John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last week the men and women at the Fort Hood Army post in Killeen, TX, witnessed a shocking act of violence as a gunman suddenly and inexplicably opened fire, killing 3 fellow soldiers and wounding 16 others. Yet, even as our attention has focused on the horror of this event, I think it is also important to talk about the very best of humanity demonstrated during this time of tragedy and crisis. The men and women at Fort Hood saw the very best of humanity in the military police officer who confronted the shooter, for example. They saw it in Private Jacob Sanders, who risked his own life in the hopes of saving one of the victims. They saw it in SGT Jonathan Westbrook, who was shot and wounded by the gunman but still managed to radio Fort Hood officials and sound the alert so that others might be protected and safe. They also saw it in SFC Danny Ferguson, who served a combat tour in Iraq and had recently gotten home from a second one in Afghanistan. Last Wednesday Sergeant Ferguson used his own body to prevent the shooter from entering a crowded room. He gave his life so that his fellow soldiers could keep theirs. He showed the kind of heroism that few of us could even imagine, the kind of heroism that defines our men and women in uniform. So even as we mourn the terrible loss of Sergeant Ferguson, we want to also take a moment to celebrate his wonderful example and his wonderful life, just as we celebrate the remarkable lives of SGT Timothy Owens and SSG Carlos Lazaney-Rodriguez. Sergeant Owens served his country in Iraq and in Kuwait. He also served as a counselor at Fort Hood. According to his mother, he counseled literally ``hundreds of people.'' His brother Darrell described him as someone who ``would help anybody who needed help.'' Sergeant Lazaney-Rodriguez was a native of Puerto Rico, and he served multiple combat tours in Iraq. He too made a distinct impression on his friends and fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. One of them described him as ``the epitome of what you want a leader to be in the Army.'' As I mentioned a moment ago, as we mourn the loss of Sergeant Ferguson, Sergeant Owens, and Sergeant Lazaney-Rodriguez, we should take a moment to celebrate their lives and their service. All three of these men chose--they volunteered--to devote their lives to a noble cause--the defense of our country--and our memories of their work and their sacrifice will live forever. Before I conclude, I wish to say one more word about Fort Hood, where I will be traveling to tomorrow with the President. Fort Hood is also known as The Great Place. They call it The Great Place. I had the honor of visiting the post last Thursday, and I will do so again tomorrow for the memorial, as I said. As we all remember, Fort Hood was also the scene of an earlier mass shooting in November of 2009. That was yet another day where we saw both the worst and the best of humanity. We saw the very best of humanity in people such as Michael Cahill, a civilian physician's assistant and retired soldier, and Army CPT John Gaffaney, both of whom charged the gunman--MAJ Nidal Hasan--and gave their lives in order to save the lives of others around them. Over the last 13 years, the Fort Hood community has made enormous contributions to America's missions in Iraq and in Afghanistan, where more than 550 of their soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice. In fact, the last combat brigade to leave Iraq was a Fort Hood brigade-- the Third Brigade of the storied 1st Cavalry Division. I sometimes think about the fact that most Americans probably don't have a close friend or relative who has served in the Armed Forces. So in some ways the American people have become isolated to some degree from the realities of war and national security. For them the war in Afghanistan is something they read about in the newspaper or they hear about on TV, but it is not very real to them unless they have a family member or a loved one or a friend who has served. For the families at Fort Hood and in the surrounding Texas communities of Belton, Copperas Cove, Harker Heights, Killeen, and Temple, it is something much different, something much more personal because it is a family member, it is a loved one, it is a friend who has served, and many of them have lost their lives in the process because they believed that keeping the American people safe was more important than their own personal security and safety. I wish to take this moment to let the families and friends of the victims at Fort Hood know that--and, indeed, to tell all the good people at Fort Hood--your fellow Americans are thinking about you, we are praying for you and keeping you close in our hearts during this difficult time. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).

Mr. CORNYN. Before we can have a real debate on how to fix the U.S. economy, which is experiencing the slowest recovery following a recession of any time since World War II, we have to agree on what the problem is and what we are actually trying to solve. On this side of the aisle, we believe the problem is a shortage of full-time jobs, and we believe our main economic priority should be to facilitate or to create circumstances under which the private sector can create more full-time jobs. That is why we have offered a series of amendments to the pending legislation that would help do that. It would help grow the economy and help get people back to work--not just pay people who are, unfortunately, unemployed but actually help create jobs so they can find work and help provide for their families, which is what the vast majority of people want to do. Currently, we have pending about 70 different amendments from this side of the aisle that would actually improve the underlying legislation. Among other things, our amendments would repeal job-killing taxes, improve congressional safeguards against overregulation, and restore the traditional 40-hour workweek, which is a particular subject of concern to organized labor, which recently sent a letter to the White House and said that ObamaCare was incentivizing employers to take full-time work and make it part-time work. They called it a nightmare. We also need to modernize our work-training programs. I have traveled to a number of locations in Texas, for example, where, as a result of the shale gas renaissance, we have had a number of manufacturing companies move back onshore because of this inexpensive energy supply, creating thousands of new jobs, and there are thousands more to come. Thank goodness our community colleges are working with industry in these areas because what we find is that when people graduate from high school or maybe even college, they don't necessarily have the skills to qualify for these good, high-paying jobs. If there is one aspect we ought to all be able to agree on, it is that we need to modernize our work-training programs so that we can help people gain those skills so they can earn a good income as a result. We also need to expedite natural gas exports, and that is not only for economic reasons and job-creating reasons at home. We have seen Russia using natural gas--and the stranglehold it has on Ukraine--as a weapon. One of the things we can do to help the people of Ukraine and to help our allies in Europe is to provide a long-term source of energy through another route other than through Russian pipelines. We also should approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will complete this pipeline from Canada all the way across the United States. The terminus would be in southeast Texas, where that oil would be refined into gasoline and jet fuel and create a lot of jobs in the process. Then we need to consider proposals that would incentivize American businesses, small and large, to hire veterans. I have been discussing these amendments all week, and I have been calling on the majority leader to allow these amendments to come to the floor and to provide an opportunity for a vote. As I said, there are now currently more than 70 different amendments and ideas that have been filed that are just waiting on the majority leader, who is the one who basically has complete discretion over whether or not those votes will actually occur. We have been imploring him to allow a vote on these amendments, but it appears--and I don't know if there is