act providing for the purchase of these Russian helicopters. I respectfully disagree. I strongly disagree. I think the American taxpayers, certainly my fellow residents of Connecticut, ought to be equally outraged. We should be outraged in this body that we are wasting this money when precious funds have been forgone that can be used for military readiness of our Armed Forces. I ask my colleagues to join me in saying to our U.S. military leaders that our national security is imperiled, not by refusing to acquire those helicopters but in fact by wasting taxpayer money on those purchases for an Afghan army that cannot use them, and for purchasing from a country that certainly means us no good and, in fact, an export agency that is selling arms to a murderous government and harboring an individual who has violated our laws and endangered our national security. I will not let this matter rest. I will not let this issue go. I intend to pursue it. I ask my colleagues to join me in making sure we stop these purchases. In fact, Senator Ayotte and I have a bill, which is called No Contracting with the Enemy, to expand very useful contracting tools that now apply in Afghanistan, where we have found our aid and assistance finding its way to enemy hands. I can't think of a more blatant example of contracting with the enemy than handing over our taxpayer money to a company that is at the very same time selling S-300 air defense systems to the Syrian Government for use against its own people and violating international sanctions by helping Iran with that missile equipment.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2013, at 2 p.m.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 18, 2013, at 9:30 a.m., in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2013, at 2:30 p.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2013, at 10 a.m., in room SD-406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Climate Change: It's Happening Now.''

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2013, at 9:30 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2013, at 10:30 a.m.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2013, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, today I wish to remember all those we have lost in Connecticut and throughout the Nation due to pancreatic cancer and other types of recalcitrant cancers, and to raise awareness of the importance of continued efforts to bring about more effective treatments and widespread education to fight this pernicious disease. Lisa Hayes was a journalist from Connecticut. She worked for an international nonprofit organization that worked to get medications and health care to developing countries. She was the editor for Doctors without Borders, and a fearless advocate for the underdog. Lisa was 45 when she was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Her symptoms were dry skin and fatigue. Being a working mother of two and it being winter, Lisa thought nothing of it. When she was diagnosed, she was told ``There is no hope. Go home and kiss your kids good-bye.'' Lisa tried an oral chemotherapy regime, but it was unsuccessful. She lived for 4 months afterwards, then died four days shy of her 46th birthday, leaving behind a husband and two children under the age of 12. While overall cancer incidence and death rates are declining, that is far from the case for pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is the deadliest of all major forms of cancer, having the lowest 5-year survival rate of only 6 percent. It will strike more than 45,000 Americans this year--73 percent of whom will die within a year of their diagnosis. Recalcitrant cancers, such as those that develop in the pancreas, are difficult to detect. By definition, these cancers have low survival rates; and, sadly, we have not seen substantial progress in diagnosing or treating these diseases. For these reasons, I was proud to cosponsor the Recalcitrant Cancer Research Act, which was passed and signed into law near the end of the 112th Congress. In addition to other provisions, this law authorized the National Cancer Institute, NCI, to implement a strategic plan to battle pancreatic cancer. This law takes further steps to establish a committee to advise the NCI on research goals for pancreatic cancer, and also requires the creation of an education program to train health care providers, patients, and their families on issues specifically related to this devastating disease. As required by the Recalcitrant Cancer Research Act, the NCI recently released its report on these issues. The report includes four recommended research initiatives as identified by a working group of leading health experts. I applaud the NCI for taking this important step, and I look forward to continuing to support the agency's work in this area. Efforts such as these are vital to improving our health, and I invite my colleagues to join me in their support. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the controlled time be extended until 7 p.m., and that all the provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

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