Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Well, let me, first of all, I thank my colleague. I have a couple of charts that are oversized. The reason they are oversized is because we cannot get it all on one chart. I would ask unanimous consent to display those charts.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I write today to explain my vote in opposition to S. 1925, Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, VAWA. I have several outstanding concerns with this legislation, some of which were reflected in the amendments I circulated during the Senate Judiciary Committee's February 2012 markup of this legislation. In particular, I believe this legislation violates the principles of federalism outlined in the Constitution, fails to completely address duplication and overlap both within VAWA programs and with non-VAWA programs administered by both the Department of Justice, DOJ, and the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, ignores the continuing problem of grant management and waste, fraud and abuse at the Office of Violence Against Women, OVW, and disregards our country's fragile financial condition, which has worsened significantly since the last VAWA reauthorization in 2005. First and foremost, I do not think anyone would disagree with the fact that violence of any type against women, domestic, dating or sexual violence, is reprehensible and should not be tolerated. However, regardless of the extent of this or any other problem, we must carefully weigh the proper role of the Federal Government so Congress does not violate its limited authority under the Constitution. Domestic violence laws, like most other criminal laws, are State laws, and nowhere in the Constitution is the Federal Government tasked with providing basic funding to States, localities, and private organizations to operate programs aimed at victims of State crimes such as domestic violence. Far too often, Congress infringes upon the rights of the people and the States by overreaching in its legislative efforts. Although many VAWA programs are laudable, they are not the Federal Government's responsibility. In fact, the entire purpose of this legislation is to provide funding for State, local, non-profit, and victim services grantees to serve victims of State crimes, such as domestic violence, stalking, and sexual violence. These crimes and the treatment of its victims are appropriately in the jurisdiction of the States, not the Federal Government. In light of our current economic crisis, Congress must evaluate each and every program to determine if it is constitutional, whether it is a Federal responsibility, and whether it is a priority. Combating violence against women is certainly a priority, but it is not a Federal responsibility. Second, this legislation fails to completely address the duplication and overlap within VAWA programs and with non-VAWA programs operated by both the DOJ and HHS. At the beginning of every Congress, I send to each Senator my letter outlining the criteria he will use to evaluate legislation. This Congress, it was also signed by seven other Members. The VAWA reauthorization violates several of those criteria, including elimination and consolidation of duplicative programs prior to reauthorization. While I recognize the legislation does consolidate some programs, it has not eliminated all duplication. There are several VAWA grant programs that are so broad that they duplicate one another, providing multiple opportunities for grantees to double dip into Federal funds. In addition, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, FVPSA, which predates the original VAWA legislation, authorized several HHS programs aimed at reducing domestic violence and helping victims. Several of those programs fund the same types of services as those authorized by the VAWA grants in this legislation. Furthermore, in the Government Accountability Office, GAO Duplication Report released at the end of February 2012, GAO found the DOJ administers more than 250 grant programs to provide crime prevention, law enforcement, and victims' services, totaling approximately $30 billion since 2005. Specifically, GAO noted more than 20 percent of the 253 grants reviewed by GAO are for victims' assistance. In addition, according to GAO, this June that office will be releasing yet another duplication report specifically on the OVW, Office of Justice Programs, OJP, and Community Oriented Policing Services, COPS Program. Before moving forward with a VAWA reauthorization, Congress should evaluate this report on OVW to determine how we can streamline the victims' services DOJ already provides. Reauthorizing VAWA programs now, without taking into account the recent and forthcoming work of GAO, is premature. As a result, I am very disappointed the Democrats refused to allow a vote on the amendment No. 2085 I filed to eliminate unnecessary duplication within DOJ, especially since the savings would have been largely directed to helping bring justice to rape cases. This amendment would have provided at least $600 million in additional funds to support efforts to use DNA to solve crimes. This amendment would have required the Department of Justice to identify every program its administers, consolidate unnecessary duplication, and apply savings towards resolving rape cases and reducing the deficit. Specifically, the amendment directed the Attorney General to develop a plan that would result in financial cost savings of at least 20 percent of the nearly $3.9 billion in duplicative grant programs identified by the Government Accountability Office. According to GAO, since 2005, Congress has spent $30 billion in overlapping Department of Justice grants for crime prevention police and victims services from more than 250 DOJ grant programs, and $3.9 billion in grants just in 2010. As much as 75 percent of the savings, nearly $600 million, may be directed towards alleviating any backlogs of analysis and placement of DNA samples from rape, sexual assault, homicide, kidnapping and other criminal cases, including casework sample and convicted offender backlogs, into the Combined DNA Index System. The remainder of the savings will be returned to the Treasury for the purpose of deficit reduction. By requiring the consolidation and elimination of duplication at DOJ, Congress will free Federal funding which can be more appropriately dedicated to bringing justice to rape victims, while also reducing the deficit. DNA testing provides a powerful criminal justice tool to convicting rapists and exonerating the innocent--DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, testing has become a powerful criminal justice tool in recent years. ``DNA can be used to identify criminals with incredible accuracy when biological evidence exists. By the same token, DNA can be used to clear suspects and exonerate persons mistakenly accused or convicted of crimes. In all, DNA technology is increasingly vital to ensuring accuracy and fairness in the criminal justice system,'' according to the Department of Justice. ``Each person's DNA is unique (with the exception of identical twins). Therefore, DNA evidence collected from a crime scene can implicate or eliminate a suspect, similar to the use of fingerprints. It also can analyze unidentified remains through comparisons with DNA from relatives. Additionally, when evidence from one crime scene is compared with evidence from another using the Combined DNA Index System, those crime scenes can be linked to the same perpetrator locally, statewide, and nationally.'' ``When biological evidence from crime scenes is collected and stored properly, forensically valuable DNA can be found on evidence that may be decades old. Therefore, old cases that were previously thought unsolvable may contain valuable DNA evidence capable of identifying the perpetrator.'' In New York authorities used DNA evidence to link a man to at least 22 sexual assaults and robberies. Authorities in Philadelphia, PA, and Fort Collins, CO, used DNA evidence to link and then solve a series of crimes--rapes and a murder--perpetrated by the same individual. DNA is generally used to solve crimes in one of two ways. First, in cases where a suspect is identified, a sample of that person's DNA can be compared to evidence from the crime scene. The results of this comparison may help establish whether the suspect committed the crime. Second, in cases where a suspect has not yet been identified, biological evidence from the crime scene can be analyzed and compared to offender profiles in DNA databases to help identify the perpetrator. Crime scene evidence can also be linked to other crime scenes through the use of DNA databases. DNA evidence is generally linked to DNA offender profiles through DNA databases. In the late 1980s, the Federal Government laid the groundwork for a system of national, State, and local DNA databases for the storage and exchange of DNA profiles. This system, called the Combined DNA Index System, CODIS, maintains DNA profiles obtained under the Federal, State, and local systems in a set of databases that are available to law enforcement agencies across the country for law enforcement purposes. CODIS can compare crime scene evidence to a database of DNA profiles obtained from convicted offenders. CODIS can also link DNA evidence obtained from different crime scenes, thereby identifying serial criminals. In order to take advantage of the investigative potential of CODIS, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, States began passing laws requiring offenders convicted of certain offenses to provide DNA samples. Currently all 50 states and the Federal Government have laws requiring that DNA samples be collected from some categories of offenders. When used to its full potential, DNA evidence will help solve and may even prevent some of the Nation's most serious violent crimes. However, the current Federal and State DNA collection and analysis system needs improvement, according to the Department of Justice: In many instances, public crime labs are overwhelmed by backlogs of unanalyzed DNA samples. In addition, these labs may be ill-equipped to handle the increasing influx of DNA samples and evidence. The problems of backlogs and lack of up-to-date technology result in significant delays in the administration of justice. More research is needed to develop faster methods for analyzing DNA evidence. Professionals working in the criminal justice system need additional training and assistance in order to ensure the optimal use of DNA evidence to solve crimes and assist victims. Thousands of sexual assault DNA kits are still not tested--``The demand for DNA testing continues to outstrip the capacity of crime laboratories to process these cases,'' according to a National Institute of Justice report. ``The bottom line: crime laboratories are processing more cases than ever before, but their expanded capacity has not been able to meet the increased demand.'' The DNA casework backlog, consisting of forensic evidence collected-- from crime scenes, victims and suspects in criminal cases--has more than doubled from less than 50,000 in 2005 to more than 100,000 in 2009. There are thousands of rape kits ``sitting waiting to be tested'' in Houston, TX alone. The Houston Police Department may have up to 7,000 sexual assault kits that have not been tested. Houston recently accepted an $821,000 Federal grant to study the backlog of untested kits, but ``the bulk of the money has to be spent on figuring out the reasons rape kits have gone untested'' and less than half of the money ``will go towards dealing with the actual backlog.'' This amendment provides roughly $600 million to help resolve more than 340,000 rape and other criminal cases with DNA testing--This amendment would have provided at least $600 million in additional funds to support efforts to use DNA to solve crimes. The amendment would have directed the Attorney General to develop a plan that would result in financial cost savings of at least 20 percent of the nearly $3.9 billion in duplicative grant programs identified by the Government Accountability Office. As much as 75 percent of the savings, nearly $600 million, may be directed towards alleviating any backlogs of analysis and placement of DNA samples from rape, sexual assault, homicide, kidnapping, and other criminal cases, including casework sample and convicted offender backlogs, into the Combined DNA Index System. The remainder of the savings will be returned to the Treasury for the purpose of deficit reduction. In 2010, National Institute of Justice's DNA Backlog Reduction Program provided more than $64.8 million which allowed more than 37,000 cases to be tested. The $600 million provided by this amendment could therefore be enough to provide testing for over 342,000 cases. No list of Justice Department programs exists, yet GAO found more than 250 overlapping DOJ grant programs--As with many other agencies, the Justice Department cannot fully account for each program in its purview. In fact, in its review of DOJ programs for their annual report on duplication, even the GAO could not fully account for every program at the agency. The number of Justice programs detailed by GAO, 253, may actually be an understatement. The report explains Justice grant programs can continue for up to 5 years, and as such, ``the total number of active justice grant programs can be higher than what is presented,'' which is only a one year snapshot of the Department's programs. This amendment would require the Department to provide a full listing of every single program administered under their jurisdiction, which will assist in Congress's work to address this extensive overlap when making funding decisions. In their duplication report, GAO revealed that ``overlap and fragmentation among government programs or activities can be harbingers of unnecessary duplication. Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of taxpayer dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services.'' This amendment would have addressed this overlap and unnecessary duplication at the Department of Justice by also requiring the following: a listing of other programs within the Federal Government with duplicative or overlapping missions and services; the latest performance reviews for the program, including the metrics used to review the program; the latest improper payment rate for the program, including fraudulent payments; and the total amount of unspent and unobligated program funds held by the agency and grant recipients. This information would be updated annually and posted on-line, along with recommendations from the agency to consolidate duplicative and overlapping programs, eliminate waste and inefficiency, and terminate lower priority, outdated and unnecessary programs. According to GAO, since 2005 Congress has spent $30 billion in overlapping Department of Justice grants for crime prevention, police, and victims services through more than 250 programs, and $3.9 billion in grants in 2010.--In February, the Government Accountability Office, GAO, released its second annual report addressing duplication and areas for cost savings throughout the Federal Government. The report, ``Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue,'' exposed 51 specific examples of government duplication and areas of Federal spending with potential for significant cost savings. Included in this year's report are some very troubling findings of extensive duplication in a large portion of Department of Justice, DOJ, programs. GAO found the Justice Department administers more than 250 duplicative programs to provide ``crime prevention, law enforcement, and crime victim services,'' costing taxpayers roughly $30 billion in the last 6 years. Their report details the widespread duplication in the Department, enumerating at least 56 victims' assistance programs, 33 juvenile justice efforts, more than 40 technology and forensics grant solicitations, and 16 community crime prevention strategy programs, to name a handful of the many identified. In 1 year alone, three primary offices--the Office of Justice Programs, the Office on Violence Against Women, and the Community Oriented Policing Services Office--awarded $3.9 billion through 11,000 grants, many of which the GAO found to be duplicative and in need of review and coordination. GAO attributes much of the duplication among these 253 grant programs to the fact Justice officials do not conduct a full cross reference check to ensure applicants have not applied for or received overlapping grants from the Department. In fact, Justice employees contend they simply do not have enough time before providing a grant to ensure recipients have not already received funding. GAO observed, ``Justice officials stated that the timeline for reviewing applications, making recommendations on their merit, and processing awards each year is compressed and that it would be difficult to build in the extra time and level of coordination required to complete an intradepartmental review for potentially unnecessary duplication of funding prior to making awards.'' This amendment would direct DOJ to use their own authority to eliminate and consolidate overlapping programs as identified by GAO and develop a plan that would result in financial cost savings of no less than 20 percent of the nearly $3.9 billion in duplicative grant programs identified by the Government Accountability Office. Addressing duplication at GAO is one step in addressing our nearly $16 trillion debt--With the release of the GAO report, combined with last year's recommendations, Congress and the administration have been given extensive details in 132 areas of government duplication and opportunities for significant cost savings, with dozens of recommendations for how to address the duplication and find these savings. The problem in Congress today is not an issue of ignorance--it is one of indifference and incompetence. We know we have a problem. We know we have cancer. Yet we refuse to stop making it worse, we refuse to apply the treatment, and we refuse to take the pain of the medication for the long-term benefit of a cure. The report provides a clear listing of dozens of areas ripe for reform and in need of collaboration from members on both sides of the aisle, to find solutions to address these issues. We are looking into a future of trillion dollar deficits and a national debt quickly headed toward $20 trillion. Our Nation is not on the verge of bankruptcy, it is already bankrupt. Over the last 2 years, there have been countless discussions and bipartisan talks about how to address our debt and deficit. Yet there has been little agreement, and at the end of this year we will be faced with another tax extenders package and another increase in the debt limit, all while sequestration will be poised to kick in and achieve the savings Congress has been unable to muster the courage to pass. But, before us, we have part of the answer. GAO's work presents Washington with literally hundreds of options for areas in which we could make a decision now to start finding savings, potentially hundreds of billions of dollars. If we are unable to agree on eliminating even one small duplicative program or tax credit when clearly we know there are hundreds, we have little hope of ever coming to a comprehensive compromise for fixing our floundering budget. Congress should require the Department of Justice to provide a full listing of every program in their jurisdiction. Further, the Department can find savings from consolidating the overlap outlined by the GAO, freeing up Federal funding to dedicate toward solving unresolved rape cases, while also reducing the deficit. As a Nation, we simply cannot afford to reauthorize programs that waste taxpayer dollars by duplicating programs operated by other Federal agencies for the same purposes. To be clear, addressing duplication and overlap is not a matter of refusing to provide services to victims of domestic violence but, rather, it is to ensure they are properly served by programs that are efficient, effective and not bogged down in Federal Government bureaucracy. Third, both the Government Accountability Office, GAO, and the DOJ Office of the Inspector General, DOJ OIG, have repeatedly documented the failure of OVW to manage its grants and monitor its grantees effectively. Following this statement, I have included in the Record summaries of both GAO and DOJ OIG reports on OVW and VAWA grants. Overall, DOJ has long had problems with its grant management. The DOJ OIG has published for more than a decade a list of the Top 10 Management Challenges at the DOJ. Grant management, unfortunately, has appeared on that list ever since the inception of this evaluation, with OVW being called out as particularly problematic. Since 2001, GAO has noted various problems at OVW and with particular VAWA grants. With regard to OVW grant management, GAO noted grants awarded by OVW ``often lacked the documentation necessary to ensure that the required monitoring activities occurred.'' As a result OVW ``was not positioned to systematically determine staff compliance with monitoring requirements and assess overall performance.'' Furthermore, since 1998, the DOJ IG has issued audit after audit noting unallowable expenditures, questioned grant costs, weak internal reporting, and poor oversight in numerous VAWA grants across the country. For example, a 2011 DOJ IG audit of a Boston grantee questioned over half $638,298 of its $1.3 million grant. The questioned costs were used for unsupportable conferences, bonus payments, and consultant fees. Even my constituents have directly experienced OVW mismanagement. For example, the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council, OK DAC, which is the Oklahoma State administrative agency for many Federal grants, has had specific, documented problems with the poor job OVW has been doing in its grant management and oversight. OVW does not answer or return phone calls in a timely manner and has consistently been unavailable to answer grantees' questions in the middle of the work week. Moreover, according to the OK DAC, in the last 4 years that Oklahoma has received one particular VAWA grant, OVW has failed to perform even one site visit to check on the implementation of the grant and the grantee's use of Federal funds. After more than a decade of significant challenges, it is my hope the DOJ OIG will be able to remove grant management from DOJ's top 10 management challenges. However, until that occurs, it is the job of Congress to ensure we are not turning a blind eye to DOJ's failure to properly administer taxpayer funds through Federal grant programs, including those authorized by VAWA. Fourth, the fiscal condition of our country has worsened dramatically since the original passage of this bill in 1994 and the last reauthorization in 2005. In fact, at the end of 2005, our national debt was approximately $8.1 trillion. It is now over $15.6 trillion--a growth of over $7.5 trillion, or 92.6 percent, in just over 6 years. The Federal Government is in no position to spend more money on any grant programs without offsets. We simply cannot afford it. Although Chairman Leahy recognized the inordinately high authorization levels in the last VAWA reauthorization by reducing some of those amounts, S. 1925 continues to inflate the actual funding we know Congress will provide to VAWA grantees. The bill authorizes approximately $660 million in grants each year for 5 years, totaling $3.3 billion. None of these funds are offset. The 2005 VAWA reauthorization provided approximately $779 million per year for 5 years, totaling $3.89 billion. Thus, while S. 1925 reauthorizes a total of $590 million less than the 2005 VAWA reauthorization, this total is still much higher than actual past appropriations. In fact, from 2007 to 2011, Congress appropriated a total of $2.71 billion for VAWA grant programs, which is $590 million less than this bill's authorized funding. From 2007 to 2011, although Congress authorized a total of $3.89 billion, it actually appropriated $1.18 billion less than that figure, 2.71 billion. Thus, while S. 1925 may reduce authorizations, it still provides a total authorization that is significantly higher than total VAWA appropriations over the past 5 years. If we know, based on past funding history, it is highly unlikely Congress will ever provide to VAWA grantees the level of funding authorized in this legislation, why would we send a false message to grantees by retaining such inflated estimates in VAWA? Fifth, I also have concerns about a section of this bill that allows a tribal court to have jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit a domestic violence crime in Indian country or against an Indian. The language explicitly provides that the self-governance of a tribe includes the right ``to exercise special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction over all persons.'' To my knowledge, this is the first time the Federal Government has given Indian courts jurisdiction over ``all persons.'' While I recognize domestic violence is a serious problem in Indian Country, this change could cause particular problems with tribes in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has no reservations, but it does have 39 separate Indian governments. The individual allotment lands and trust lands are small and dispersed within Oklahoma communities and counties. The tribes do not have large continuous land bases, and because of its unique history, many Oklahomans claim Indian enrollment but have no relationship to the tribe or a tribal community. Further, the Bill of Rights does not apply in Indian courts. Instead, most of the protections are preserved because of the Indian Civil Rights Act, but it does not preserve all rights. For example, the Indian Civil Rights Act only guarantees right to counsel at an individual's own expense. If the ``all persons'' language is as absolute as it appears, it could allow a non-Indian to be tried in tribal court without the full protection of the Constitution. S. 1925 includes language that says: ``In a criminal proceeding in which a participating tribe exercises special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction, the participating tribe shall provide to the defendant . . . all other rights whose protection is necessary under the Constitution of the United States in order for Congress to recognize and affirm the inherent power of the participating tribe to exercise special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction over the defendant.'' Still, I am not certain this is enough and am afraid it will be subject to future court challenges. Proponents of this provision argue that such allowances to tribal courts are necessary because no one is prosecuting non-Indian offenders, and that may be true in some cases. But, instead of creating a conflict between Indian country and the Federal Government's jurisdiction over American citizens who commit crimes, we believe we should deal with the bigger problem by holding the Department of Justice and local U.S. attorneys accountable for not prosecuting these cases. Finally, while I applaud and support Senator Grassley's effort to increase accountability at the DOJ and to address problematic definitions, immigration provisions, and criminal statutes in his substitute amendment, for many of the same reasons I outline above, I must also oppose his substitute. Although Senator Grassley's alternative is, in several areas, likely a better alternative than S. 1925, it fails to reduce authorizations or offset those amounts, does not fully address grant management problems at OVW or program duplication, and still runs counter to my basic constitutional concerns with VAWA programs. As a result, I cannot support S. 1925 or Senator Grassley's substitute. I ask unanimous consent to have the attached documents supporting my statement on the Violence Against Women Act of 2011 in the Record.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Thank you.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COBURN. This is a straightforward amendment. It modifies the new service requirement to encourage colocation in other businesses. One of the things that is going to happen to the Postal Service where they can't--85 percent of our post offices are losing money. So what we can do is keep service but have it at a different location for a much lower cost. All this amendment does is encourage the Postmaster General to consider that as part of the service standard in meeting that requirement.

Mr. COBURN. This is a straightforward amendment on conferences. We all have seen what happened with the GSA conference. This is all about transparency and creating a system where we are actually getting to see what is spent on conferences. There is not one branch of the Federal Government that does not have teleconferencing available and videoconferencing available. What we do know is from 2000 to 2006, the Federal Government--that is the last time we have records--spent over $2.2 billion on conferences. We know the travel budget is $15 billion a year and a minimum $500 million a year is spent on conferences at a time when we need to spend less, and they have grown remarkably during the Bush administration as well as this administration. This is just simple good government transparency, where we have put on a Web site what they are doing and why they are doing it. We limit foreign conference travel to 50. We limit the maximum amount to $500,000, unless they can make an exception for that based on cause and reason. So it is simply a good government program to get some visibility on what we are spending on conferences, and I would ask for a voice vote.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2060.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, this is an amendment we have changed somewhat from the original version to address some of the concerns. What this amendment does is 2 years from now it will give the authority to the Postmaster General to create a retirement requirement for postal employees. There are 175,000 postal employees eligible for retirement right now. Nothing happens for the next 2 years. It gives plenty of time for planning. It gives him the authority to create that principle, which says that when you become retirement age--because they are going to have a continuing need to have fewer and fewer employees-- there is the ability to make retirement mandatory. That is all it does. It is for those who are best capable of retiring with full pensions. They have to have complete and full pension capability. It will allow him to do that 2 years from now--not now but 2 years from now--and it only gives him the authority should he want to. So it does not mandate it, it does not require it, and it actually does not take effect for 2 years.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I sit on this committee. I voted on the last postal reform bill. I am not unfamiliar with the issues. I think the question before us is why can't we do both? Why can't we fix the post office and pay for it at the same time, if in fact the CBO says that? Our answer, always, up here is that we want to fix the post office but we don't want to make the hard choices on how to do that. My colleagues have done great work. There are parts of this bill I don't agree with. I am trying to amend parts of it. But I think we should try to move forward with it. The ultimate question is, will we do what is best for the post office and the American people. And doing what is best for the post office and the American people is any cost where the CBO says we will violate the budget agreement we should pay for. I will offer right now to come up with easy ways to pay for this bill just through the duplication reports we have gotten from the Government Accountability Office. We all know it is out there. We all know there is $100 billion, at least, that we could come up with by consolidating programs or mandating they be consolidated. So it is not a matter of finding the money, it is a matter of whether we have the will. We are on a collision course with history that says we are not going to succeed if we don't get our budgets in order. So I agree it is hard to stomach sometimes what the CBO tells us. It doesn't fit with common sense. When it works for us, we use it. When it works against us, we say it doesn't matter. This is a budget point of order, and I think we can do both, and I think we ought to do both. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 2058 and that it be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to modify amendment No. 2061 with the changes at the desk and ask that it be brought up.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, the difference is you are going to pay $25,000 to people to retire. The Postmaster General has already said he needs to have 120,000 fewer employees. That will grow over a period of time. We are setting a precedent with the buyout, one. We are setting a precedent that has never before been done in the Federal Government. No. 2, and probably more important, is the fact that----

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I want to spend a few minutes talking about what is occurring with the GSA conference waste that has been in the news of late. My criticisms are not mainly directed toward GSA. Over 3 years ago, I started doing oversight on conferences by government agencies. Today I have an amendment, which will not be allowed to be considered, that will hold the agencies accountable in terms of their conferences. Through the years I have put out five reports on wasteful conference spending from the Department of Justice, where it spent $380 million over a 5-year period on conferences, to the Department of Agriculture, and to the Department of HHS in terms of sending thousands of people to one conference at a time. All of it went unheeded. Now we have the GSA--with Members of the Senate and the House aghast at the waste that has been spent in terms of the GSA conference out West. Had we been doing our job--and there were multiple amendments I have offered over the last 6 years to control conference spending, which have been rejected on party-line votes, to try to bring some semblance of reasonableness and control to conference spending by the various Federal Government agencies. So we have this problem with the GSA today, but not because of the GSA; it is because of ourselves. We refused to do the hard work of passing requirements that would hold Federal agencies accountable. My hope is that we would, in one small step, accept an amendment on the postal bill that would allow us to start holding the agencies accountable. It makes for great press and great TV when we stand aghast at what is obviously wasteful spending by an agency, but that accomplishes nothing other than advancing the political careers of my colleagues. We can accomplish something with real legislation that has real teeth and holds the agencies accountable. It is my hope we can have a vote--I don't even think it would take a vote; I think it would be accepted by unanimous consent--that would force the agencies to now come into compliance both in terms of transparency and accountability in how they spend their money. Every Federal Government agency today has the capability for teleconferencing. We don't have to send 1,000 people, at $2,000 apiece, to a conference to accomplish education and training. We all have it in our offices. The GAO has determined that most Federal employees see conferencing as one of the perks of their job, which is in one of their reports. I invite the American constituency to look at my Web site, coburn.senate.gov, and go to the studies we put out and oversight reports on wasteful conference spending over the last 3 to 5 years and ask themselves a question: Why didn't Congress act on it? Why didn't they do something about it? Now we claim we are insulted at the waste. We have had five different opportunities with amendments to do something about it, and we rejected them. We have seen oversight reports that are fully documented which show the waste. Yet we have not done anything. If Americans are upset with the waste of the GSA conference, they need to be upset with Members of the Senate who have rejected time and again the ability to hold agencies accountable on conference spending. It is my hope that in a bipartisan manner we can address this issue-- and not just for GSA but for every government agency so that now we can see transparency and accountability in how the hard-working American taxpayers' dollars are spent, not wasted, and they will know when money is spent on a conference, everybody will see it, and they are going to have to justify not only the expenditure but the reason they are sending people to vacation spots when they should be doing it through teleconferencing and bringing needed updates to Federal employees in a much more efficient and effective way. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, there have been a lot of comments made about energy, and I have to admit I come from an energy State. One- third of our economy is connected to energy in one way or another. I think the political games we are playing are just that. I have a vision that I can see 50 years of prosperity for America on the basis of one thing; that is, actually using the wonderful resources that are in our country for our citizens and extend an opportunity for our kids, in spite of our budget deficits, in spite of our debt, that would enable them to have the same kind of opportunities we have had. The way we do that is to utilize the resources. If we look around the world and we look at the most stable countries, we look at Canada, what is happening? Canada is living within their means. They have fairly low tax rates. They are utilizing their resources. They have trade surpluses. If we look at Australia, they have a stable currency. Their currency has markedly appreciated compared to the dollar. The Canadian currency has markedly appreciated compared to the dollar. They are utilizing their resources to advance their country and their wealth and their opportunity. We hear all of these statements made by lots of people, but most of them are half truths. Let me explain what I mean. There is nobody who disagrees that it is going to take us at least 25 to 30 years to wean ourselves from carbon fuels, if in fact we should do that. But let's say we should. What is the difference between burning a carbon atom that is coming from the Middle East or Venezuela versus a carbon atom that we produce here? We are going to do that. Right now 30 percent of our oil comes from either the Middle East or Venezuela, not necessarily areas of the world that are akin to being kind to us as a nation. Here is the difference: If we burn our carbon atoms, we add between 2 million and 4 million jobs over the next 10 years. Maybe even more than that. If we burn our carbon atoms--which we are going to burn carbon for at least 25 years--we decrease our trade deficit by at least $200 billion a year. That is $200 billion of wealth that does not leave our Nation, and actually it is more than that because if we get $200 billion worth of American oil and American energy, that creates another $50 billion to $60 billion worth of economic multipliers. We are the only Nation in the world where we have the natural resources to make ourselves energy independent, and yet our government will not allow us to have access to that energy. So my challenge to my colleagues, given the fact that we will burn carbon--we don't even have to have a discussion about global warming or climate change because even the best estimate is it is going to take us 25 years to 30 years to get off carbon. So during that 25 to 30 years, should we not utilize and should we not create a way in which we actually consume our own resources rather than send money and wealth out of this country to be able to utilize the resources of someone else? I am for conservation. I am for increased mileage. I am for doing everything we can to wean ourselves from a dependency on a foreign source for our energy. Other than our debt, the greatest risk this country faces is our dependency and reliance on somebody else for our energy needs. If we take our friends in Mexico and Canada and we take what we are producing, we are able to attain 70 percent. That is a tremendous change over the last few years, and that doesn't have anything to do with the present administration. As a matter of fact, oil production, natural gas production, both onshore and offshore, is down in double digits under this administration. Permitting--not new lands that have been opened-- existing lands that are open has dropped to 40 percent in terms of the permitting process. In our Nation we have over 1.2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent that we can access if, in fact, we would. That is more than any other nation in the world. So what is it that the big political fight is about? Do we want to send wealth out of this country? Do we not want to take advantage of what is available to us simply because of our location as a nation that will actually create tremendous opportunities for our children, that will create a new vision of America that is energy independent as we transition off of carbon-based fuel? Why would we not want to do that when there is no difference in burning an imported carbon atom versus burning a carbon atom produced here? The benefits are obvious. We have a bill we are considering that, to me, is mindless. It is about the politics of division, and it is not about any truth. The fact is the major oil companies that reside in our country pay the highest tax rate of anybody in the world. They pay over 41.5 percent of every dollar of revenue they make straight to the Federal Government. There are not any other businesses that compare to that. Google doesn't compare to that; Facebook doesn't compare to that; Apple doesn't compare to it. They are all half that rate. So we are already taxing the oil companies to the tune of almost $36 billion, which went to the Treasury from the major oil companies in this country. The bill we have on the floor will not improve the revenue $1, and that is a fact. There will not be an increase of $1 over a 10-year period that will come to the Federal Government if we pass this bill. Why is that? Most people don't know but my background is as an accountant. That was my first training, my first field. Accelerated depreciation just delays the time at which the Federal Government gets the tax dollars it is going to collect. It doesn't change the total amount of tax dollars, it just delays it so we match revenues with expenses, which is one of the things you are trained to do in accounting and in business. By the way, oil depletion allowance is not allowed for the large oil companies. It is not allowed for them. It has been gone for over 20 years. So we set up accelerated depreciation on what is called intangible drilling costs. It would not have any major effect on the big companies, but it will literally kill the smaller capitalized companies because their capital needs are recaptured over a long period of time if we eliminate intangible drilling costs. So what does that mean? That means we will have less exploration in our country. We will actually harm the exploration for the middle and small oil companies. Some will say: Well, we don't want to do that for them. We don't want to affect the small oil companies. We just want to affect the big oil companies. The big oil companies will pay no increase change in their net taxes over a period of 10 years. So the only thing we can actually claim with this bill is the time value of money over that period of time, and the time value of money right now is less than 2 percent a year. So what are we talking about? We are talking about a political game, and we are not talking about energy security. We are not talking about creating 2 million to 4 million jobs. We are not talking about substance. We are talking about politics, and the shame is that nobody out there is talking about a vision where America doesn't send $200 billion of its wealth out of the country. There is no reason for us to do that, and we have had every excuse except a legitimate one for why we should not burn our own oil and our own natural gas liquids. What we have seen in this country in the last 5 to 7 years on private lands--that doesn't have anything to do with the Federal Government--is a renaissance in energy independence, moving us from importing over 55 percent to 60 percent of our oil from both the Middle East and Venezuela to 30 percent. That is a big change. Why is it that North Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Louisiana, areas of Pennsylvania, and now West Virginia, are seeing declines in their unemployment rate? It is all because they are producing energy that we are going to burn no matter where it comes from, and we should be burning our own assets. The other thing that we don't think about is the fact that these energy companies have made a marked difference in the cost of everyday goods for every American in this country. Go into the kitchen and look at all the products in the kitchen. Go into the bathroom and look at all the products in the bathroom. The fact is, natural gas at $2.13--1 million Btus today--has enabled us to now become competitive worldwide in fertilizer, polyethylene, all of the raw materials for packaging for synthetic goods from clothing to vinyls to housing materials. What has happened is a renewal in manufacturing in this country on the basis of this large expansion of available natural gas. If we do that with oil as well, what we are going to do is set up our country to beat everybody in the world in terms of petrochemical byproducts. Why would we not want to do that? Why would we put anything as a roadblock to that? We have heard all the debate. The best part I know that seems the oddest to me is to think that doing this is not going to have an impact on prices. We all talk about the fact that oil is a global commodity, and at the same time we are saying American speculation on oil is why the price is higher. Well, there is not just American speculation on oil, we can trade all over the world today in the commodities. Why is there a $15 to $20 premium right now? Because of the situation in the Middle East with Iran. Would the prices come down if that political situation were gone? Yes. Would the prices come down if we eliminated every American's ability to speculate or hedge a bet against the price of oil? Absolutely not. Because the price of oil is set on the world market, not on the American market, and it is traded by everybody around the world. So the best way to lower the price of oil is to solve the problems in the Middle East but produce more. Prices go down when production goes up. So the fact is, we have an administration that has taken credit for something they obviously are not responsible for, which is exploration on private lands, and has denied the fact that they have limited the ability of those people who actually have leases but no permits on public lands to explore for oil. One of the answers we hear from the Secretary of the Interior is, nobody wants to permit new natural gas. No, they don't, not at $2.13. But they all want to permit in the areas where there is oil or natural gas liquids except the permitting has been slowed down. The new plan is to cut the permits in half on lands that have already been opened for exploration. I would invite all of the critics to come to Oklahoma to see where we drilled for oil. More oil rigs are run in this country by Oklahoma companies than anybody else in the country combined. They do it well. They do it in an environmentally sound way. They do it with the smallest footprint we can imagine, and they are held to accountability by every corporation commission throughout the country. I know in the Presiding Officer's State their corporation commission is right on top of it. We have 60 years of experience in Oklahoma with fracking. We have never had one contamination of any water zone in 60 years in the State--second to Texas and Louisiana--that has drilled more holes in the ground than any other State in the country. So what we hear is all the reasons why we shouldn't create an opportunity through our natural resources for our kids rather than why we should, and it is time we should. There is one other thing affecting the price of oil that people don't talk about very often, and that happens to be the value of the dollar. When the dollar declines in value, when we have deficit spending and big debt, the price of oil goes up. Why is that? Because the price of oil is traded in dollars. So when the world sees us not addressing our deficit issue, our debt issue, the value of the dollar declines. Ten years ago the value of the euro versus the dollar was 96 cents. It is $1.32 today. So we can buy only two-thirds as much as we could 10 years ago in terms of products from Europe. That has an impact on the price of oil. If the dollar were strong, if we managed our budget well, if we didn't have deficits, oil would go down. So the next time we are angry about paying $4-plus for a gallon of gas, the only place we have to look is the U.S. Congress because if we weren't running deficits, if we were making the tough decisions, the value of the dollar would be much stronger, the purchasing power of that dollar would be stronger, and the value of oil would be less. People don't talk about that. They just assume it is just the world market. It is not. It is that what we do here matters. The fact is, we don't address in any significant way the problems in front of us from a fiscal standpoint, which has created a lack of confidence in the value of the dollar. It has declined; therefore, the price of oil has gone up. So we have a way. This is one of the easy problems for America to solve. It is one of the ways to create a great opportunity for our kids and our grandkids; that is, utilizing the resources we have. We can do that in an environmentally clean way that will not change our goal to become clean in terms of our energy utilization. As we look at it, we subsidize solar to the tune of $692 a megawatt hour. We subsidize--if we call it subsidization--natural gas at 64 cents per megawatt hour. Oil is at 69 cents, and coal is somewhere slightly above that. For wind, it is over $100 per megawatt hour. So the money we are paying in taxes we are sending out to inefficiently compete with what is known to be there because the technology isn't there yet. That is why it is going to take us 25 to 30 years to ever develop the technology to wean ourselves from carbon-based fuels. One more thought. There is new technology in terms of thorium nuclear reactors. A lot of people are worried about nuclear reactors, and they are concerned. We are very safe in this country in terms of how we have operated them, and we have a very good Nuclear Regulatory Commission that oversees that. The new technology eliminates nuclear waste and eliminates any threat of a meltdown. So think about it. Here we have a new technology in nuclear that significantly eliminates 99 percent of the waste. There is absolutely no threat of a nuclear explosion or nuclear meltdown. How many dollars did the Department of Energy put into that research last year? Zero dollars. We have the President talking about algae. ExxonMobil has already spent almost $1 billion on algae. Why should we take your taxpayer dollars to invest in something in which the biggest oil company in the world is already investing? Can we do it better? Probably not. Is more money the answer? No. Technology and scientific breakthrough is the answer, and that takes time. As we hear the debate on raising the taxes on oil companies, just remember that we are not really going to raise any taxes because the amount of revenue that actually comes to the Federal Government isn't going to change. It sounds good. It is good for politics. It is good for the election cycle. It is good to make somebody angry about the price of oil. But the problem with the price of oil has nothing to do with that. It has to do with supply, it has to do with the decreased value of the dollar, and it has to do with factors that are outside the control of this country in terms of market price for oil based on significant geopolitical considerations. So I hope my colleagues will think a little bit longer term rather than the next election about our energy needs. The one thing we have never done and the one thing I have already heard on the floor this week is that it will take us 10 years to become energy independent. I was in this body 7\1/2\ years ago. I heard the same thing: Had we started 7\1/2\ years ago, we wouldn't be importing one drop of oil from the Middle East today--not one--and the price of our gasoline wouldn't be above $4. So we can't use that as a reason not to do it. The fact is, we can do it better, we can do it smarter, we can markedly increase the revenues of the Federal Government by increased resource utilization, and we are going to be burning carbon for at least 25 more years. I want us to burn our carbon, not somebody else's carbon. With that comes the future for our children. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak for 30 minutes and following that the Senator from Rhode Island be recognized.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I listened very intently to the first two speakers this morning. As somebody who has now been a physician for almost 30 years--I practiced full time for over 25 years--I heard the Senator from Iowa and what his desire would be on the chart he showed. He said that 100 percent screening is occurring now in three areas. That isn't true. We are not screening. We hope to screen, and we hope to screen 100 percent, but the facts on screening that are available are that it is only used 5 percent by Medicare patients on the screening that was already available with no cost to Medicare patients. So we have to distinguish between what we desire and what is actually going to happen. Let's take the example of colon screening. I am a colon cancer survivor. I was diagnosed, through colonoscopy, with colon cancer. Let's take that example, and then let's take the example of the other aspect of the affordable care act, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board. What is the purpose of that Independent Payment Advisory Board? Its purpose is to cut the cost of Medicare through the decreasing of reimbursements--first, for the first 8 years, physicians and outside providers, and then, starting in 2019, hospitals. What do you think the first thing to be cut