really any other conclusion you can draw--the majority leader has a different priority. His top priority, it appears, is for show votes on bills that either aren't going to go anywhere, because they are not going to be taken up by the House of Representatives, or that really treat the symptom rather than solve the underlying problem. As we read in the New York Times and elsewhere, it is the intention of the majority leader and the Democratic leadership in the Senate to schedule a series of show votes that basically are designed to change the subject from the failed policies of this administration--notably ObamaCare. Of course, one of those is going to be to make it easier for the trial bar to file class action lawsuits when it comes to gender pay disparity, something that is already against the law. The majority leader and his allies are going to lift the cap on damages and subject small and large businesses alike to class action lawsuits. You don't have to take my word for it. All you have to do is read the New York Times. Here is what they reported last week: The proposals have little chance of passing. But Democrats concede that making new laws is not really the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to vote against them. For that matter, the majority leader himself has acknowledged that these ideas were developed in collaboration with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the political arm of our Democrat friends in the Senate. So it is pretty clear what is happening here. This is not a majority leader--or a majority, for that matter--in search of solutions to the problems that plague our country, particularly slow economic growth and high joblessness, and the highest percentage of people who have dropped out of the workforce since World War II. This has nothing to do with helping the American people. What it does have to do with is making proposals that would actually make the economy worse. For example, the Congressional Budget Office said the proposed minimum wage increase--a 40-percent increase in the minimum wage--would likely destroy \1/2\ million to 1 million jobs because the money has to come from somewhere. Small businesses, if they are going to be forced to pay 40 percent more for their workforce, are going to have to cut somewhere else, and what they are going to cut is jobs. Needless to say, notwithstanding the fact that we are seeing the majority leader and the majority party engaged in pure political posturing, what they are actually proposing is going to make things worse, not better. There is also the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act, which really should be called the ``Trial Lawyers Bonanza'' bill. This is nothing more than a gift to the trial bar. As I said earlier, gender-based pay discrimination was outlawed a half century ago. It is illegal already. President Obama, more recently, signed something called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act just a few days after taking office in January of 2009. Here is what he said at that time. In 2009, he said that the Ledbetter act ``ensures equal pay for equal work.'' If that is true--and I believe it is--then why offer this additional legislation, unless it is purely a political exercise designed to posture and perhaps distract people from the things they are upset about, such as ObamaCare, leading into the midterm elections. We are now being told that unless we pass the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act, or the ``Trial Lawyer Giveaway,'' employers will be able to discriminate against women. Well, that is nonsense. That is not true. I don't know how you can say it any more strongly other than to call it the lie that it is. Even before the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act equal pay for equal work has been the law of the land since the 1960s. As the Wall Street Journal once observed, the Paycheck Fairness Act should really be called the ``Trial Lawyer Paycheck Act'' because that is who would benefit from this bill were it to become the law of the land. Of course, as I mentioned a moment ago, the majority leader doesn't really expect this to pass. It is part of this false narrative we have heard before, and we are going to hear it again, that somehow this is really about fairness and gender discrimination, when it is about nothing of the kind. It is solely about politics. It really is a cynical attempt to distract people from what are the most important things we could do as a Senate, which is, again, to create circumstances under which the economy would grow and jobs would be created by the private sector so people could find work and they could provide for their families. That is what we ought to be doing. Our Democratic friends claim this political agenda they announced last week, in conjunction with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is all about giving Americans a fair shot. Yet the majority leader is refusing to give them a fair shot at finding a full-time job, and he is refusing to give my constituents in Texas--26 million of them--an opportunity to get some of their ideas heard and voted on on the Senate Floor. As I said once, and I will say it again, there are more than 70 different amendments that have been filed to this underlying legislation that would actually provide a solution rather than a political stunt which will do nothing to solve the underlying problem. The purpose of these amendments is to help millions of people who remain unemployed or underemployed, including the 3.8 million Americans who have been unemployed for more than 6 months--3.8 million Americans out of work for more than 6 months. This legislation does nothing to help those people, other than perhaps to help pay them for a period of time they are continuing unsuccessfully to find work. There are also 7.2 million Americans who are working part-time who would like to work full time. If the majority leader wants to argue our amendments are a bad idea, let him do it. We will have that debate on the merits. If he wants to promote alternative options for growing the economy and creating jobs, we will be happy to consider those and perhaps even agree with him on some of them. But to simply refuse to allow a vote on these 70-some-odd amendments is a profound insult, not to us but to our constituents and the millions of Americans who continue to suffer through the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. We can do better. We need to do better. The American people deserve better than this cheap political stunt.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today marks the beginning of National Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It comes at a time when Congress is about ready to take up reauthorization of the Justice For All Act--a law that has improved public safety, strengthened victims' rights, and delivered justice all across this country. I am proud to be the lead Republican sponsor of this bill, and I am even prouder of what it has accomplished and what it will continue to accomplish. Thanks to the Justice For All Act and similar initiatives, law enforcement agencies across America now have greater resources to reduce the rape kit backlog. I might just explain. A rape kit is, as it sounds, a forensic collection of evidence collected at the scene of a sexual assault. Much to our chagrin, we have learned over time that many of these rape kits--this forensic evidence--is not forwarded to a lab for testing and, thus, the DNA of the assailant is not identified. So we realized that local jurisdictions needed more resources and more guidance and more expertise when it came to testing these untested rape kits because of the incredible evidence it provides, both to acquit people who have been falsely accused of crimes, as well as to identify, indict, and convict serial sexual assailants. This is sort of unique in many ways because people who commit rape don't just do it one time. Many times they will do it time and time again until they are caught. Worse yet, this is a crime of opportunity. Many times it involves children as well, as we know. So now we know that thanks to the Justice For All Act and similar initiatives which have allowed these rape kits to be taken off the evidence locker shelf and tested, that what has been a national scandal, which has allowed violent criminals to remain