Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. In response to my friend from Arizona----

Mr. COATS. Madam President, this is a serious breach, and there is more to the story to be told. It shows the extreme position that we are in here as Americans, as there are those who want to take this country down, those who want to invade privacy of Americans and have the capabilities of breaching this. The legislation before us, and the reason why it is brought here now and, hopefully, will be attached to the Defense bill is that this needs to be done now and not later. How many breaches do we have to hear about--whether it is the private sector or whether it is the government sector--before this Congress and this Senate will stand up and say we have the capability of preventing some of these things from happening, but we need the legislative authority to do it. To delay and not even allow us to go forward with this puts more and more millions of Americans at risk, whether they work for the government or are in private industry.

Mr. COATS. I think that is obvious, because, clearly, while we have the capability to address some of these issues, we are not allowed to use the capability. This legislation gives us the opportunity to have a cooperative effort. Some of those who resist the use of this because they think it is potentially a breach of privacy now understand that breaches are occurring from outside and into the United States, by those who are enemies of the state, those who are criminal groups, those who are terrorist groups. While we may have the capacity to deal with this, without this legislative authority we are not allowed to use it. So what an irony--what an irony that some are saying: We can't trust the government on this to help us. This is defense. This is like saying we can't trust the Department of Defense, we can't trust the Army or the Navy to protect us from attack because it is government-run. Now, they are saying there are some operations in government here that are part of our defenses that can't be used until we have authority. The irony is that people's privacies are being breached by all of these attempts, and we are denying the opportunity to put the tools in place to stop that from happening.

Mr. COATS. Well, we are just learning what damage this is and how it can be misused in any number of ways. Some of this information is classified. But I can say to my colleague from Arizona, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, that this puts some of our people and some of our systems in great peril. It is something that needs to be addressed now and not pushed down the line.

Mr. COATS. Well, since the Department of Defense is one of those agencies being attacked, I would certainly think this is the appropriate attachment to a bill for which, hopefully, we will be given the opportunity by our friends across the aisle. Hopefully, we will be able to pass it in the Senate, move it on to the House, and get it to the President so that these authorities can be in place. The Senator mentioned 4 million. A company whose headquarters is in the State of Indiana, Anthem insurance company, was breached--and this is public information--of 80 million people on their roles. That is almost one-third of all Americans who have had their private information breached by a cyber attack--not to mention the threat that comes from cyber attack on our critical infrastructure. What if they take down the financial system of one of our major banks or several banks? What if they take down the financial transactions that they place on Wall Street every day? What if they shut down an electric power grid in the middle of February when the temperatures in the Northeast are in minus-Fahrenheit temperatures or when it is 110 degrees in Phoenix and you lose your power and can't turn on air conditioning? People will die. People will be severely impacted by this. To not go forward and give authorization to use the tools to try to better protect American safety is not only unreasonable but is a very serious thing.

Mr. COATS. Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, it is ``Waste of the Week'' time again, and the waste of the Federal Government's spending just keeps piling up. Today, I am taking a look at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. We all have a stake in this. I am a veteran, but even those of us who are not veterans have a stake in making sure our veterans are getting the use of taxpayer dollars for their benefit for the sacrifices they made. Over the past year, we have been hearing on the floor and continue to see story after story of mismanagement that is plaguing the VA. Many of these news articles tell the story of our Nation's heroes not receiving the care or the resources they have earned and that they deserve. Last month--just last month--I read yet another frightening headline, frustrating. ``Veterans Affairs improperly spent $6 Billion annually, senior VA official says''--improperly spent $6 billion annually. According to an internal memo written by the VA's senior official for procurement, the VA has been wasting taxpayer money by violating Federal contracting rules to pay for medical care and expenses. Under law, VA purchases require competitive bidding and proper contracts, but testimony from Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Logistics Jan Frye, before Congress last month revealed that just the opposite is occurring. So the medical care and supplies our veterans need for their medical needs are being compromised at a cost of $6 billion a year. Mr. Frye wrote: Over the past five years, some senior VA acquisition and finance officials have willfully violated the public trust while Federal procurement and financial laws were debased. Their overt actions and dereliction of duties combined have resulted in billions of taxpayer dollars being spent without regard to Federal laws and regulations, making a mockery of Federal statutes. An example of this violation is found with VA purchase cards. Typically, VA uses these cards for smaller purchases of up to $3,000, according to the rules and regulations. But they were inappropriately used to buy billions of dollars' worth of medical supplies without contracts or oversight. Mr. Frye continued: In addition, doors are flung wide open for fraud, waste and abuse when contracts are not executed. For example, by law, prices paid for goods or services subject to contract can only be determined to be fair and reasonable by duly appointed contracting officers. I can state without reservation that VA has and continues to waste millions of dollars by paying excessive prices for goods and services due to breaches of Federal procurement laws. According to reports, the VA has failed to engage in a competitive bidding or signing contract process ensuring a good deal for the services they are unable to provide in house, such as specialized tests and surgeries and other procedures. In fact, the VA has paid at least $5 billion in such fees in violation of Federal rules. This is yet but another example of what the White House has recognized--as--and I quote--``corrosive culture'' at the Veterans' Administration. I think we all agree our 8.7 million American veterans and our more than 130 million taxpayers deserve a lot better. Given the large scale of purchases made by the VA, proper procurement procedures ensure the best products for veterans and the best value for taxpayers. Aside from higher prices, a lack of contracts can result in a lack of oversight. The VA, just like Congress, is accountable and must be accountable for what it spends. Now, I understand the incredible pressure the VA has been under with the recent influx of new veterans. I appreciate the good work of many people who work at the VA. Still, no matter the growth in need, it is never in order to violate Federal law. This kind of reckless spending cannot and must not be tolerated. Each year, Congress sends billions of dollars to the VA to care for our veterans. With those funds, comes an obligation to use every dollar of those funds properly. By simply requiring the VA to comply with Federal law, we can save $6 billion. This is a simple fix with large results and we should take it. Today, I am adding an additional $6 billion to our ever-increasing gauge of taxpayer money that comes to Washington and is spent for improper and unnecessary purposes. We are now two-thirds of the way to our goal of $100 billion. We are going to be doing this every week as long as the Senate is in session this year. I hope we have to add an additional attachment to this gauge because, folks, there is no end to discovering the kind of waste of taxpayers' money for unnecessary programs, violating the law, violating regulations, mismanaging the spending at the Federal level. We are going to continue to point out these issues week after week. Hopefully, we can get the attention of our colleagues and the American people, and they will demand that we do something about this. While we have not been able--no thanks to the administration--to come up with a sensible, long-term fix to our deficit spending and continuing plunge into debt, we can at least look at these programs that have been identified by the inspector generals, by the Government Accountability Office, and by the Office of Management and Budget as wasting taxpayer dollars. So there is much we can do while we are trying to get to the point where we have an administration that allows us to address the larger issue; that is, a government out of control, spending taxpayers' money and wasting money, which we will point out every week. Tune in again next week for the next ``Waste of the Week.'' I thank my colleague from Nebraska for generously yielding me the time to do this. I have somewhat of a schedule hitch. She was gracious enough to allow me the time.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I will be happy to yield. This is one of the most important issues I have had to deal with during my times of service on behalf of our State and our country. I think getting the facts out has been necessary. It is a momentous decision that has momentous consequences. I hope each of us will take very seriously all that has been said and weigh that in their own judgment and hopefully make the right decisions for the future of this country. I will be happy to yield to my colleague.