will be? It is the reimbursement rate for a colonoscopy. So when the reimbursement rate for a colonoscopy goes below the cost--and it is very close right now, by the way, the cost to perform a colonoscopy versus what Medicare reimburses--when that is cut, what do you think will happen on screening? The goal of changing health care is an admirable goal. We know that $1 in $3 doesn't help anybody get well or prevent them from getting sick today. But what the American people need to understand is that what is coming about is a group of 15 unelected bureaucrats, who cannot be challenged in court, who cannot be challenged on the floor of the Senate or the House, mandating price reductions to control the cost of Medicare. What does that ultimately mean? They will do their job. We won't be able to do anything about it. But what it means is that they will reimburse at levels less than the cost to do services, and so, consequently, what will happen is the services won't be there. They also are going to do what is called comparative effectiveness research. We know about comparative effectiveness research. If you are a practicing physician today, you have to do continuing medical education. Part of that medical education is knowing the latest comparative effectiveness research. It is as if they are reinventing something that already exists. But the point is that they are going to use that to deny or change payments for procedures that patients need. What is wrong with all of this? It is that we are inserting a government board and government bureaucrat between the patient and the doctor. Think about that for a minute. When I go to my doctor, I don't want him concentrating about anything except me. If he is looking over his shoulder about whether he met the IPAB's comparative effectiveness study on what he is doing for me, when, in fact, the art of medicine as well as the science may say they are wrong, and he is going to do what the government says rather than what he thinks is best for me, what am I getting for that? I will be on Medicare next year, much to my regret, because my choices will now be limited in terms of who I can see. The greatest threat to the quality of care--it wasn't intended to be this way, it was intended to be helpful, and I don't doubt the motives of anybody who set this board up--but the greatest threat to quality of care for seniors in this country is the Independent Payment Advisory Board and their noncaring position. Because they are going to be looking at numbers and words. They are never going to lay their hands on the patient, they are never going to impact a patient directly, they are never going to listen to a patient, but they are going to make the ultimate decisions based on what that patient is going to get. With that, I yield back to my colleague.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I, thank the Senator. The reality is we are committing malpractice. Let me describe what I mean by that. In medicine, when a patient comes in, listening is a very important aspect. In fact, there is the axiom in medicine that if you listen to your patient, they will tell you what is wrong with them, completely. The more time you spend, the more effective you are at gaining it. The reason that is the axiom in medicine is because you do not want to treat symptoms of a disease, you want to treat the real disease. All of America recognizes that we had some difficulties in being competitive and also with access in terms of health care. We know our health care is good, but it is too expensive. As a matter of fact, it is more expensive than anywhere in the world. But we do know some things about that. We know one out of three dollars we spend in health care in this country does not help anybody. It does not help them get well. It does not keep them from getting sick. The problem with the Affordable Care Act is that it almost always treats the symptoms rather than the underlying disease. Let me give some examples. I have practiced medicine. I have been a physician for almost 30 years. When I have a contract with a private insurer, they are going to renew that contract in the next year on whether or not I am efficient and effective in taking care of people who have insurance with them. There is no motivation at all in the Medicare Act. The underlying problem with our $2.6 trillion is that we all think somebody else is paying for our health care. So I am a practicing physician. I have no motivation not to spend Medicare dollars and avoid the axiom of listening to the patient because maybe the short-term remuneration for my services is low, so I need to see more people. So we have addressed the symptoms of the disease but not the real disease. The real disease is that we, on both the purchasing and providing side, are not responsible with the available dollars in our economy. When we always assume someone else is paying for it, we cannot get there. We do not have the right incentives. Consequently, when we treat symptoms we actually make it worse. What are we seeing? What we are going to see is the government jump between the doctor and the patient to make the symptoms worse. We are going to have an IPAB board, which is not coming yet, but it is coming. We are going to have an innovation board--not patients, not doctors-- not patients making these decisions but somebody in Washington making the decisions. So the very capability of utilizing that one axiom of medicine, having the freedom to listen to the patient and then acting on what we heard rather than acting on the basis of rules and regulations coming out of an autonomous nonpersonal body in Washington that is going to tell us what we are going to do. Let me give a great example. In the Affordable Care Act is the money and the incentive to put everything online. Now, by itself that sounds smart. What do the first studies show on the basis of that? The first studies show that when a doctor has online available diagnostic tests versus the doctors who do not, they order 18 percent more tests then the doctors who do not. In other words, if something is easy to do, we do more of it, and so here is the first--this just came out 2 weeks ago--the first set, when people were looking at radiographic tests such as CTs, MRIs, CAT scans, chest x-rays, ultrasounds, they get the results. They get the results faster. Without the patient being there, without reading them, they automatically order 18 percent more tests. Well, our problem in our country was we were ordering too many tests. We have all of the incentives to order tests rather than listen to the patient, and now we set up a system where we are going to order more tests. That is what the first study shows. We are going to give hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors to have an IT system put in their offices so we have an electronic medical record. Well, what are we seeing from the first examples of that? Other than in isolated cases where it is a very refined product, such as Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic or even at the VA, what do we find? People fill out the paperwork, check the boxes, but they do not check it in relationship to the patient. So when the next person looks at the electronic medical record, they do not look at all of the garbage that is there that does not mean anything--but, oh, it might because there is too much information now in terms of the computer screen. So what is happening? We are doing duplicate things that were not done before. So the impact of the health care bill--just in terms of taxes, does anybody think health insurance premiums are not going to rise enough to offset whatever the increased cost is for the medical loss ratio? They are going to make money. Businesses are going to make money. So if we put a medical loss ratio at 15 percent, what is going to happen is they are going to live within that, but the premiums are going to go up so they can do what they need to do. Blue Cross-Blue Shield Oklahoma knows my practice parameters. They know what I am good at, what I am efficient at, and what I am not. They are not going to give up that knowledge of whether or not I should be doing a test by simply saying the Federal Government put in a medical loss ratio. They are going to raise premium prices, which we are already seeing in Oklahoma. So when we continue to treat symptoms instead of the underlying disease, we do not solve a problem; we actually make the problem worse. That is why you get sued as a physician when you miss a diagnosis of a disease, and what I will tell you is Americans are at ``dis-ease'' about health care in our country. But we have committed malpractice in our approach to it because we are treating the symptoms and not the underlying disease.