on the streets, is now being addressed more and more. I am not here to suggest that everything that can be done has been done, but it is important for us to make sure these rape kits are tested and to get these serial sexual assailants off the streets and brought before a court of law and justice. Even a relatively small reduction in the backlog can lead to major gains in public safety and peace of mind. In the city of Detroit, for example, the processing of 1,600 old sexual assault kits, including some from the 1980s, allowed authorities to identify 100 different serial rapists, ten of whom were convicted rapists already. So this is powerful evidence. Incredibly, police sometimes keep this forensic evidence for 20 or 30 years, and it is still susceptible to being tested, and for the rapist to be identified and to be taken out of circulation. In the city of Houston, meanwhile, a backlog that once reached 6,600 untested rape kits is now in the process of being completely eliminated--thanks, in large part, to the support provided by this legislation. I wish to take a second to highlight the SAFER Act, which was included in the Violence Against Women Act and which passed just this last year, and the fact that it funded a provision of the Justice For All Act known as the Debbie Smith Act. I have had the pleasure of meeting Debbie Smith for whom this legislation was named, and she has become a tireless advocate for the sorts of reforms and improved funding that are contained in the SAFER Act and in the Justice For All reauthorization. The SAFER Act mandated that more of the money the Federal Government granted must be used to actually test old rape kits as well as dedicate a portion of that money to inventory--evidence that had been sitting on police evidence locker shelves or had been sent to laboratories but had not yet been tested. This law, passed in 2013, has already played a crucial role in making Federal support available for tackling the rape kit backlog. I was proud to introduce that legislation and I am proud to sponsor reauthorization of the Justice For All Act. As I said a moment ago, I am enormously gratified and proud of what these laws have helped us accomplish. Upholding victims' rights and keeping dangerous predators off the street are two of the most solemn obligations the government has, and we should never forget it. With hundreds of thousands of rape kits still untested, we have a long way to go; there is no question about it. It is encouraging to see the progress that has been made. Hopefully, this will encourage us to take even further steps to make sure these untested rape kits are tested and the people who are innocent are vindicated from any charges. But the people who commit serial sexual assault, both against other adults and minors, should be and will be brought to justice. The Economy Shifting gears to the economy, I wish to repeat a call I made yesterday and once again urge the majority leader in the context of the legislation we are currently considering to allow Republican ideas for economic growth and job creation to come to the floor for a vote. I realize President Obama has stubbornly chosen to stick with the same policies that have given us the weakest economic recovery following a recession since World War II. It is also the highest--the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. Indeed, after promoting the same fiscal and economic strategy for the last 5 years--a strategy that involves higher taxes, more Federal spending, and more debt--the President and his allies seem to see no reason to change course. His proposed budget for 2015, for example, would increase Federal spending by $791 billion. It would also increase taxes by $1.8 trillion over 10 years, and increase our national debt by $8.3 trillion. That is on top of the $17 trillion already--about $56,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. For those keeping score, the President has already raised taxes by $1.7 trillion during his presidency and increased our national debt by four times that much. In other words, if more taxes and more spending were the path to prosperity for this great Nation, America would be booming, unemployment would be at zero, and our economy would be chugging along, creating new jobs right and left. Instead, the evidence is in. We are experiencing stagnation and mass unemployment. It is said that insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over but somehow expecting a different result. If that is the definition of insanity, then maintaining the current policies of spending, tax, and debt are the definition of insanity. There has to be a better way, and there is, if only the majority leader would allow the Senate to do what it is supposed to do. This body used to once be known as the world's greatest deliberative body, where we had the great debates on the issues of the time, and then we had a vote, and we all accepted the majority vote in those instances. But now, the new tactic by the majority leader seems to be to bring a bill to the floor without going through a committee where members of that legislative committee are allowed to offer amendments and to get votes on those amendments to help shape the committee product. We don't even do that anymore, and we didn't do that on this underlying unemployment insurance extension bill we will be voting on this week. So Members of the Republican Conference--the Republican Members of the Senate--have offered 45 amendments, all of which are designed to improve the underlying piece of legislation and not just kick the can down the road. I would think the majority leader and the President of the United States would welcome our efforts to try to improve the underlying legislation--but apparently not. For example, can't we do a better job, let's say, of directing Federal dollars for workforce training efforts in places such as West Virginia and Texas so that for the good jobs that do exist, we could match the skills of these people who have been unemployed for a long time to those good jobs that pay very well and do exist in abundance. So we have 45 different suggestions and ideas we would like to offer in the spirit of cooperation and trying to do our jobs as Members of the Senate. However, so far, the majority leader has steadfastly and, I might add, stubbornly, pushed for another extension of unemployment insurance without anything else attached that would actually improve workforce training and programs that would upgrade stale skills for people who have been unemployed for a long period of time so they can qualify to do the good-paying jobs that exist. One of the favorite parlor games here in Washington, DC, is to spin various narratives to explain what is happening in Washington. Sometimes I have heard the majority leader and others say the Republican Party is the party of no. Well, that is a false narrative. We have 45 different amendments that would improve this underlying legislation. We have been shut out and, more importantly, the 26 million people I represent in the State of Texas have been shut out of this debate and this discussion and this effort to come forward with a better product. Isn't that what we are here for? I mentioned some of these ideas that have been proposed yesterday. For example, I mentioned a bill, sponsored in different forms, by the senior Senator from Maine and the junior Senator from South Carolina that would relieve the burden of ObamaCare, which has been complained about mightily by organized labor and others, that has compelled--or induced, I should say--employers to take 40-hour workweeks and shrink them to 30 hours or less in order to avoid ObamaCare penalties. So this amendment would relieve that burden on workers and businesses by restoring the traditional 40-hour work week. Why wouldn't that be a subject worthy of debate and a vote in the Senate? I mentioned a separate bill introduced by the junior Senator from South Carolina that would modernize workforce training and eliminate duplicative governmental programs. There are more than 40 different government programs that purport to train people to improve their job skills all across the country. I have had the chance to visit some of those locations in Texas, and they do a very good job. But rather than have 40-plus different programs, why don't we have 1 or 2 and use the extra money from all that duplication