Mr. COATS. There is a lot more that could be said. We will shortly be voting on the amendments here. I probably said more than I should.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we are fortunately moving forward on this issue of extreme importance to the security of the American people. These are necessary procedures we should take to do everything we can to ensure our safety, to publicly discuss and debate the issue of terrorist threat and the measures the people's government is taking to defend our country and to defend each individual American from being a victim of terrorism. As Senator Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, just related, the threat to our certain security and to our safety has never been stronger, never been more threatening, with the proliferation of terrorist organizations, the unfortunate proliferation of the inspiration that is being provided through social media to any number of American citizens--and those who may not be citizens but are residing in this country--to take up arms or to create a bomb or bring harm to Americans in the name of support for jihad, in the name of ISIS, in the name of Al Qaeda, in the name of support for the extreme fundamentalist activities of terrorists that are prevailing not only through the Middle East but affecting the world in various places. We know through intelligence gathering and through public statements, the United States has been put in the crosshairs. ``Kill Americans, no matter how you do it, take it up. We will learn today, if we haven't learned already,'' something that has just come across the wires of someone who was attempting to do just that, and we just see more and more references to these types of attacks. Unfortunately, we are in a period of time when one of the methods we had to try to detect these threats is no longer in operation. It is not in operation because the authorization for going forward with this program, described as section 215 of the PATRIOT Act--the collection of raw telephone numbers, not anybody's name but raw telephone numbers-- that we could use as a base to determine whether, from a foreign source, a known terrorist or someone connected to a terrorist organization is talking to somebody in the United States. That is the program. Unfortunately, that program is dark. It is shut down. It shut down at midnight Sunday. The program was shut down because we could not achieve support for even a minimum extension of time for which to better understand the program, to better debate and discuss the program, to make adjustments necessary to ensure that Americans' privacy was not being breached. Several requests were made and, unfortunately, one Member, exercised his right to say no to a unanimous consent request, and we were in a position where we had to ask for consent driven by our procedural process we have to go through to achieve a vote. But, that vote was rejected time after time after time. So on the basis of one Member's objection, we have what I believe, what many believe, and what those who better understand this now that we have been able to disclose what it is believe is a necessary tool that ought to be in place. This program ought to be in place for the very purpose of doing everything we can to prevent another 9/11, to prevent something much worse than 9/11, which would involve a 9/11 type of action coupled and married with a weapon of mass destruction. Where an attack in New York would not result in 3,000 in casualties--it would potentially result in 3 million casualties or even more or something concocted by a small group of people who would shoot up a shopping mall or rush into an elementary school or just simply take down someone on the subway system or an individual attack by someone with a knife or an ax or a gun. One of the essential programs we have had that has been successful has been under attack in terms of breaching the privacy of American citizens. I think it has been made clear in the last few days that there has been no abuse of this program and that no one's privacy has been breached. The only allegation that holds true is that it has the potential to breach someone's privacy. Over the years, there has never been documented abuse. No one's privacy has been breached. To shut down a program with that kind of record on the basis that something could happen, that government could use this, I know resonates with a number of people in the United States. I really don't blame them. This current administration's policies have created great distrust among the American people as to their leadership, as to their operations, as to their policies. When we look at what has taken place with the IRS, definitely breaching people's privacy for political purposes, when we look at Benghazi and the coverup that has taken place in Benghazi, with the administration refusing to stand up and take responsibility for not responding adequately and changing the narrative and rewriting the intelligence. And when we look at Fast and Furious and the agency responsible there. I fully understand not just the frustration but the anger that American people have and the distrust they have. One of the most difficult issues those of us in the Intelligence Committee have had to deal with is that when there are descriptions of policies that are implemented in terms of providing for an intelligence gathering and necessary response to prevent terrorist attacks, that information is classified. So when we see the program being misrepresented and described as something that it isn't, we don't have the ability to respond. We can't go to the press without breaching our oath to secrecy. We do not and cannot release classified material. So while we now are in a position of having to unclassify this material, we have to understand that everything we say is not only listened to by the American people in an attempt to ensure their privacy is not being breached--and that this is an essential tool to help prevent terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups know everything that is being said and done, and they will make behavioral changes. They will make changes in terms of how they communicate. So the program is being compromised by the very fact that we have had to come on the floor and publicly address it and release information as to what it is to help assure the American people that, in fact, what has been said about the program is simply false. I have been on the floor several times raising that issue, using the quotes of what has been said by Members on this floor--particularly one Member. That is blatantly false. It is a blatant misrepresentation of what the program is. Now, I am not questioning their motive. I am not questioning the individual's decision in terms of whether he is for or against or wants to support or not support. All I want to do is clarify so that the public has the facts and they can make their own determination. We make a valid case that privacy is not breached. If someone comes to the conclusion that they don't trust what we say, don't believe what we say or don't agree with what we say, that is their decision. All I want is for them to have the facts in front of them so that when they make that decision, it is based on fact and not based on what has been misrepresented. That is why I took the actual words stated on this floor relative to the program--which I believe misrepresented the program--and challenged them. I challenged them with the factual information. I am not going to repeat them. That is a matter of record. We now are at the point, however--because we were not able to achieve any support for any kind of extension to either clarify what the bill does and doesn't do or to clarify with the House of Representatives how we best can coordinate this process and come up with a good solution to the issue--where, procedurally, we only have two options. One option is essentially to do nothing. The program does not secure the votes to be reauthorized, and that program is taken off the books and is no longer there. In my opinion and in the opinion of many, that makes us more vulnerable. That gives us less access to be able to stop a terrorist attack. The second option is to support an effort that was passed by the House of Representatives, the USA FREEDOM Act, which I wish I could say addressed the issue and doesn't compromise the program. But it severely goes against what this program attempts to do. It compromises the program to the point where I am not even sure the program can exist under the provisions that have been enacted by the House of Representatives. Three very experienced and trustworthy individuals who don't have to salute the Commander in Chief and can give their own unbiased opinions on this came before our Intelligence Committee and basically said that with the structure of the USA FREEDOM Act, you might as well not have the program in it because it will take down the program. There are a couple of major issues here that these amendments try to address but don't technically address. I am going to be supporting those amendments. I think they make a bad piece of legislation a little bit better. But I have real questions as to whether it addresses the problems that really render the program inoperable. The first is retention. There is no mandatory retention among telephone companies that they keep the information--the phone numbers-- that we need in order to create a haystack of numbers from which we can identify connections between foreign terrorist organizations and operatives inside the United States. That is not done by somebody looking at anybody's records. Before the NSA can even use a phone number, it needs to have outside approval--legal approval--to query that. If the telephone companies don't retain those numbers, we can't go out and match them up. And there is no mandatory retention of those numbers. It is simply an amendment now that would basically say they would have to give us notice that they don't retain them. But there is no mandatory retention. I can just see a lot of companies saying--and I have heard from a lot of companies: We don't want to be responsible for trying to build in the protections and hire the people who have the background checks and the security clearances to put a regulatory process in place to make sure our people don't abuse this or use it for the wrong purpose. So here we have a program that is accessible only by a very limited number of people at the National Security Agency, overseen by layers and layers of lawyers and legal experts and others to make sure it is not abused in any way. They have been successful because there has not been one case of an abusiveness process against anybody's personal liberties. There are six layers of oversight that are in place before they can even take it to the court and say: We think we have a problem here. We think there is a suspicion--a reasonable suspicion--that a phone number may be associated with a terrorist organization. Then the court looks at that and says: We think you have something here. But let's check it further before we give you the authority to turn this over to the FBI so they can then look into this in greater detail to determine whether this is a live terrorist act. As Senator Burr said, it works on the negative side, also, and there are some examples of live situations--as in the Boston bombing and so forth--that proved the negative. It proved there wasn't a conspiracy. It proved that just two people were involved in this. There were no connections. So they didn't have to waste a lot of time trying to query and pull up a bunch of information about whom they had talked to, and the police were then allowed to focus their efforts on Boston and what then took place in Boston and not throw the alarm out to New York City--the allegation was that they were on the way to New York City-- and shut down New York City, causing panic and causing scare and alerting police and so forth. They were able to prove the negative of that. So it works both ways. But without that retention, we are not going to be able to accomplish that. So I don't understand how the USA FREEDOM Act is a better way of protecting privacy and a better way of dealing with the fact that time is of the essence here. Instead of querying one area, we now have to go to multiple telephone companies, and there are 1,400 in the country. Let's say there are 100 major companies or let's say there are 10 major companies. We have to go to all 10 or to all 100 or more in order to find out whether in their database that telephone number exists. Time is of the essence here. If you are detecting a terrorist attempt and you build in all kinds of steps you have to take in order to get to the point where you think you really have something here, the act could have already been undertaken. So those two issues, I think, are major problems with the FREEDOM Act. The third is simply to think that the layers of protection and judicial oversight, executive oversight, and congressional oversight that take place to make sure we don't abuse the program through NSA-- every telephone company has to insert that same level of oversight, and they simply won't be able to do it. It will take months. It takes months to get background checks and security clearances. Many telephone companies don't have the capacity to do that. They do not have the financial ability to do that. The irony is that individuals' privacy is more at risk by the telephone companies holding the numbers than the NSA holding the numbers, but, of course, we have not been able to convince the American people of that partly because the program has been so distortedly reported. But this as the saving grace to protect everybody's privacy by turning it over to the phone companies instead of turning it over to NSA just doesn't add up. It is going to be very difficult for me and I think for many of my colleagues to think--while many of us are going to support these very limited amendments, which we don't even know the House will accept, it does not resolve the issue and does not solve the problem that we are dealing with here and, in effect, could render the program inoperable. I think when Members are making decisions about which option to choose, it is a devil's choice. Is something better than nothing or is something really nothing and you end up with nothing and nothing? None of us wants our country to be put into that position, but that is where we are. If we are not able to secure passage of these amendments to improve this and the House rejects it--or we reject it or the House rejects it, then the program will stay inoperable. I think the American people will then be picking up their phones and writing and emailing us and urging us to rethink this program through now that they know more about it, now that they know that much of what has been said irresponsibly by Members of this body and others is not true. Once they learn more about it, I think they will be calling on us to take a new look, and they will take a new look. The arguments simply do not hold up because they are not factual. Now that we have been able to release some of this classified information and now that people have the ability to understand, if they so choose-- to take another look at this and the proof we have provided relative to the success of the program and relative to the need for the program. That is what is before us. There has been a constitutional argument here regarding the Fourth Amendment, and it is important to note: ``The right of the people to be secure in the persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches.'' Unreasonable. I think we have proven this is not an unreasonable search. It does not identify anybody's name. Only after a court approves and gives the NSA the authority to go forward, similar to seeking the authority of a judge for other suspected criminal activity taking place in every jurisdiction across America, every town, every police department going to court. We tune in to ``Law & Order'' and ``CSI'' and all these programs and we see exactly how this works. You cannot go barging into a house without a warrant. You cannot collect information without a warrant. The case being made that there is a violation here of the Fourth Amendment simply has not held up with legal authorities. Secondly--this is interesting. This was just pointed out to me. I am not a constitutional scholar. I took constitutional law in law school and probably have forgotten half of it. But I do carry it around. I do look at it, but I am not a scholar. But I think it is pretty clear and pretty interesting that article I, section 5, talking about the legislature, says: Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same-- It is on our desks here. Every day, our Congressional Record, these are our proceedings-- excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require secrecy. That is why we have an Intelligence Committee. There are some things that require secrecy. Unfortunately, we have had to unclassify information to try to let the public know that what they have been told by their government, elected members of their government, is breaching their privacy, which is not true. We have a constitutional right as a body to make a decision and a judgment requiring secrecy. On this program, we require secrecy because once our adversaries know what we are doing, they are going to change what they are doing and it will not be worthwhile anymore. Also, relative to the statements made by the Senator from Connecticut, who opposes the amendment on the amicus issue, it is my understanding that the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Director Duff, sent a letter to the House asking for their concerns about the amicus issue effect on the court be placed in the bill. That was turned down by the House, unfortunately. The letter says, ``We respectfully request that, if possible, this letter be included with your Committee's report to the House on the bill.'' It was sent to the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, United States House of Representatives. It is in regard to H.R. 2048, the USA FREEDOM Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter I am referencing be printed in the Record.

Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator for those words. I think this is a fight for all of us. How I wish we had been putting our time and our passion into what the Senator from Georgia just mentioned--a clear breach of people's privacy on the record and a clear defense effort by this administration to not have us go forward and examine this. If we had been putting half of the passion into that, we would really be servicing the American people and the breaches of their privacy that are just apparent. Here we have a program that has never had a case of a breach of privacy, that has more oversight than any other program in the entire U.S. Government, that involves all three branches of our government-- the judicial, the legislative, and the executive--all with the intent of having something in place that can stop Americans from being killed by terrorists, and we have to spend weeks arguing just to correct the record, when so clearly in front of us are abuses by this administration that we are not putting attention to--the irony of that and the irony of the fact that every day we have more information about the scope of these potential terrorist attacks against Americans. Here we are releasing five known terrorist leaders from Guantanamo to a country. We are combing the world to see if somebody will take them because we do not want to retain them here, and we know they are going to go back. They are not going back to be baristas at Starbucks. They are not going back to do lawn work back home or start a microbusiness. They are going back to join the enemy attack against us. They are going back to the Taliban. They are going back to Al Qaeda. They are going back to do what they were arrested for in the first place. How ironic and how uncertain our situation here is relative to our security, and we are arguing over a tool that can help protect us instead of focusing on the real threat. Anyway, I got worked up during the 6 days a number of times. I appreciate the opportunity to, once again, try to clarify where we are. Hopefully, the American people are listening. We have a momentous decision to make coming up here very shortly. I hope each of us will use not polls and not what the public perception is, I hope each of us will use the judgment that we have had and the access to information that we have had to make a decision on the basis of what is best for the American people, not about what is best politically, not what gets us past the next election, not what is pleasing to people who want to hear things back at home, not on any other basis than what is necessary to do everything we can to keep us safe from known terrorist attacks that are multiplying faster than we can keep up with across the world, and Americans are in the crosshairs. Our decision should be based on that and that alone. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from Maryland, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is obvious this is a bipartisan effort in dealing with the security of the American people. The Senator from Maryland is not from my party. Together, we serve on the Intelligence Committee. We have served hundreds of hours on that committee together doing everything we can to provide our country with the opportunity to protect Americans from harm. The threat to Americans today has never been greater. We are dealing with fires raging in the Middle East and terrorist groups forming as we speak, targeting the United States and Americans, and inspiring Americans to take up arms against their fellow citizens for whatever jihadist cause they are using as the basis for the brutality that is spreading throughout the Middle East and that can happen here if they respond to these inspirational social media requests from organizations such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, and many others. I understand Americans' frustrations and concerns about their civil liberties and privacy. Those concerns have been bolstered by acts of government that can hardly be explained. Look at what has taken place with the IRS. Talk about targeting people, invading their privacy and civil rights and using the organization of government for political purposes is outrageous. Of course, people are up in arms about all of this, the debacle of Benghazi and Fast and Furious and on and on over the years. One can go into what has happened to instill distrust in the minds of the American people. When a program such as this comes along and, unfortunately, the American people are told by Members of this Congress falsehoods as to what this program is and what it isn't, it just feeds the narrative that Washington is in their bedroom, Washington is in their home, it is in their phone, it is listening to their calls--Washington is monitoring everything they do--their locations. This simply is not true. We have an organization and tools put in place with that organization, the National Security Agency, following the tragic events of 9/11 that the American people insisted on putting in place. Let's use the tools that we can to try to prevent another 9/ 11 from happening, to try to identify terrorist attacks before they happen, not to clean up after they happen. The frustration for those of us on the Intelligence Committee is we are not able to come down and refute statements that are false that are made here without breaching our oath not to release classified information. We have had briefings with all of our Members. Some don't choose to attend, and therefore their narrative continues without any ability to publicly challenge what is being said. It has been said on this floor that Big Government is listening to everyone's phone calls. That is patently false. First of all, it is impossible. There are trillions of phone calls made every day throughout the world. The calculation is that it would take 330 million employees sitting there monitoring Americans' phone calls to be able to listen to everyone's phone calls. It is an impossibility, No. 1. No. 2, it is guaranteed that this is not happening because the authorities given to the National Security Agency prevent that from happening. There are layers and layers of attorneys and others who oversee this process, including those of us in the Intelligence Committees in the Senate and the House, the Justice Department, and the executive branch. All three branches of government are so concerned that this program could potentially be abused that the oversight is such that it would take a monumental conspiracy, involving hundreds and hundreds of people, to all agree that, yes, let's do this and breach the law. If what has been said on this floor about the nature of this program was correct, I would be the first to line up and say I am here to defend the liberties that are being abused by the government. I guarantee to my constituents that this is a high priority for me, that I do not support anything that would violate their civil rights or violate their privacy. That is true of those of us on the Intelligence Committee, whether we are a Democrat or Republican. We have heard today from Senator King, who is on the committee. We have heard from Senator Mikulski of Maryland, who spoke. We heard from Senator Nelson, who was formerly on the committee on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, our leader of the committee, Senator Burr, has laid out in great detail how this works. The tragedy is that in being forced to describe what the program is and what it isn't, we have had to declassify information. Guess who is listening. I hope a lot of the American people are listening because they need to understand that much of what they have heard is simply a falsity. It is factually incorrect. I am not going to go into why this has happened, why some Members choose to say things like--and I am stating what has been said on this floor--``Big Government is looking at every American's records, all Americans' phone records all the time. They have said the NSA collects Americans' contacts from address books, buddy lists, calling records, phone records, emails, and do we want to live in a world where the government has us under constant surveillance?'' None of us want to live in that kind of world. That is why we live in America. That is why America is what it is. This is not Stasi Germany. This is not a Communist regime. This is not a totalitarian society. We would not allow that here. Our Constitution guarantees privacy and we cherish that privacy and we protect that privacy. But to come down to this floor and make statements such as those is irresponsible, and it is a narrative that is just not the case. Poor Ben Franklin has been dragged into this because the quote that has been attributed to Franklin that should drive our decision on this point was: ``Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.'' I agree with that, but the key word here is ``essential.'' This matter has come before the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has said that what the NSA is doing in storing phone numbers only--not names, not collecting information--is not essential to liberty. They have declared it as a necessary, effective tool that is open. The only information that is in your phone record is the date of the call, the number called, the duration, and the time of the call--nothing more than that. Why is this done? It is done so that when we determine the phone number of a known terrorist in a foreign country, we can go into that haystack of phone numbers and say, Was that phone number connected to a phone number held by someone in America? In fact, the former Director of the CIA said that we likely would have prevented 9/11 because we now know that a phone number in America was connected to a phone number of a terrorist group--Al Qaeda--and we could have taken that information to the FISA Court or to a court and gotten permission to check into that to see if that was leading to some kind of terror attacks. It doesn't take much to recall the images of what happened on 9/11, where we were, what horror we stood and watched coming over the airwaves, and the tragedy and the loss of life that took place, changing the face of America. So it is important that we tell the American people what it is and what it isn't. It is important that Members take responsibility to understand this is an issue that rises above politics. This is an issue that cannot be used and should not be used for political gain, whether it is monetary gain or whether it is feeding a base of support that responds to the scare tactics of America listening to all of your calls, Big Government in all of your business. This is too important an issue. This is about the safety of America. This is about preventing us from terrorist attacks. The threat is real, and it is more real than it has been in a long, long time. So I talked yesterday about the existing program, what it was and what it isn't. It has been talked about by my colleagues on the floor. We have moved to a point where we have to choose between the better of two bad choices. One choice is that we eliminate the program. One of our Members in the Senate has publicly indicated that is what he wants to do. He claims it is unconstitutional. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the support of the Supreme Court that has dealt with this issue, nor the constitutional lawyers. That is a case that just simply cannot be made because it doesn't impede on anyone's liberty. Again, I would say, if it did impede on Americans' liberty, I would be the first in line to state that and to fight against it. But it is a solution to something that is not a problem. But secondly, because one individual would not grant even the shortest of extensions, even an extension on two noncontroversial parts of this program that no one has challenged, to allow that to go forward so that we could keep something in place to address a potential threat that could happen--even that was denied us last evening as the clock was ticking toward midnight, and the program expired. Someone who is so determined to eliminate this entire program, who has misrepresented this program to the American people, so determined to stay with his narrative that he would not even allow an hour, not even allow a day, not even allow minutes for us to try to reconcile the differences here with the House of Representatives--and those differences are pretty small. Senator Burr has been in negotiations with the House and with Members of the Senate relative to some changes and modifications in the USA FREEDOM Act, which was supported by a significant bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives. I think that is a step in the right direction. It does not solve all of the problems. My concern with the FREEDOM Act is a concern of many; that is, the act has some major flaws, some of which I thought were fatal. But I have to measure that against nothing. Thanks to the procedural maneuvering by one Member here, we have been left with only two choices. The Senate majority leader laid those out with some clarity yesterday and today. The choices are completely eliminate the program, go completely dark, take away this tool, and put Americans more at risk--thanks very much, but it is over and try something else--or a provision that has been passed by the House of Representatives that moves collection of the phone numbers from NSA to the telephone companies. The problem with the bill is that it does not mandate that movement. It is a voluntary act that the phone companies are most likely not going to want to adhere to, primarily because they now have to set up a situation where they potentially could be liable for breaches of the people who are overseeing their program. There are 1,400 telephone companies in the United States. Many of them are small. But to move this program, which has six layers of oversight at NSA, which has the oversight of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, which has the oversight of the Department of Justice and the administration, and which has the oversight of the Federal intelligence court called FISA--all of that security oversight--to make sure there is no breach will now get transferred over to up to 1,400 telephone companies. The people who oversee this program--it is a very small number at NSA who operate this program--have had intensive background checks and security clearances. They have proven their commitment to make sure--to do everything possible not to abuse this program. There has never been a documented case, never one case of an abuse of this program--again, a solution to something that is not a problem. All of a sudden, now we will have dozens, if not hundreds, if not more than 1,000 phone companies all putting their own programs in place. This is not something they would like to do, No. 1, because it is going to be very costly, and, No. 2, they cannot guarantee that every one of their people is going to have the same kind of background check and security check NSA has. They will not have the oversight of the Intelligence Committees, of the Justice Department, of the executive branch. We are trusting a private entity to do the kinds of things that multiple agencies do. And you can just count on probably some breaches of security there as people want to use the capability to abuse that program for whatever reason--maybe checking up on their wife or their girlfriend or their business partner or who knows for what possible reasons they could use it. So it really does not add privacy protections; it detracts from privacy protections. Secondly, the retention of records is voluntary. Now, if we have some amendments that are passed by this body and accepted by the House, we will get notification if a company does not want to retain those records. But there is no retention authority granted here to us to ensure that those companies will keep any phone numbers, and then the capability of the program will be significantly reduced. We are having to look at a very sophisticated program that the NSA says: We are not sure it is going to work. We are not sure if this process that the FREEDOM Act requires to replace what we have now is going to be effective. It is going to take many months to determine if that is the case. So it is an untested program that we are putting a bet on that this is going to work. It would be nice to know we had something in place we can easily replace this with. So we are going from the known to the unknown. We are making a bet that this is going to be more effective and provide more privacy for the American people. It is a diminishment and a significant degradation of the current program. It will not be as effective as the program that is currently in place. Nevertheless, we have to weigh this against nothing. That is the position we have been put in because one Senator would not allow an extension of time for us to have a more lengthy debate and reasonable negotiation in consultation with the House of Representatives to arrive at something that will give us more assurance that we have a program in place that does not breach privacy but allows us to detect potential terrorist attacks and stop those attacks before they take place. Having had to go through all of this and raise these kinds of issues here and talk about a fellow colleague is not fun. It is not something I hoped I would ever have to do. But I could not stand by and watch a program that is helping protect American people from known terrorist threats and let their safety be jeopardized by falsehoods that are being said about what this program is and is not. It looks like we are coming together on something that is far from what we need, that is going to significantly degrade our capability, but it is the only choice that we have. We are going to have to weigh that decision. Is something that is far less better than nothing? Ultimately, given the fact that these threats have never been greater, something--even if it is not what we now have--something is better than nothing. But we have been put in this situation unnecessarily by misrepresentations and a public that has not been informed. It is not their fault. We have not been able to because so much of this has been classified. Now, much of it is. Our adversaries, the terrorist groups, know a lot about the program they did not know about before. Thanks to Edward Snowden and thanks to some misrepresentations, we are left with the devil's bargain, and that is to choose the best of the worst. We will talk this through today. We will have a vote tomorrow. In my mind, it is absolutely essential that the modifications that are being made, that are being presented--I will not go into depth about those. It has already been talked about here. It is essential that those be passed by this body. It is, of course, essential that the House accept them. I know a lot of negotiation has gone on back and forth, and it will continue. But it is the only way to keep a program in place. Even as degraded as it is, even as compromised as it is, it is the only way to keep a program in place. So I will be supporting those tweaks, those changes, even though I think they are far short of what we need to do to fix the issue that was rushed through the House without much deliberation. But to make it stronger, to put it in a better position, I will support those. If those amendments can be passed, then I will reluctantly choose to vote for something that is better than nothing, as degraded as it is, in order to keep this program as one of the essential tools--one of many-- as we collect information, keep that in place. I know my colleague from Ohio has been seeking the floor for some time. I apologize for taking too long. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank you. I know the Senator from Kentucky understands that when a Senator has the floor, they are entitled to speak because he has used that rule himself.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I also regret that we are where we are. Remembering Beau Biden I would also like to defer for just a moment, before I make my remarks that I came to the floor to make, to add my condolences to Vice President Biden, his wife, and his family. I just learned the tragic news this morning. Some may have known that Beau was dealing with a form of cancer. I did not know that. It came as a shock to hear that information. Having served with the current Vice President in the U.S. Senate and having gotten to know him and his family, establishing a relationship-- a professional relationship as well as a friendship--I still cannot begin to comprehend the grief that comes from the loss of a child. I know there are Members in this body who have experienced that. I am fortunate that Marsha and I have not experienced that. But any parent's perhaps deepest fear is that they will outlive their children. That is not the natural order of things. It is not how we think. And the grief that comes from the death of a child, the death of a son or a daughter, is truly deep and has significant impact. It was impossible not to feel the emotion and shed tears early this morning in our home in Indianapolis when we heard the news. Our condolences and deep sharing of grief that we can't even begin to fully comprehend because we haven't had to deal with it--all of that comes across. I think every Member of this body reaches out to them with our thoughts and our prayers as they go through this very tragic situation. Mr. President, I am a little surprised to hear the Senator from Vermont talking about how the Senate ought to just completely concede to whatever the House sends to the Senate. The fact is that we had a very significant discussion and debate on this issue all week before the Memorial Day break and it had gone on for months, if not years, before in the Intelligence Committee on which I serve and among Members generally. This is one of the most important pieces of legislation we will have to deal with. It was drafted and spawned as a result of 9/11 when the American people said: Are we doing everything we possibly can to prevent something such as this from happening again? Congress debated extensively the PATRIOT Act and the tools the intelligence community suggested we give them the authority to use to try to prevent that catastrophe from ever happening again and doing everything we could to prevent terrorist attacks. Along the way, there have been modifications, and there have been changes. Recently, there has been significant national debate over whether one of these many essential tools that help us gather the intelligence to try to prevent and to understand the nature of the threat should be used. There clearly is a difference of opinion among Members here in the Senate and even in the House of Representatives. Yes, the Senate did pass a reform measure that I think is flawed, personally. I think it diminishes--it doesn't eliminate, but it diminishes and some even believe it eliminates the usefulness of this particular program. We went back and forth on that for a significant part of the week before we adjourned. The Senator from Vermont comes to the floor and basically says: Look, the House passed this; so therefore we ought to just go ahead and pass it. He said there was no other alternative presented, but that is not the case. We had a procedural vote on the House bill, and we had a vote on the bill to extend this program, so we can come spend a little more time to try to figure out how best to deal with this issue. Neither of those passed, indicating that the Senate did not have the same consensus the House reached, which was a partial consensus. That is what the Senate is all about. We are not just a rubberstamp for the House. What is really ironic is the fact that for 4 years, under Democratic leadership of this Senate, the House, under Republican leadership, sent us hundreds of pieces of legislation, and if we followed the admonition to us of the Senator from Vermont, we would have just rubberstamped those. The House passed it, so why wouldn't we go forward? I don't think that argument makes a lot of sense. Senators are here to address issues in the U.S. Senate. Are there many bills the House passes that I agree with? Yes. My party controls the House. Are there bills here that I don't agree with that they have passed? Yes. We, as Senators, use our prerogative in terms of where we stand, and ultimately we take a vote and we either win or we lose. Sometimes it coordinates with the House of Representatives and other times it doesn't, so then we go to conference and we pass an alternative. But to say there hasn't been debate relative to this program in the House-passed bill is simply not true. Unfortunately, there has been such a significant misrepresentation of what this program is and what this program isn't, and that has caused a lot of angst which we are trying to deal with. Much of the public--at least some portion of the public--is convinced that the government is listening to every phone call they make. It has been said on this floor that they are listening to all our phone calls, that they are collecting all kinds of data. They know everything about us. That is the furthest from the point of this program and the operation of this program that we can conceive of. Yet, a portion of the public has been led to believe that Big Government is in their bedroom, in their house, in their car, in their phone, and tracks them wherever they go; that they are collecting everything about people, including what they buy at Costco and the movies people rent through Netflix. Private industry does collect that kind of stuff, but it is not the government. It is not done under this program. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I can tell my colleagues that we have spent hundreds of hours dealing with this program to ensure that it doesn't violate anyone's privacy. It has more oversight through all three branches of government. The executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch oversee this program. There are six layers within NSA itself that it has to go through, that attorneys have to look at, that legal experts have to look at before they can even proceed to suspect and then take that suspicion to a court to have a judge say: Yes, you might have something here. It has been said and it is true that unless a person's phone number is in communication with a foreign phone number that is at least strongly suspected of belonging to a terrorist organization--and ultimately the court has to make that decision--a member of Al Qaeda, ISIS, or some group overseas that is attempting to do harm to the United States--why is this particular phone number--not the name of the person who owns the phone number--why is this particular phone number being called by someone in Yemen or being called by what we strongly suspect is a foreign operative through ISIS, Al Qaeda, Yemen, or other points where we know terrorist activity is rampant? There is a signal that comes up that matches phone numbers, and they say: We better look into this. But before they can look into it, it has to be vetted by a court. It has to be taken to a FISA Court or an intelligence court and judged by that court as something viable to pursue. At that point, it is similar to what a court would order if there were a warrant to go and find more information to see whether this suspicion actually is reality. We read about it every day and we watch it on television--``Law and Order'' and all the shows and so forth--about how law enforcement suspects that this particular activity is a criminal organization or this is a drug house or they have reason to believe the perpetrator of the crime is this individual. They can't go raiding their house. They can't go downloading information about them until they go to a court and receive approval from a judge saying: Yes, here you are, here is your warrant. You can go and check this out. Well, this intelligence program is based on the same principle; that is, nobody can collect any information on anybody unless that court approves that operation. Then it is turned over to the FBI, and they look to see if it is the real thing. It is a tool that has been of importance and has been a contribution to our ability to address the potential of terrorist threats and to thwart them before they happen. It has always been used as a way of proving the negative; that is, no, this is OK, we don't need to follow up on this. The best example is the Boston bombing. When the Tsarnaev brothers' phone was accessed and it was run against the numbers, there was some suspicion that additional terrorist activity would take place in New York. It was proven that was not the case because there were no connections made. So it became a valuable tool in that regard. Instead of shutting down New York, putting them on a high terrorist alert-- perhaps the Nation's largest economy in operation there--we were able to quickly determine that wasn't the case. In response to those who basically say this has never stopped a terrorist attack, two things: No. 1, this is one of the many methods we use to collect the threads of intelligence that come from different sources to try to put together a mosaic or a puzzle as to whether this is something we need to deal with and take seriously. It is a major piece of that puzzle we obtain from the 215 program, which is the collection of phone numbers. We do not collect the names of people who own those numbers. It is the collection of what is called metadata. It has been described as simply the same data that is on our telephone bills that the Supreme Court has said is not a breach of the Fourth Amendment. It is not privileged for privacy purposes. It shows the date the call was made, the duration of the call, the number that was called, and that is it. And those numbers are put into a system whereby we can check against that a number that suspiciously is talking to a foreign operative in a foreign country. That then automatically triggers that you better look at this--it is kind of a ping--you better look at this one. Nobody has access, at this point, to any content related to the name of the individual until it reaches a level of suspicion that is vetted through six layers of oversight and then is sent to a court that looks at it to say: We agree with you or we don't agree with you. And if we agree with you, then it is the FBI who is alerted that they better look into this. Now, there has never been a time since 9/11 when we have dealt with a higher threshold than we currently are dealing with. You hear about it every day. You read about it every day. ISIS has recruited more than 20,000, it is estimated--significantly more than that are those from 90 different foreign countries. It has made a direct threat toward the United States and its citizens. It is sponsoring and encouraging individuals to not only come over and train and join ISIS and then come back here and wreak havoc on the American people; it is also inspiring those, saying if you don't want to travel over here, just go out and kill somebody. Join the jihad from afar. You can be a part of what we are trying to accomplish simply by doing your own thing. We saw that happen down in Texas. We will see that in other places as people are inspired through ISIS, for whatever sick reason, to take up arms, to cause destruction, and to randomly kill and wreak havoc on the American public. It has been offered that the House fix--the reform, which did have bipartisan support and did pass the House without a lot of debate--is the solution to this problem. Some agree it goes too far; some agree it doesn't go far enough. But there are problems with that particular FREEDOM Act, which the Senator from Vermont says is the golden grail here and will solve all the problems. It is clear, and it is the testimony we have received from numerous officials in the counterterrorism business and in the intelligence business, that there are issues with this so-called FREEDOM Act fix that could render--well, No. 1, that do render the program less effective and could render it totally inoperative. The fact that the NSA has not yet been able to come up with a program which would ensure that we could have the kind of collection we need in the timeframe we need it--some of this is urgent, some of this is pending, some of this is imminent, and it already goes through layers that delay coming to a conclusion and this adds more. Also, they have indicated the system is untested and exists in name only. We don't know how the new program would be implemented and we don't know how it would be operated. That is why many of us said: Look, for whatever reason, yes, we are at this point, and, yes, it expires at midnight. What we were trying to do before we left was get a short-term extension. We were negotiating. We think it should have been for a significant amount of time, until NSA could test out its program, but we were willing to go much less than that so we could have an opportunity to come back and debate this further and get to the bottom of some of the misrepresented information that has been sent out to the American people and have an opportunity to counter that and also work together to find ways, through working with the House of Representatives, to come up with a more effective bill that wouldn't put the country in more jeopardy or, as some experts have said, would undermine the entire program. We obviously will be less agile with the House bill. It requires an expansive regulatory system to amass the level of oversight over the current program. I think the real problem is it requires no data retention mandate. The USA FREEDOM Act does not require companies to hold the data sought by the government. Therefore, the USA FREEDOM Act could be operationally useless as companies update their business model in response to changes in technology or market demand. The telephone companies--all 1,400 of them--many don't want to go through the expensive process of the oversight they need to have in the process. They want to sell phones. And they are hearing a lot from customers who basically say: I don't want to buy your phone if it is going to be subject to them listening to everything I do and say--being collected. Well, first of all, that is factually wrong, but it is an error that has been said over and over on this floor by some Members. That is absolutely wrong. It is false. If we are going to go forward here, we need intellectual honesty about what the program is and what it isn't, and it shouldn't be labeled as something it isn't. I will address that at a later point in time. But the USA FREEDOM Act, by not allowing retention for a fixed period of time, also lessens our ability to make this program effective. So I have much more to say on this, and I know we are going into caucus as a party to see how we might go forward, given where we are. It was not necessary that we be here on a Sunday with the clock ticking toward midnight. We could have continued or we could have gone forward without getting to this particular point in time. But now we will have the opportunity--and, unfortunately, what it looks like is we will have the opportunity to debate this while the program expires. That is a bet I didn't want to take--the bet being that nothing will happen if we don't have this tool in the amount of time that is going to be taken to now address this. That is running a risk I am not sure Members want to take. I don't want to be part of somebody who says this isn't important enough; therefore, we will let it expire and we will not extend it for a day or an hour or a month or a sufficient amount of time to come to a reasonable conclusion as to how we retain this very important intelligence-gathering tool to keep us safe from terrorists. To go dark on this is a risk of Americans' lives. It is a risk that we are taking, and we are going to be responsible for our vote, whatever that vote is. I, personally, don't want the responsibility of saying: Oh, don't worry. Nothing is going to happen out there. The hundreds of hours that I spend in the Intelligence Committee tells me there is a lot that can happen out there. Members have every right, if they are not on that committee--every right to access what we access. We have invited people to come down and see it for themselves, so they at least understand what it is and what it isn't. To my knowledge, only two have taken us up on that. There may be more I have missed. But some of those who have stated this program in a totally false way have the siren song to the people out there who think Big Government is in their bedroom, Big Government is taking every piece of information they have about themselves, and Big Government is storing this and ``listening to all your phone calls.'' That is a bunch of hokum and it is wrong. And for those who refuse to stand up and acknowledge that--because they have had access to the program and refused to take that access-- have to bear the responsibility of sowing this wild theory and idea about Big Government in your bedroom and Big Government in your car and Big Government on your phone and Big Government collecting your emails and Big Government doing everything and storing it until the time that Big Government will come and take everything away from you. I didn't come here to do that and this Senate isn't here to do that and we will not do that. That is why this program has more oversight than any other program in the entire United States Government, and we will put more oversight on there if that is necessary. I will stay up all night and stand over at NSA and make sure they are not listening to your phone calls. But it is irresponsible misrepresentation-- irresponsible misrepresentation--to factually state a falsity and not tell the truth. It is time we told the truth and it is time we stood up to this thing and make sure we are doing everything we can to protect Americans from threats of a lot of people and a lot of organizations that want to kill us all, that would like to see our heads on the chopping block. This is real in our country, as people who are trained by ISIS not only flock back here from Syria, but they inspire people here to pick up weapons and do harm to the American people. I know the Senator from Arizona has a question. Mr. PAUL addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS. I have not yielded the floor. Mr. PAUL addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Arizona for a question.

Mr. COATS. It is more essential than ever, in response to the question from the Senator from Arizona. It is more necessary than ever, as we have seen a higher threat level since 9/11. Of course, we didn't know what the threat was in 9/11, so I don't know how far we have to go back. But our intelligence today, whether it is any aspect of any of our intelligence agencies, they are sounding the alarm that we need to be as vigilant as possible. We need to, within the law--and we are operating within the law--use every tool possible to try to stop an attack on the American people. What happened on 9/11 was a catastrophe that none of us could have comprehended. A 9/11 with the possession of nuclear, radioactive, biological or chemical weapons would make New York look like just a small incident. It would be 3 million people instead of 3,000 people. I think we have an obligation to do what we can without invading anyone's privacy. What we are trying to find is this balance between protecting privacy and protecting ourselves from terrorist attacks--protecting Americans from terrorist attacks. We have done this with this program. If what has been said about this program were true, if the falsehoods that have been said were true, I would be the first to line up and say: No, we can't breach the privacy of the American people by doing what they are doing. But the fact is none of it is true. There has not been one act of abuse of this program over the years it has been in place. It has more oversight and layers of oversight. As former Attorney General Mukasey said: For the government to violate and bypass this, it would make Watergate look like kindergarten activity. It would be a conspiracy that would include hundreds of people, and they would all have to swear that they would not breach their conspiratorial process here--a program that is overseen by the Judiciary Committee, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, the body of the Senate has access to this and the body of the House--that is 535 people--by the executive branch, a program that was endorsed by Barack Obama, until he changed his mind, apparently, because the public was going the other way based on false information. People are out here basically making the accusations that they are making to try to take this program down and all we are trying to do is work with the House to find a reasonable way of keeping this tool alive--keeping Americans safe.

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I am here on the floor almost every Monday, and this is the 11th time I have been on the floor over the last 3 months or so to speak about the waste of the week. We are trying to identify those areas of fraud and abuse and waste of taxpayers' money so we can take reasonable steps, hopefully soon in the Congress, to end this misuse of taxpayers' funds. Then we can either return it back to the taxpayers or sometimes use the funds to offset other spending that may be necessary to make for a more efficient government. The taxpayers deserve to have their dollars they send here, after a lot of hard work, treated carefully. We continue to expose areas, and the Office of the Inspector General of the Office of Management and Budget and nonpartisan committees are looking at ways to identify misuse of those funds. One of the areas we haven't spoken about but will today are the benefits for higher education. Many of these are well intended and many of them are used effectively. For example, there is a lifetime learning credit for graduate courses and other classes. There is the Hope credit for undergraduate expenses. There is the American opportunity tax credit, which temporarily replaced the Hope credit, but that is set to expire. There are a raft of confusing proposals that are designed to help people who want to work through their education and get tax credits for the expenses they pay. So this is well intended. However, what has happened is that it has become a confusing mess as to how these are applied and how they are used. The Treasury inspector general for tax administration determined that the IRS paid out billions of dollars in potentially erroneous education tax credits to more than 3.6 million taxpayers. So Congress has passed a law. They have adjusted the Tax Code to give credits and benefits to those who are going to school to get a graduate education or to get their postsecondary education. This is a worthwhile use, in most cases, but it has been deemed by Congress to be so and made part of the Tax Code. Yet the inspector general who looks at all this has said it has become a ripe area for fraud, waste, and abuse, as well as some honest mistakes. I wish to repeat that again. The IRS paid out billions of dollars in erroneous education tax credits to more than 3.6 million taxpayers seeking these credits. Now, some say, What do you mean? What are some of the mistakes? Students who weren't eligible for the benefit got the benefit. Institutions that received the benefits were ineligible to receive the benefits for a number of reasons. In most cases, higher education institutions send out returns known as 1098-Ts to taxpayers who pay for tuition. These forms help taxpayers and the IRS determine if students qualify for the education tax benefits, including by indicating whether the student is enrolled more than half time or is a graduate student. In other words, they must show that the student qualifies for the tax benefit. They found out that many don't qualify but nevertheless receive those benefits. The inspector general reports that 2 million taxpayers did not submit the form or have the form--the 1098-T paperwork--to indicate they had actually paid the tuition. Of these almost 40,000 taxpayers, some received credits for students who are under the age of 14. These tax credits are for postsecondary education. There may be a couple of genius kids out there who are enrolled in college at the age of 14 or under, but I don't think there are very many, if any under the age of 14 or over the age of 65. Additionally, tax credits were awarded improperly to over 2,100 incarcerated people. How do we correct this? Well, there is a pretty basic idea I wish to propose. Many of us are familiar with the letters we receive back when we make a charitable contribution, and most of us know that if that contribution is over $250, the IRS wants to know that we have proof that we have actually made that charitable contribution. So our tax preparers always ask: Do you have a receipt? Do you have the letter back from the Boy Scouts or your church or wherever you give the money? Do you have that available for when we might happen to need it if the IRS requires it when they are looking into that? So what we are proposing is simply a requirement that taxpayers should claim a tuition tax credit, have proof that they have actually received the credit and are eligible to receive the credit. That proof is the 1098-T form. We are proposing to simply require that taxpayers hold a valid 1098-T or some form of substantiation in their possession when they fill out their tax returns and claim tuition deductions. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that this very simple requirement would save $576 million over the next 10 years. We have already proven we can save billions by better management of taxpayers' money and now we are going to add another $576 million to this. As my colleagues see, we are on the way to $100 billion of savings through some very basic and simple modifications and changes in our Tax Code and in our procedures in terms of how we run this government. Next week, we will be sharing again the fraud and waste of the week, but Congress now has a pool of funds that are misused and a way in which we can either, as I said, offset needed spending programs or return that money to the taxpayers or not have them send it in in the first place. It is a dysfunctional government that can't better manage taxpayers' funds. If we are going to maintain credibility and the support of our taxpayers for what we do that is right, we better stop and pay attention and look and change and modify the abuse that is taking place and bring it to an end. We need to demonstrate that we are looking out carefully at the use of taxpayers' dollars. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I am back on the floor again for ``Waste of the Week'' No. 10. As my colleagues know, I have been coming down every week talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, ways we can save taxpayer dollars. While we have not been able to address, unfortunately, tragically, the larger issue of the plunge into deficit spending and debt that our Nation has incurred over the past several years, in particular--every effort, every bipartisan effort, has been thwarted by the President's refusal to engage in that, and yet the debt clock keeps on ticking. We keep spending more money than we take in. We keep putting more and more of a burden on future generations as well as our own. Our economy is not growing. One of the reasons is that we have not achieved fiscal responsibility in the Congress. So while we have not been able to address the larger issue, we can at least address some of those issues that have been documented as waste, fraud, and abuse, documented by nonpartisan agencies that are established for the sole purpose of weeding out some of the excess spending that is not essential to the functioning of government. We have put up some pretty interesting numbers relative to what we have achieved. We are already over $50 billion of spending that has been documented as totally unnecessary. Some of it has been of the character of somewhat ridiculous. Some has been very, very substantial. We are going to continue to do this, pointing out to the American taxpayer and pointing out to government officials who run these agencies and make these decisions that we simply cannot afford to keep doing this. So today's waste of the week will be addressed, hopefully by the Appropriations Committee, which will soon be working now that we have passed a budget, to distribute those funds that are necessary for the functioning of government. I am urging them to use a system and means of identifying what is essential and what is not essential. Now, there may be some things we would like to do but cannot afford to do. They need to be put on hold until we can do them. But there are a lot of issues and a lot of spending that goes on that should not be done in the first place. Significant savings can be made. Even though it is much smaller than what we need to do, we certainly can address issues that will save taxpayer dollars and better allocate spending for government. When our previous Governor in Indiana, Mitch Daniels, took over, he brought with him a resume as former Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Then-President George W. Bush gave him the name ``The Blade.'' ``The Blade'' looked at every small, little detail of spending and asked a lot of questions: Why are we doing this? How can we save? How can we make government more efficient? There are essential things government has to do. But when he became Governor, he transferred over some of that knowledge and expertise and started doing some simple things, asking some simple questions: Why are we spending money on this? Why are we spending money on that? Let me give you just a couple of examples. He gathered some of his staff and said: I want you to go out and put pennies on the tires of our State-owned vehicles wherever they are housed. Wherever they are parked, put pennies on them. He waited several months then said: Now, go back and identify all of those vehicles where the pennies are still on the tire. In other words, they had not been moved. They had not even been shifted to another parking spot. They simply were just sitting there. Well, interestingly enough, he found that many unused State vehicles still had the pennies on their tires. If they had been sitting there for months and nobody was using them, why are we paying for them? Why are we spending money on purchasing these? Let's sell them off, save some money for the State. They obviously are not necessary. It was one- third of the State's fleet of vehicles. Another thing he did, he said: Let's look at our printing costs. The State had its own printing operation. He said: Let's shop around and see if the private sector can do this more effectively and efficiently. Of course, they did find a private vendor in Indiana that did it much more effectively. You save a lot of money just going black and white, maybe not quite as pretty, maybe not quite as attractive as color, but another way to save money. These are small things, but when you total them up for all the agencies that are in Washington--as was determined by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform--it adds up to a lot of money. This government is more vast than anyone can possibly imagine. Well, the Commission found that Federal agencies could save at least $10 billion over 10 years by cutting out waste in federal travel, printing and vehicle expenses. So here again is a waste of the week that we are going to add to our ever-increasing gauge of the waste. All this now in red, these are what we have been adding, the 10 items that we have added. We are approaching now, looks like $60 billion, on our way to $100 billion. I think we will probably be having to add extensions to this because, folks, I mean, there is waste out there, there is fraud out there, there is abuse out there like you would not believe. Should we be dealing with the larger question, the runaway entitlements, the lack of money to adequately fund NIH or scientific research or education but we cannot because our budget is totally out of control? Should we be doing this? Absolutely. That is what we are here for. We have talked about this for the last 5 years since I have been back here. Despite the many alternatives that have been presented to the White House, every one has been rejected. So at least let's do those things where we have more control through the appropriations process and better manage government, make it more efficient and make it more effective. That is why we point out these and we will continue to point out these in the ``Waste of the Week'' No. 10. I cannot wait to get down here next week and do No. 11. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS

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