Mr. COBURN. The IPAB stands for the Independent Payment Advisory Board. They are a group of individuals who will decide what we pay for and what we do not pay for in terms of health care. They will also decide how much we pay. Once those 15 people are in place, if they are wrong, people will have no ability to challenge it in court. They have no ability to see their work product and why they decided on what they did. They have no ability to cut off their funding. In other words, they are an autonomous nondemocratic function whose whole goal will be to control costs. Well, there are lots of ways to control cost. I call it the ``sovietization'' of the American medical industry. They are going to control costs. Well, we know how that works. We have already seen it. It is called NICE in England, and we are seeing a revolt. As a matter of fact, in England today they are talking about reforming their health care system and going in the opposite direction of what we are doing because what they know is the rationing of care based on a value of 1 year of life per individual is the way they make that decision. So if Senator Johanns is 78 years old and has a broken hip and bad diabetes and bad heart disease, they look at the value of what his life expectancy is with that and then the cost of fixing his hip. They say: You are not worth it. So in England they do not fix your hip. Well, that is called rationing. The fact is it is not bad by the word; it is a loss of liberty. It means people no longer have the ability to decide themselves what will happen to them, and somebody autonomously, very distant from them, makes the decision for them. IPAB is not the worst--the innovation council. What will not happen that the innovation will not allow to happen? I have a story of a patient--and I will just give an example. Not IPAB, not innovation, but we are also going to have the Preventive Services Task Force that is going to make recommendations on screening. I want to give an example. This is a true story. I will not use her name, but a young lady came to me with a breast lump. I did the standard protocol, best practices on her. It showed to be a simple cyst, and the point I am making is about the art of medicine, not the science of medicine because everybody gets hung up on the science, but nobody ever talks about the art. I had an uncomfortable feeling about this cyst. So I aspirated it. It was inflammatory carcinoma of the breast. In other words, had I followed the protocols that are going to be recommended by IPAB and the best practices, I would have never aspirated it. Well, this patient is now dead. But she lived 12 years. A delay in diagnosis on inflammatory carcinoma would have given her less than a year to live. Because I did not follow what the standard protocol was but followed my history and my knowledge of the patient and my feeling, I diagnosed her early. She got to see her kids get married; she got to see a grandchild. That never would have happened. So what is coming with IPAB and the Preventive Services Task Force is people making decisions that are not in the room with the doctor and the patient, and that is the biggest danger of the Affordable Care Act: that we are going to take the ability of patients and doctors to make choices and give that choice to a government bureaucrat.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I am worried about the Senate as a body today. I came down here to the floor and I listened very intently to the Chaplain's prayer. He asked that we call on the higher wisdom; not man's wisdom, but God's wisdom. And I note with lots of consternation and worry that what is a very fine institution is being put at risk basically through failed leadership. Let me explain what I mean by that. Having lived 64 years and running an organization and running a business, the quality that is most needed in leadership is a quality called reconciliation. And when that doesn't happen by our leaders--and I'm not singling out any one leader in particular--when that effort, that reconciliation, doesn't happen, it is not just directly related to the events surrounding that lack of reconciliation, it does damage to institutions. What we are about to see carried out today is the placing of partisan principles on both sides of the aisle ahead of the principle of advice and consent and the Senate's role. Unfortunately, our leader didn't protect the Senate's rights under the Constitution with the last four nominations in terms of recess appointments, and we can debate that. But the fact is as an institution--whether it had been a Republican leader or Democratic leader--the No. 1 issue that needs to be protected is the rights of the Senate as related to the other branches of government. I think that is unfortunate, and I think that is part of our problem today as we fail to trust one another to do what is right. Let me go back to leadership. The real qualities of great leaders are they bring people of disparate views together and they solve those problems; they never accept the fact that an impasse is the answer. What we have queued to set up today is going to be an impasse. Everybody knows it. It is going to be an impasse. All that does is reflect poorly on the Senate as a whole and on the leadership of the Senate as a whole on both sides. So my caution would be to return to what Chaplain Black said: There is greater wisdom than we have. That is the wisdom we ought to be drawing from as we reconcile differences in the Senate, rather than destroy the comity of the Senate and destroy the ability of us to work together in the Nation's best interest in the future. I would also tell you that the other thing I am disappointed about is that we have the Senate focused on that small issue instead of the very great issues in front of our Nation--the very fact that we are going bankrupt; that we have not done one thing this year to actually trim the excesses of the Federal Government; that we have not addressed in any way, shape, or form the very problems that are going to create tremendous burdens not only to our children but those people who, through no fault of their own, will not have a safety net in the future because we failed to make the tough decisions today, and that is wrapped up in political expediency. One of my favorite quotes--it is a summary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words. It is not his exact words, but he said the following: Cowardice asks the question, Is it safe? Expediency asks the question, Is it politic? Vanity asks the question, Is it popular? But conscience and character ask the question, Is it right? What I put forward to the two leaders today is what we are about to let unfold today in the Senate: Is that the right thing for the Senate or does it have to do with expediency and popularity? And if it is to do with those two things--whether it is connected or not--that is called failed leadership. That is a failure to lead, to reconcile, to bring people together. We are better than that. Our leaders are better than that. We should not allow this to happen. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I rise to speak in morning business.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, what this amendment does is it ultimately eliminates a State's right to leverage its assets over an amortization schedule that would allow it to expand its highway system. What we are doing is we are taking money we have taken from the States, sending it up here, and saying: If you have an asset in your State--unless you are building a brandnew road--you cannot use that asset to leverage your capital to build more roads in your State. It is against the 10th amendment. It is morally wrong to take away a State's right to enhance its capital assets. I urge a ``no'' vote.

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

Mr. COBURN

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