in order to put more money into these programs so they can train more people and get them back to work faster? That is another of the amendments that have been shut out of this process so far. I also mention legislation sponsored by the senior Senator from Utah and the junior Senator from Kentucky respectively that would eliminate ObamaCare's job-killing tax on medical innovation--something that I believe, if allowed to come for a vote, would receive an overwhelming majority vote on a bipartisan basis in the Senate. Also, the junior Senator from Kentucky has a piece of legislation that would make it easier for Congress to block major regulations that cannot pass a simple cost-benefit analysis. Meanwhile, the junior Senator from Wyoming and the senior Senator from North Dakota, whom I see on the floor, have a bill that would expedite the approval of natural gas exports to our NATO partners in Europe and to Ukraine and help relieve that stranglehold Vladimir Putin and Russia have on Europe because they control most of their energy supply. It would also approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, thereby creating thousands of well-paying American jobs and would transport North Dakota oil and Canadian oil all the way down to Texas, where it would be refined into gasoline and jet fuel and create thousands of jobs in the process. In addition, another amendment that has been offered on this underlying legislation that would help the economy grow and help get people back to work and rein in excessive Federal regulation that is killing jobs--the senior Senator from Oklahoma has a bill that would stop new EPA regulations until--until--the Agency could tell us exactly what the impact of those regulations would be on jobs and the economy. So most of the ideas I have listed have been submitted as one of these 45 amendments to the underlying unemployment insurance bill. Yet the majority leader, who is the traffic cop on the Senate floor--the rules of the Senate give him complete, 100-percent discretion to decide which amendments are going to get a vote and which will not--the majority leader seems determined to prevent any votes on any of these ideas. If we are truly serious about job creation and if we are truly serious about doing everything possible to get America back to work-- because of the dignity work provides and the means it provides people to provide for their own families and to pursue their dreams--why on Earth would we deny Members a chance to vote on these job-creating pieces of legislation? Well, unfortunately, I think we got a little bit of a peek into the majority leader's playbook last week when he and others had a press conference upstairs and talked about this agenda they had for the time from the present through the election. And they were pretty candid about it. This is an agenda they dreamed up in conjunction with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The majority leader said as much in his announcement. In other words, this is a political plan by the political arm of the Democratic Senators' campaign committee. So this is not about finding solutions or else the majority leader would welcome these suggestions we have offered. I would say to the majority leader, do not allow votes on these amendments simply to placate me and others of my political party. Do not do it for us. Do it for the 3.8 million people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months. Do it for them. Do it for the untold numbers of people who have simply given up looking for work. Our labor participation rate--the percentage of Americans actually in the workforce--is at a 40-year low. So it is not only the tragedy of the unemployment numbers that we see reported, it is people who are not reflected in those unemployment numbers because those statistics do not count people who have given up. And that is what the low labor participation rate indicates. These are the people who need our help, and they are the ones who deserve a vote on these constructive suggestions to the underlying piece of legislation. I hope the majority leader will reconsider. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, America's top priority is the same today as it was last year, the year before that, and the year before that: unemployment, jobs, and how to get this economy growing again. Of course, these are concerns which transcend any kind of partisan affiliation. They transcend geographic and demographic boundaries. They are shared, of course, by Republicans, Democrats, Independents-- everyone--people from all parts of our country. But the sad fact is it has been almost 5 years since America's official economic recovery began and still too many people who want to work can't find a job. There are still 3.8 million people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months, and the labor force participation rate remains stuck at 63 percent. Of course, those are the people who don't even show up on the unemployment statistics because they have given up looking for work. This is what we talk about when we are talking about the labor participation rate--the lowest number since 30 years ago. Since the current President took office, the average amount of time the unemployed have been without a job has almost doubled, from less than 20 weeks to more than 37 weeks. This is a shocking statistic. So since President Obama has been in office, the average time people have been unemployed--have been out of work--went from less than 20 weeks to now 37 weeks, and the number of people on food stamps has increased from 32.2 million to nearly 46.8 million people. As for median household income, it is now more than $2,400 lower than it was at the end of the recession in June of 2009. The President talks a lot about income inequality, but the problem is, it has gotten worse since he has been in office, not better. We should be focused like a laser on things we might be able to do to set the stage to help the economy start growing again, because only when the economy grows do we see the unemployment numbers go down, do we see the labor participation rate go up, and we see regular American families have the opportunity to provide for themselves and to pursue their dreams. But right now that American dream is somewhat cloudy. Many people feel as though it is starting to pass them by, and that is the American tragedy. So you would think that at a time when there is a bipartisan consensus we need to get the economy moving again, we need to get people back to work so they can provide for their families, that there would be bipartisan agreement here in the Senate that anybody with a good idea ought to step up, offer it, debate it, and let's vote on it. Well, unfortunately, the majority leader has a different point of view. He is refusing to let anyone on this side of the aisle offer any suggestions in the form of amendments that actually might have a chance of improving the situation for people who are out of work or people looking for jobs. Not only is the majority leader blocking votes on bills that would make it easier for Americans to find work, he is also promoting and defending policies that would actually discourage work. For example, both the majority leader and President Obama are advocating a minimum wage increase of 40 percent, while the Congressional Budget Office has told us it could destroy up to 1 million jobs. Now the majority leader and the President may not agree with that estimate, but I will remind them of what Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellin said; she is President Obama's own appointee as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. She said she wouldn't want to argue with the Congressional Budget Office's assessment about the number of people who would be put out of work if you raised the minimum wage by 40 percent. For that matter, the evidence suggests that any increase in the minimum wage would destroy jobs and do very little, if anything, to reduce poverty rates. The best thing we could do is to get out of the way and let the economy grow again by making the environment more conducive to the people who invest, take risks, and start businesses or grow small businesses. That is the thing we could do that would help people the most. But in addition to the minimum wage increase, the majority leader and President Obama are pushing for yet another extension of long-term unemployment benefits, even though President Obama's own former chief White House economist has said that ``job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits.'' So, in other words, people react in situs, and when the government continues to pay unemployment benefits for people who are out of work, human nature is such that people are disincentivized to go back to work and look for work on occasion. We all recognize the importance of this safety net program, and the truth is under the current law 26 weeks or 6 months are available for unemployment benefits. But under this administration we have seen unemployment benefits go from 6 months to 2 years. Two years after people have been out of work and those benefits lapsed, we have done nothing to improve job training programs that would help match the skills of out-of-work Americans to the jobs that are out there which pay good money--and I have seen many of them in my State, and I am sure the Presiding Officer has as well. We have seen a lot of good jobs go wanting for lack of a skilled workforce to be able to perform those jobs. So what we ought to be doing instead of extending unemployment benefits is we ought to be focusing on how we can train workers and provide them with the skills they need in order to qualify for those good, high-paying jobs. At a time when the American people are desperate for more jobs and more work, the majority leader is steadfastly determined to pass legislation which would disincentivize people from going back and looking for work and would in fact discourage work and discourage job creation. That is before we even get to ObamaCare, a law the Congressional Budget Office has estimated would effectively reduce the size of America's labor force by 2.5 million people over the next decade. Remarkably, I guess trying to spin it any way they could, the White House actually took the position that was actually a good thing because people would have more time off. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. After all, this is the same administration that unilaterally gutted the work requirements in the 1996 welfare reform law, one of the most successful welfare reform laws ever passed. It is the same administration that refuses to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, a project that would directly create thousands of new jobs right here in the United States, and it is the same administration that refuses to embrace progrowth tax reform. America's corporate tax rate is the highest in the world, and yet the President said he won't enter negotiations to reduce those rates, to eliminate double taxation so people will bring the money they earn overseas back here to hire more Americans and to build their businesses here. The President won't do that without an agreement on this side of the aisle to raise taxes, to raise revenue by $1 trillion. That is not a bargain we are interested in negotiating. This is the same administration that refuses to support energy, the energy renaissance we have seen, and continues to support regulations which actually threaten jobs and hurt families in return for meager or nonexistent benefits. As I have said before, this administration and its policies have become nothing less than a war on the American worker. I am not suggesting that is their intention, but I am suggesting that is the result. If there is one thing we ought to all be able to agree upon it is that work is about basic human dignity. It is about self-worth and self-reliance; it is about giving people the opportunity to reach their full potential and to support their families. When the policies of the Federal Government actually discourage people from working, it makes it harder for teenagers to learn basic social skills and professional skills. It makes it harder for college graduates to utilize their education and pay off their student loan debt. It makes it harder for people of all backgrounds to start families. It makes it harder for mothers and fathers to gain the self-respect that comes from providing for your own children. It is bad enough that the President and the majority leader have embraced an agenda that is fundamentally antiwork. What makes it even more outrageous is that this week the majority leader will deny the opportunity for anyone on this side of the aisle to offer any sort of constructive suggestions about how to deal with that problem. He is refusing to allow proposals that would actually encourage work and encourage job creation. Here are just a few examples of the amendments and proposals that would come from this side of the aisle if the majority leader--it is his sole prerogative--would allow those amendments to be debated and voted on by the Senate: For example, the senior Senator from Maine has a bill that would relieve the burden of ObamaCare on workers and businesses alike and restore the traditional 40-hour workweek. This has been one of the primary complaints of organized labor, some of the biggest supporters of ObamaCare. They said that in order to avoid the penalties that go along with ObamaCare, many employers are moving people from full-time work to part-time work. The amendment from the senior Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, would address that problem and fix it. The senior Senator from Utah, Senator Hatch, has a bill that would abolish the job-killing tax on medical innovation. The junior Senator from Missouri has a bill that would exempt military veterans from ObamaCare's employer mandate. The junior Senator from Kentucky has a bill that would make it easier for Congress to block regulations that do not pass a simple cost- benefit test. The junior Senator from South Carolina has a bill that would modernize workforce training and eliminate duplicative government programs-- something I was just talking about a moment ago. The senior Senator from North Dakota has a bill that would singlehandedly create thousands of jobs by approving the Keystone XL Pipeline. If and when these bills are offered as amendments to the pending legislation, they deserve a vote, but if the majority leader denies them a vote, he is effectively denying us a chance to expand our economy, create more jobs, and get people back to work. I used to think this was something Republicans and Democrats both agreed was a good thing. I thought we all agreed that job creation and work promotion should be the cornerstones of our economic agenda. With an agenda such as that, perhaps we could finally have a recovery of our economy worthy of its name. So I hope the majority leader reconsiders his decision to deny an opportunity for a full debate and vote on these constructive suggestions. None of these are nongermane. All of these are directly on point and would actually help improve the underlying legislation and actually do something about the underlying symptom that necessitates in some people's minds this long-term extension of unemployment benefits. We are not helping people out by continuing to pay unemployment benefits for 2 years and then leaving them hanging without the skills they need in order to reestablish themselves in the workforce. Unfortunately, the only conclusion I could draw is if the majority leader is not interested in having an honest and open debate about how do we solve the problems, then something else must be driving his agenda. I think we should get back to the day when collectively we were more concerned about solving problems than trying to beat on an issue and gain political advantage, but that seems to be the road we are headed down based on the majority leader's decision not to allow any votes on amendments. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I wish to say a few words about the business pending before the Senate; that is, providing aid and assistance to the citizens of Ukraine who find themselves invaded by the Russian federation. But before I get to Ukraine, I wish to say a quick word about a story that appeared today in the New York Times. This was a remarkable story, remarkable in its transparency but also in its cynicism in terms of what some of our friends across the aisle have in mind between now and November. To put it in a word, they have given up. They have given up legislating and are going to spend the next several months holding a series of show votes which are in essence those designed to highlight poll-tested messages. The New York Times writes this: The proposals have little chance of passing. Little chance of passing. But Democrats concede that making new laws is not really the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to vote against them. I would think the American people would expect and certainly they would deserve better than that from the Senate--scheduling a series of show votes, not for the purpose of actually improving the lives of the American people or solving the problems that confront our country at this time of low economic growth and high joblessness but, rather, for show votes, for purely partisan political reasons. At a time when millions of people have lost their health insurance, when millions have been forced to pay higher premiums or deductibles, when 3.8 million people have been unemployed for more than 6 months, when the labor force participation rate--the number of people actually looking for work--has fallen to 30-year lows, and when nearly 46.8 million people are receiving food stamps, it is more than a little disappointing that the leaders of the Democratic Party in the Senate are into scoring cheap political points. As I said, the American people certainly deserve better. Again, I am a little bit surprised that some of the leadership on the Democratic side of the aisle would be so transparent and so obvious as to state their intentions to the New York Times, but that is what it appears. What we need is a Senate and a Congress that is more focused on creating an economic condition where the American people can find jobs rather than politicians who are focused solely on saving their jobs, particularly leading up to the next election. Of course, this is the kind of stuff that makes people extraordinarily cynical about Washington, DC, but with an election coming up, I guess some people have lost all sense of proportion. Ukraine As we continue to discuss the proper response by the United States of America to Vladmir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, it is important that we stay focused on two overarching realities; No. 1, the Government of Russia is much more vulnerable to Western pressure than it might appear from the outside; No. 2, we have far more leverage today against Moscow than we did 10 years ago or even 5 years ago because of the renaissance in American energy, the oil and gas boom we are experiencing in America, thanks to the discovery of a man named George Mitchell from Houston, TX, who pioneered horizontal drilling, which together with fracking has allowed access to natural gas and oil reserves undreamed of just 5 or 10 years ago. Let's start with the first reality. As Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley Investment Management wrote on Monday in the Wall Street Journal: Russia has become a classic weak-investment, high-inflation economy. An economy plagued by massive levels of corruption. According to Mr. Sharma: . . . wealthy Russians have been moving money out of the country at one of the fastest rates in two decades--$60 billion a year since 2012--and now foreign investors are pulling out too. So it is worth noting that Russia's economy is currently suffering through a period of stagnation, despite the fact that oil prices remain high. As a matter of fact, its government's main source of income is oil and gas revenue, which has led our friend the senior Senator from Arizona to say that Russia these days is ``a gas station masquerading as a sovereign state.'' They depend on the ability to sell that oil and gas to Ukraine and Europe. Indeed, they use this as a political tool to work their will in Europe and obviously in Ukraine. Sometimes we talk about crony capitalism here in America in which private individuals and private companies collude with government in order to gain special benefits. That is what crony capitalism is. The Russian economy represents crony capitalism on steroids. If we could squeeze the oligarchs and the Kremlin advisers who have gotten fabulously rich thanks to their collaboration with Vladmir Putin and the Russian Government, many of Vladmir Putin's closest allies will begin to rethink their support. That is an area of vulnerability we ought to be focused on like a laser. As I said yesterday, I am encouraged by the sanctions the Obama administration announced on Thursday. It is a good start, but I would urge the administration to continue imposing serious penalties on high- level Kremlin officials and the super-rich oligarchs who comprise Putin's inner circle. In other words, sanctions are not enough. We need to do more to dissuade and discourage Putin and his allies from engaging in the current course of conduct, as well as further adventures in other parts of Europe and areas of the former Soviet Union. It is time for more robust sanctions that target the financial energy sectors of the Russian economy. The cost for Moscow's aggression must be real, and that is not just me saying that, that is what President Obama said too. With that in mind, I urge the administration to sanction the Russian arms exporter known as Rosoboronexport, which has been tied up in all sorts of corruption scandals and which is also the primary arms supplier for Bashar al-Assad in Syria, who has murdered about 150,000 of his own people in the ongoing Syrian civil war. I cosponsored an amendment introduced by the Senator from Indiana that would end all U.S. Government contracts with Rosoboronexport and punish the companies with whom it does military-related business. Once again, I hope that the majority leader, Senator Reid, would reconsider and allow the amendment to receive a vote, something he refused to do yesterday. I am hoping after a good night's sleep and reconsideration, maybe he would be open to that. I would also call on the majority leader, Senator Reid, to allow us to offer another amendment introduced by the junior Senator from Wyoming, which would greatly expand American exports of liquefied natural gas by granting automatic approval to all applications for new LNG terminals that would ship gas to Ukraine and other members of our NATO alliance. One may wonder why that is necessary. Just to recapitulate, Putin uses energy as a weapon. If he is not getting what he wants out of Ukraine or Europe, he squeezes off the supply of energy which is essential to the economy and to life itself in those vulnerable parts of the world. We have been blessed as a result of the innovations of people such as George Mitchell with this new renaissance in energy in America through shale gas--sometimes called unconventional plays--but the point is we are now able to produce much more energy than we can consume domestically, and in North America alone we are fast approaching energy independence. We can afford to be an exporter of some of this energy to vulnerable countries such as Ukraine and Europe, so we can get Putin's boot off their neck when it comes to the impact he has on their energy supply. Before the shale gas revolution, which has just been in the last decade or so, there was very little the United States could do to deter Eastern Europe's dependence on Russia's LNG. The global energy landscape is much different than it was just a half decade ago. Back in October the House Energy & Commerce Committee held a hearing at which several Eastern European diplomats discussed the geopolitical significance of America's natural gas boom. The Lithuanian Ambassador said bluntly: ``We need your gas. We want to buy your gas.'' Well, Lithuania is one of the countries that are in the greatest jeopardy now against the depredations of somebody like Vladimir Putin and a Russian Federation on the march. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic's Deputy Chief of Mission said that U.S. LNG exports would increase his country's leverage in future energy negotiations with Moscow. This same Czech diplomat has also urged the U.S. Government to treat LNG exports to NATO countries the same way it treats LNG exports to countries with which America has a free-trade agreement. This is how he put it: Such a policy shift ``puts us in a different league. We are in League B and we would like to be in League A.'' Passing the Barrasso amendment, of which I am a proud cosponsor, would put all NATO countries in league A, and it would send an unmistakable message to Vladimir Putin and his allies in this aggression against the people of Ukraine and potential aggression against other countries that this weapon he uses, known as energy, is no longer available to him to use to intimidate people and gain their territorial ambitions. It would also demonstrate that Members of both political parties here in Congress are committed to breaking Vladimir Putin's energy stranglehold over the nations of Eastern Europe. This is going to be very important because if Putin keeps coming--as he may very well do-- and as Europe considers working with the United States to impose higher and higher costs, Europe is going to look in the mirror and say: What do sanctions against Russia mean in terms of our economy? I am afraid they are going to be compromised if they realize their engagement with us--and increasingly high sanctions against Russia--has a negative impact on their economy because it will essentially jeopardize their energy imports. In addition to sanctions and gas exports, the third prong of America's Ukraine strategy should include serious military assistance to Kiev. Everyone has said: We are not talking about American boots on the ground, but we are talking about providing military assistance to people who are trying to defend themselves. If our alliance and agreement with Ukraine means anything, it means we are going to help them defend themselves against Russian depredation. Believe me, not only is Ukraine watching but other nations, such as NATO--which has a treaty relationship with the United States and a self-defense agreement in section 5 of the NATO treaty where aggression against any single NATO country is treated as an attack against all of them--are watching America's response in Ukraine. In some cases, America might not have to send that military aid directly. We might only have to facilitate the purchase of certain equipment from other sources. But either way, we should be doing everything possible to make sure our friends and our allies have the resources they need to deter Russian aggression further. It is not just our enemies who are looking to see if America retreats--pulling back in the world and creating a vacuum that is being filled by people like Vladimir Putin--it is our friends and our allies who are wondering if America is a dependable friend and ally. If we are not, they are going to make other arrangements all around the world. I have a few final words about what is at stake. When Ukraine voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal in the mid- 1990s, it did so after receiving a U.S. security guarantee. When other Eastern European nations decided to join NATO, they too were seeking a guarantee from America that we would come to their defense and other NATO allies would also come to their defense. If Russia's annexation of Crimea is allowed to stand, many of our allies, our partners, and our friends will no longer trust American promises, and many would-be aggressors, such as China, will be emboldened to pursue their territorial claims with much more belligerence, and correspondingly the world will become a much more dangerous place. In other words, the outcome in Ukraine is critically important both to U.S. credibility and the future of the international order. Our policies should reflect that. I am disappointed that the majority leader has seen fit to cut off any opportunity for Senators on both sides of the aisle to offer constructive additions for a vote. We are not even asking for assurance that they would pass; we are just asking for a vote on amendments, such as military assistance to the Ukraine, expediting the permitting of LNG export facilities to help alleviate the stranglehold Putin has on Europe and Ukraine. The majority leader has said no, he is not going to allow that, and we do need to get this bill out of here tomorrow--and we will--to send a unified message that this sort of aggression will not be met with silence by the U.S. Government. Even the advocates of this underlying bill have said it is not enough. This is just a start. I would like to hear a schedule from the majority leader of when he purports to bring some of these other important issues to the floor-- particularly if Putin does what many expect him to do, and that is to continue rolling on into Western Ukraine and perhaps other countries. What will be America's response? What will be the bipartisan response of the Senate? What we have done so far is a start, but it is nowhere near good enough to exact the kinds of costs President Obama said he wants to exact on Putin and Russia for this act of international aggression and invasion in the country of Ukraine. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I will be brief, but further reserving the right to object to the majority leader's request, I just want to make sure the majority leader understands no one is talking about slowing down this bill. It is anticipated, I think even under the majority leader's consent request, that we will be finished with this bill no later than Thursday. It is one of those circumstances where, given the context of what is in the legislation, there is actually bipartisan support because of the importance of sending a unified message to the Russian leader about this aggression. But I wish to be clear that my position is that sanctions are not enough. We need to go further and to provide a means for the Ukrainian people to defend themselves against this sort of aggression, which they do not presently possess. We need to find a way to relieve the stranglehold Putin has on Ukraine and much of the rest of Europe that he is going to keep using as long as he feels we have not acted to undermine or jeopardize that stranglehold. That is the purpose of these amendments, and I regret the majority leader has seen fit to object to my request--reasonable request--for germane amendments.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I note in the majority leader's requested consent order he stipulates that no other amendments be in order, which I think is deeply regrettable, given the fact that this matter has been considered in the Foreign Relations Committee and then came to the floor without any opportunity for the rest of the Senate to participate, either in the deliberative process or to debate important improvements to the legislation. I would note two for the majority leader's consideration. Two amendments which seem to enjoy a tremendous amount of bipartisan support are in recognition of the stranglehold Vladimir Putin and Russia have on Ukraine's energy supply as well as the energy supply to the rest of Europe. There is a Barrasso amendment many of us support that calls for the expedited consideration and permitting of exporting liquefied natural gas. There is another amendment I have offered that would provide military assistance to Ukraine. Right now, the underlying bill provides $100 million. It doesn't specify the precise nature of the assistance, but it appears to be in the nature of rations, uniforms, and medical supplies. I would think at a minimum we would want to make sure the Ukrainians who are defending their country are supplied additional U.S. military assistance in order to defend themselves against this Russian aggression. So I ask the majority leader to modify his unanimous consent request with the following: that the first amendment in order be a Barrasso amendment related to the exportation of liquefied natural gas; and that following the disposition of the Barrasso amendment, the majority leader and the Republican leader or their designees be recognized to offer relevant amendments in an alternating fashion, including the Cornyn amendment on military assistance to Ukraine.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, sometimes it takes a sudden, flagrant breach of international order to dispel a President's naivete about an adversary. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had that effect on President Carter, and one can only hope that Russia's annexation of Crimea will have a similar impact on President Obama. Only recently the President was describing his Russian reset--those were his words--as a success. In other words, he was still calling the reset a success after Moscow had done the following things--and I think it is worth recalling the litany of things Vladimir Putin and Russia have done notwithstanding President Obama's hopeful intention to reset that relationship. Here is what Moscow has done: They brutalized domestic human rights activists. They tortured and murdered anticorruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. They unleashed a barrage of anti-American propaganda. They threatened to target U.S. missile defense sites with offensive weapons. They vetoed numerous United Nations resolutions regarding Syria, where Bashar al-Assad has now killed roughly 150,000 civilians. They vetoed those resolutions. They also ignored U.S. demands to stop aiding Bashar al-Assad, period. It is well known and documented that Russia regularly sends weapons to Assad to use on his own people. Russia has denounced U.S. sanctions against Iran as undisguised blackmail. This is a country seeking a nuclear weapon that would destabilize the entire region--and perhaps worse--in the Middle East. Russia has expelled USAID from their country and pulled out of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program designed to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons. Russia has also banned American citizens from adopting Russian children and offered asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. That is quite a list. As you can see, while President Obama said he wants to reset that relationship with Russia, Vladimir Putin has basically thumbed his nose at the United States and the international order. Yet none of that has kept President Obama from calling this relationship with Putin and Russia a success. If we consider the three biggest U.S. diplomatic victories often attributed to this reset the President likes to talk about--greater Russian cooperation in Afghanistan, the New START arms control treaty, and the Russian support for U.S. sanctions in Iran--only the first one looks like a genuine, durable achievement from the vantage point of March 2014. The New START treaty was a dangerous giveaway. In addition to jeopardizing U.S. missile defense plans, it reduced the number of American nuclear launchers and warheads while allowing Russia to increase the size of its own arsenal. As for the Iran sanctions endorsed by the U.N. Security Council members in June of 2010, these were less significant than the unilateral U.S. sanctions that Congress forced upon President Obama despite his objections in December 2011. For that matter, the administration has now unilaterally decided to loosen U.S. sanctions-- and thereby relinquish some of the best leverage we have on Tehran--to keep them from crossing that red line and acquiring a nuclear weapon. What did we get for that? We got minor concessions and more hollow promises. As with other U.S. adversaries, the Iranians are watching Ukraine to see how President Obama responds. In the modern era, cross-border military invasions of sovereign States have been a blessedly rare occurrence. Yet Vladimir Putin has now launched two of them in less than 6 years. The Secretary General of NATO has called Russia's armed seizure of Crimea ``the gravest threat to European security and stability since the end of the Cold War.'' Europe remembers the primary location for two world wars during the last century. They remember, and they remember what happened in 1938 which, unfortunately, bears an eerie resemblance to some of the initial steps being taken by Vladimir Putin and Russia today, and they remember what happened after that, casting the world into a terrible war in which millions of people lost their lives in World War II. President Obama's initial response was to sanction 11 Russians and Ukrainians, leaving Putin's inner circle and his favorite oligarchs untouched, and they drew mocking rebukes from the Kremlin. Last Thursday, the President decided to ramp up the sanctions by issuing new sanctions that did go a little further, targeting four oligarchs and 16 government officials, including Putin's Chief of Staff, along with a prominent Putin-linked financial institution. In addition, President Obama declared he had now signed a new Executive order. Remember, the President said he has a phone and a pen. Well, he has been using them--not necessarily working with Congress but he has been using them. He has issued a new Executive order that gives us the authority to impose sanctions not just on individuals but on key sectors of the Russian economy. The problem with that is that sanctions imposed on Russia's economy are going to hurt Europe and invariably end up inflicting damage even on the U.S. economy. But I hope the President uses this authority to send Putin a message and finds a way to thread the needle to exact the costs he said he would exact on Putin for this lawless act. In my view, the sanctions should also target Rosoboronexport. This is a State-owned Russian arms dealer that has been supplying the Assad regime and Syria with weapons, and it has become the Grand Central Station of corruption. The U.S. Pentagon has inexplicably been buying Mi-17 helicopters from Rosoboronexport to supply the Afghan military, despite numerous alternatives. I am happy to report the senior Senator from Indiana Mr. Coats has introduced an amendment that would terminate these contracts and prohibit all business dealings with companies that cooperate with Rosoboronexport, and I am a proud cosponsor of that amendment. I hope the majority leader, as Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, implored this morning, will allow an open amendment process so reasonable amendments designed to improve this bill will be allowed to be voted on. As America responds to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, sanctions will remain a critically important tool, but sanctions alone are not enough. They should be accompanied by at least three other U.S. policy moves. First, the United States needs to assess the military needs of Ukraine and other Eastern European countries and then swiftly dispatch--or facilitate the purchase of--whatever resources may be required. Offering military ration kits rather than serious military assistance is a joke. It is a bad joke, and it is an insult to our friends in Kiev and freedom-loving people within the orbit of Russia. Second, we should enhance and expand our European missile defense system with upgrades such as a new X-Band radar and more capable interceptors. We should also increase our overall missile defense budget. This is something Putin hates but which is a legitimate expenditure of self-defense monies to help keep the world safer, particularly from the threat of an Iranian missile. Third, we should dramatically accelerate the approval process for U.S. companies seeking to export liquefied natural gas. Congress can take the lead here by amending the 1938 Natural Gas Act, an antiquated, Depression-era law that has become an obstacle to economic growth and U.S. foreign policy interests. Even in the short term, most of our LNG exports would go to Asia, it is true, rather than Europe, but it would increase overall the supply, and expediting and expanding those exports would increase that global supply, help push down prices, and signal to Vladimir Putin that Washington is determined to squeeze his gas revenues and break his energy stranglehold on Eastern Europe. That is why members of both political parties have called for boosting and accelerating LNG exports as quickly as possible. Those can begin to flow from the United States as early as 2015, thus increasing supply, alleviating dependency on other sources, and send a very important message to Mr. Putin. All of the actions I have described would send a powerful message to Moscow and help maximize our diplomatic leverage in the current crisis. The March 20 sanctions were a good start. The legislation that is crafted by my friend from Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, along with Senator Menendez, the chairman, are a good start, but there is more that can be done and should be done. I hope the majority leader will allow a reasonable and rational process to allow other Members in the body to participate by adding their constructive ideas to this legislation, which will pass by the end of the week, but I think there are a multitude of good ideas that could be added to it to make it even stronger and send an even more effective message to Vladimir Putin and, hopefully, discourage him from acting further in his naked aggression in Ukraine. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul).