Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the resolution of disapproval I am introducing today via the Congressional Review Act repeals a Social Security regulation that unfairly stigmatizes people with disabilities. It also violates the fundamental nature of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment recognizes the God-given right to self-defense. In order to take away that right, the government must have a compelling interest. Furthermore, the law of regulation to achieve that compelling interest must be narrowly tailored. In other words, the government better have one heck of a good reason for going against the Second Amendment. The Justice Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Social Security Administration have not protected Second Amendment rights adequately under the previous administration. Our fundamental Second Amendment rights were constantly under attack. For example, hundreds of thousands of veterans have been reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System without due process. Of course, that system amounts to a national gun ban list for those reported erroneously. Veterans were reported without first having a neutral authority find them to be a danger to self or others and thus have a legitimate right to deny them their Second Amendment rights. According to the government, the veterans needed a fiduciary to manage benefit payments. That is not a sufficient reason under the law. Needing help with your finances--simply needing that help--should not mean you have surrendered your fundamental right of self-defense, and it doesn't mean that you are a danger to the public. On May 17, 2016, Senator Durbin and I debated my amendment that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to first find veterans to be a danger before reporting their name to the gun ban list. During the course of that debate, Senator Durbin admitted that the list was broader than it should have been. Senator Durbin said: ``Let me just concede at the outset, reporting 174,000 names goes too far, but eliminating 174,000 names goes too far.'' For the record, there were 260,381 names from the Veterans' Administration sent to the gun ban list for allegedly being in the ``mental defective'' category. Now, it just happens that this was 98.8 percent of all the names in that category. So the Veterans' Administration reported more names by far than any other agency. Senator Durbin's staff and mine have met over these issues since that debate. I appreciate and thank Senator Durbin for that outreach, and I want to work together with him to solve these problems for the VA. But now, the Social Security Administration is about to make the same mistake as the Veterans' Administration; that is, unless we stop them right here and right now with this resolution of disapproval. If we don't stop this, it could lead to hundreds of thousands of Social Security recipients being improperly reported to the gun ban list. At its core, Social Security's new regulation allows the agency to report people to the gun ban list under two circumstances. First, the beneficiary needs to have someone designated to help manage benefit payments. That sounds like the VA; right? Two, the beneficiary has an affliction based on a broad ``disorders list.'' But the process for designating someone to help a recipient manage Social Security benefits is not a process that is very objective. But the process for designating someone to help a recipient manage their Social Security benefit should be objective. The former Social Security Administration inspector general said the following last year in testimony about this process that offends us here in the Senate and is the reason of this resolution: ``It's not a scientific decision, it's more of a personal opinion.'' This ``personal opinion'' of a bureaucrat cannot be the basis for taking away a person's fundamental Second Amendment right to bear arms. Further, the second element--the so-called ``disorders list''--is a convoluted mess of afflictions that may or may not cause someone to be considered dangerous. Many of the listed disorders also do not impact gun safety at all. For example, some afflictions deal with anxiety disorders, fear of large crowds, or a lack of self-esteem. The list is complex, the list is long, and the list is not designed to regulate firearms. Rather, the list is designed to regulate whether a person can manage his or her beneficiary payments--in other words, can they handle money. But here is the essential question that the Federal Government is incapable of answering. If they aren't dangerous, why does the Social Security Administration, like the VA, want to take away their guns? The National Council on Disability, a nonpartisan and independent Federal agency, has come out against the Social Security Administration's rule and in favor of the repeal that this resolution of disapproval will accomplish. The Council has repeatedly stated its concerns about the agency failing to determine that people are dangerous before reporting their names to the gun ban list. It has been the National Council on Disability's ``long-held position that restrictions on gun possession and ownership based on psychiatric or intellectual disability must be based on a verifiable concern as to whether the individual poses a heightened risk of danger to themselves or others.'' The Council has also stated that the rule ``unnecessarily and unreasonably deprives individuals with disabilities of a constitutional right, it increases the stigma for those who, due to their disabilities, may need a representative payee.'' Another organization, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, a coalition of 100 national disability groups, shares the same concerns about the regulation about which we are having this resolution of disapproval: ``The current public dialogue is replete with inaccurate stereotyping of people with mental disabilities as violent and dangerous, and there is a real concern that the kind of policy change encompassed by this rule will reinforce those unfounded assumptions.'' With that being said, even the ACLU wrote a letter in opposition to the agency regulation. I ask unanimous consent that these letters, as well as others, be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. Simply stated, the agency rule uses a massive regulatory net that captures innocent individuals who should be left alone. Just because a person is assigned a fiduciary does not make that person or those persons dangerous. Whenever the government tries to eliminate fundamental constitutional rights, it is required to narrowly tailor its regulatory action so that innocent people are not impacted. The Social Security regulation fails in that regard. That is why both the National Council on Disability and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities have called specifically for using the Congressional Review Act to repeal the final rule. That is what our introduction of resolution will accomplish. Constitutional due process is wholly lacking. For example, the agency does not afford a beneficiary a formal hearing before his or her name is reported to the gun ban list. Now, think about that. The Second Amendment, which recognizes a fundamental constitutional right, is being simply ripped away without a formal dispute process to initially challenge the action. Instead, the beneficiary must wait until their name is already on the gun ban list, and only then can the beneficiary appeal the decision by the grace of the government. This process effectively reverses what should be a burden on the government. The government should not be able to strip a fundamental constitutional right without due process and then place the burden on the citizen to try to restore it. A hearing should be afforded before the infringement of a fundamental right, not afterward. The burden must be on the government to prove its case. That simply is the American way--our Constitution's way. The Social Security Administration regulation falsely claims that it requires an adjudication before reporting names to the gun ban list, but there is no hearing afforded to the Social Security recipient before placing a name on the gun ban list. Of course, without a hearing, that process cannot honestly be called an adjudication. In other words, the Social Security Administration is blowing blue smoke when they say that. Without an adjudication, the process violates Federal law. Here is the kicker. In order for beneficiaries to remove their names from the gun ban list, they have to prove they are not dangerous. Guilty until proven innocent, and the burden is on you to prove your innocence. Any way you look at it, that is totally unfair, a violation of the Constitution, but common sense ought to tell everybody it is just plain wrong. The Federal Government, under the Obama administration, treated Social Security recipients with contempt and disregard when this rule was put out. With our resolution of disapproval, we can effectively terminate this unconstitutional government regulation, which the new Trump Administration supports. I encourage all of my colleagues to support our efforts.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. Speaker, today I want to recognize Thomas D. Homan, who will step down this month as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations. Mr. Homan has served in law enforcement for 36 years, including 33 years enforcing our Nation's border and immigration laws. He began his career in 1981 as a police officer in New York. In 1984, he became a U.S. Border Patrol agent with his first assignment in the San Diego sector. In 1988, he became a special agent with the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Phoenix, AZ. There, he climbed through the ranks, first to supervisory special agent, and later to deputy assistant director for investigations. In 1999, Mr. Homan became the assistant district director for investigations in San Antonio, TX. Upon the creation of ICE in 2003, Mr. Homan was named as the assistant special agent in charge in Dallas, TX. He was later promoted to deputy special agent in charge. In March 2009, Mr. Homan accepted the position of Assistant Director for Enforcement at ICE headquarters in Washington, DC. He was subsequently promoted to Deputy Executive Associate Director in 2010 and was again promoted in May 2013 to lead ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations as its Executive Associate Director. In December 2015, Mr. Homan was awarded the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service. He has served this country for many years and has had a notable career in helping to protect the homeland. I ask that my colleagues join me in offering our appreciation for his service and congratulations on his retirement.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. Pisesident, I have fought for years to protect our Nation's seniors from abuse and exploitation, initially, as former Chairman of the Senate Aging Committee, former Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and more recently, as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This past June, I chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing on Protecting Older Americans from Financial Exploitation. At the hearing, we heard about numerous scams in which seniors were targeted time after time, resulting in their being defrauded, often with devastating consequences. We also heard that many older Americans don't report instances of elder abuse or exploitation due to embarrassment, a refusal to acknowledge that they were victimized, or reliance on the perpetrator as their caretaker. Sadly, these accounts of elder abuse are nothing new. What has changed is that the scams targeting seniors are becoming increasingly sophisticated. That is one of the reasons why elder financial exploitation has been dubbed ``the crime of the 21st century.'' I have made it a top priority to get the Federal Government to step up its efforts to fight the abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation of our Nation's seniors. Last year, I called on the Justice Department to outline its efforts to prevent and respond to instances of elder abuse. First, I sent a letter to the Department to find out what it's doing to protect seniors from a new and particularly troubling form of exploitation: the photographing and online publication of nursing home residents in embarrassing and compromising situations. I also sent a letter to inquire about the Department's efforts to fight imposter scams, in which fraudsters pose as employees of the IRS or another government agency, in order to deprive ordinary Americans of millions of dollars of their hard earned money. And as tax season approaches once again, it's critical that folks watch out for these deceitful scams. I also asked about the data the Department is collecting on financial exploitation, as well as how this data is being used to support Federal efforts to protect America's seniors. In its response to my inquiries, the Justice Department effectively admitted that it falls short in several respects. The Department said that it ``does not collect data on the prevalence of elder financial exploitation nationwide.'' Further, the Department said that it can't provide statistical information on the number of cases it has prosecuted for elder financial exploitation. What all this means is that we are not getting the full picture of elder financial exploitation. We do know that some older Americans' trusting and polite nature, combined with their hard-earned retirement savings, make them particularly attractive targets for fraudsters. We also know that the abuse and exploitation of older Americans is on the rise and it can take many forms. Financial exploitation is the most widespread form of elder abuse, costing America's seniors between an estimated $2.9 billion and $36 billion annually. But, sadly, its costs aren't limited to the negative effect on seniors' bank accounts. Victims suffer all sorts of negative effects, including diminished health, loss of independence, and psychological distress. It is estimated that up to 37 percent of seniors in the United States are affected by some form of financial exploitation in any 5-year period. In my home State of Iowa, so-called grandparent scams are on the rise. In these scams, fraudsters present themselves to an older American as a grandchild in distress, hoping to convince the grandparent to send cash or give out a credit card number. Con artists are also using sweepstakes scams to steal money from seniors. A senior is called and told they have won a prize or sum of money. But before they can claim the supposed prize, the victim is required to pay taxes or processing fees. Once the money is paid to cover the taxes and fees, however, no prize ever materializes. Other instances of elder financial exploitation are more personal in nature and have especially devastating effects. Some victims are pressured into signing over a deed, modifying a will, or giving a power of attorney. Americans have lost their farms, homes, and life savings to this form of fraud. In short, elder abuse and exploitation is a serious problem, and it demands a strong response. It requires all of us to work together in a collaborative way. So, today I am proud to introduce the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act. I thank my colleagues--Senators Blumenthal, Tillis, Klobuchar, and Cornyn for collaborating with me on this comprehensive and bipartisan bill's development and for joining as original cosponsors. It takes a multi-pronged approach to combating the abuse and financial exploitation of our nation's senior citizens. We have heard a need for specialized prosecutors and more focused efforts to combat abuse and exploitation. That is why the bill directs the Attorney General to designate at least one federal prosecutor in each U.S. Attorney's Office to serve as an Elder Justice Coordinator for that district. To ensure that elder abuse is a priority for the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, the bill also calls for each agency to have an Elder Justice Coordinator. We also need to send a strong message that efforts to target our Nation's seniors won't be tolerated. That is why the bill enhances elder victims' access to restitution and increases penalties for criminals who use telemarketing or email in their schemes to defraud seniors. The bill also requires that the Justice Department partner with the Department of Health and Human Services to provide training and technical assistance to State and local governments on the investigation, prevention, prosecution, and mitigation of elder abuse and neglect. Finally we have heard about the need for more data on financial exploitation and the government's response. Gathering accurate information about elder abuse is not only crucial to understanding the scope of the problem, but it is also essential in determining where resources should be allocated. So, the bill helps to accomplish that. It requires that data be collected from federal prosecutors and law enforcement in cases where an older American was the target of abuse or exploitation. These and other reforms included in the bill are the product of a truly bipartisan effort, as well as insight from key stakeholders and those who've been battling elder financial exploitation on the front lines. This 21st century crime requires a 21st century response. The Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act takes a strong step toward protecting our Nation's seniors, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for too long, American families, farmers, and job creators have suffered under President Obama's regulatory onslaught. His administration threw caution to wind, pumping out regulation after regulation and further entangling the government into Americans' daily lives. In November, the American people issued a strong rebuke to President Obama's overreach and his administration's way of doing business. They want a new direction. They want more accountability. They want more transparency. They want the government off their backs so that they can get back to making this country great again. President-elect Trump has committed to working with Congress to roll back the regulatory overreach of the Obama administration, and to making the government more answerable to the people. So, I rise today to introduce an important piece of legislation that will help achieve these goals and ensure a more accountable and transparent government going forward. By some estimates, Federal Government regulations impose over $2 trillion in compliance costs--on the American economy. The cost of complying with all these regulations falls particularly heavy on small businesses. It is no wonder why many American businesses have shut down or moved overseas. How many innovators dreamed of starting a small business but decided against it when faced with the burden and uncertainty of our regulatory state? We have to do better. The Federal Government should do everything possible to promote job creation. To accomplish that, common sense would tell us that the government needs to remove bureaucratic barriers rather than put up new ones. But as we all know, the Obama administration showed time and again that it would rather push forward with its regulatory agenda than ease the burden on our economy and job creators. Adding insult to injury, the Obama administration often kept folks in the dark about new regulatory initiatives. Through secretive litigation tactics, the administration took end- runs around our nation's transparency and accountability laws. It is a strategy known as sue-and-settle, and regulators have been using it to speed up rulemaking and keep the public away from the table when key policy decisions are made. Sue-and-settle typically follows a similar pattern. First, an interest group files a lawsuit against a federal agency, claiming that the agency has failed to take a certain regulatory action by a statutory deadline. The interest group seeks to compel the agency to take action by a new, often-rushed deadline. All too often, the plaintiff-interest group will be one that shares a common regulatory agenda with the agency that it sues, such as when an environmental group sues the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. Next, the agency and interest group enter into negotiations behind closed doors to produce either a settlement agreement or consent decree that commits the agency to satisfy the interest group's demands. The agreement is then approved by a court, binding executive discretion. Noticeably absent from these negotiations, however, are the very parties who will be most impacted by the resulting regulations. Sue-and-settle tactics undermine transparency, public accountability, and the quality of public policy. They can have sweeping consequences. For example, the Obama administration's so-called Clean Power Plan, which is the most expensive regulation ever to be imposed on the energy industry, arose out of a sue-and-settle arrangement. These tactics also undermine congressional intent. The Administrative Procedure Act, APA, which has been called the citizens' ``regulatory bill of rights,'' was enacted to ensure transparency and accountability in the regulatory process. A key protection is the notice-and-comment process, which requires agencies to provide notice of proposed regulations and to respond to comments submitted by the public. Rulemaking through sue-and-settle, however, frequently results in re- aligned agency agendas and short deadlines for regulatory action. This makes the notice-and-comment process a mere formality. It deprives regulated entities, the States and the general public of sufficient time to have any meaningful input. The resulting regulatory action is driven not by the public interest, but by special interest priorities, and can come as a complete surprise to those most affected by it. Sue-and-settle litigation also helps agencies avoid accountability. Instead of having to answer to the public for controversial regulations and policy decisions, agency officials can just point to a court order entering the agreement and say that they were required to take action under its terms. We should also keep in mind that these agreements can have lasting impacts on the ability of future administrations to take a different policy approach--such as to remove regulatory burdens on farmers. Not only does this raise serious concerns about bad public policy, it also puts into question the constitutional impact of one administration's actions binding the hands of its successors. Sue-and-settle, and the consequences that come from such tactics, is not a new phenomenon. Evidence of sue-and-settle tactics and closed- door rulemaking can be found in nearly every administration over the previous few decades. But without a doubt, there was an alarming increase under the Obama administration. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that just during President Obama's first term, 60 Clean Air Act lawsuits against the EPA were resolved through consent decrees or settlement agreements. And since 2009, sue-and-settle cases against the EPA have imposed at least $13 billion in annual regulatory costs. But we now have an opportunity to curb these abuses, and an incoming administration that has committed to reining in the regulators. That is why today I am introducing the Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act. Senators Blunt, Inhofe, Cornyn, Cruz, Fischer, Rubio, Flake, Hatch, and Tillis are cosponsors of this important bill. And I'm pleased that Representative Doug Collins introduced a companion bill today in the House. The Sunshine bill increases transparency by shedding light on sue- and-settle tactics. It requires agencies to publish sue-and-settle complaints in a readily accessible manner. It requires agencies to publish proposed consent decrees and settlement agreements at least 60 days before they can be filed with a court. This provides a valuable opportunity for the public to weigh-in, which will increase accountability in the rulemaking process. The bill makes it easier for affected parties, such as States and businesses, to intervene in these lawsuits and settlement negotiations to ensure that their interests are properly represented. It requires the Attorney General to certify to a court that he or she has personally approved of the terms of certain proposed consent decrees or settlement agreements. And it requires courts to consider whether the terms of a proposed agreement are contrary to the public interest. The bill also makes it easier for succeeding administrations to modify a prior administration's consent decrees. That way, one administration won't be forced to continue the regulatory excesses of another. The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act will shine light on the problem of sue-and-settle. It will help rein in backroom rulemaking, encourage the appropriate use of consent decrees and settlements, and reinforce the procedures that Congress laid out decades ago to ensure a transparent and accountable regulatory process. I thank my colleagues for their support of this bill.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for too long, American families, farmers, and job creators have suffered under President Obama's regulatory onslaught. His administration threw caution to wind, pumping out regulation after regulation and further entangling the government into Americans' daily lives. In November, the American people issued a strong rebuke to President Obama's overreach and his administration's way of doing business. They want a new direction. They want more accountability. They want more transparency. They want the government off their backs so that they can get back to making this country great again. President-elect Trump has committed to working with Congress to roll back the regulatory overreach of the Obama administration, and to making the government more answerable to the people. So, I rise today to introduce an important piece of legislation that will help achieve these goals and ensure a more accountable and transparent government going forward. By some estimates, Federal Government regulations impose over $2 trillion in compliance costs--on the American economy. The cost of complying with all these regulations falls particularly heavy on small businesses. It is no wonder why many American businesses have shut down or moved overseas. How many innovators dreamed of starting a small business but decided against it when faced with the burden and uncertainty of our regulatory state? We have to do better. The Federal Government should do everything possible to promote job creation. To accomplish that, common sense would tell us that the government needs to remove bureaucratic barriers rather than put up new ones. But as we all know, the Obama administration showed time and again that it would rather push forward with its regulatory agenda than ease the burden on our economy and job creators. Adding insult to injury, the Obama administration often kept folks in the dark about new regulatory initiatives. Through secretive litigation tactics, the administration took end- runs around our nation's transparency and accountability laws. It is a strategy known as sue-and-settle, and regulators have been using it to speed up rulemaking and keep the public away from the table when key policy decisions are made. Sue-and-settle typically follows a similar pattern. First, an interest group files a lawsuit against a federal agency, claiming that the agency has failed to take a certain regulatory action by a statutory deadline. The interest group seeks to compel the agency to take action by a new, often-rushed deadline. All too often, the plaintiff-interest group will be one that shares a common regulatory agenda with the agency that it sues, such as when an environmental group sues the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. Next, the agency and interest group enter into negotiations behind closed doors to produce either a settlement agreement or consent decree that commits the agency to satisfy the interest group's demands. The agreement is then approved by a court, binding executive discretion. Noticeably absent from these negotiations, however, are the very parties who will be most impacted by the resulting regulations. Sue-and-settle tactics undermine transparency, public accountability, and the quality of public policy. They can have sweeping consequences. For example, the Obama administration's so-called Clean Power Plan, which is the most expensive regulation ever to be imposed on the energy industry, arose out of a sue-and-settle arrangement. These tactics also undermine congressional intent. The Administrative Procedure Act, APA, which has been called the citizens' ``regulatory bill of rights,'' was enacted to ensure transparency and accountability in the regulatory process. A key protection is the notice-and-comment process, which requires agencies to provide notice of proposed regulations and to respond to comments submitted by the public. Rulemaking through sue-and-settle, however, frequently results in re- aligned agency agendas and short deadlines for regulatory action. This makes the notice-and-comment process a mere formality. It deprives regulated entities, the States and the general public of sufficient time to have any meaningful input. The resulting regulatory action is driven not by the public interest, but by special interest priorities, and can come as a complete surprise to those most affected by it. Sue-and-settle litigation also helps agencies avoid accountability. Instead of having to answer to the public for controversial regulations and policy decisions, agency officials can just point to a court order entering the agreement and say that they were required to take action under its terms. We should also keep in mind that these agreements can have lasting impacts on the ability of future administrations to take a different policy approach--such as to remove regulatory burdens on farmers. Not only does this raise serious concerns about bad public policy, it also puts into question the constitutional impact of one administration's actions binding the hands of its successors. Sue-and-settle, and the consequences that come from such tactics, is not a new phenomenon. Evidence of sue-and-settle tactics and closed- door rulemaking can be found in nearly every administration over the previous few decades. But without a doubt, there was an alarming increase under the Obama administration. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that just during President Obama's first term, 60 Clean Air Act lawsuits against the EPA were resolved through consent decrees or settlement agreements. And since 2009, sue-and-settle cases against the EPA have imposed at least $13 billion in annual regulatory costs. But we now have an opportunity to curb these abuses, and an incoming administration that has committed to reining in the regulators. That is why today I am introducing the Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act. Senators Blunt, Inhofe, Cornyn, Cruz, Fischer, Rubio, Flake, Hatch, and Tillis are cosponsors of this important bill. And I'm pleased that Representative Doug Collins introduced a companion bill today in the House. The Sunshine bill increases transparency by shedding light on sue- and-settle tactics. It requires agencies to publish sue-and-settle complaints in a readily accessible manner. It requires agencies to publish proposed consent decrees and settlement agreements at least 60 days before they can be filed with a court. This provides a valuable opportunity for the public to weigh-in, which will increase accountability in the rulemaking process. The bill makes it easier for affected parties, such as States and businesses, to intervene in these lawsuits and settlement negotiations to ensure that their interests are properly represented. It requires the Attorney General to certify to a court that he or she has personally approved of the terms of certain proposed consent decrees or settlement agreements. And it requires courts to consider whether the terms of a proposed agreement are contrary to the public interest. The bill also makes it easier for succeeding administrations to modify a prior administration's consent decrees. That way, one administration won't be forced to continue the regulatory excesses of another. The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act will shine light on the problem of sue-and-settle. It will help rein in backroom rulemaking, encourage the appropriate use of consent decrees and settlements, and reinforce the procedures that Congress laid out decades ago to ensure a transparent and accountable regulatory process. I thank my colleagues for their support of this bill.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes, for one moment.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, because----

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, it is because of ObamaCare that the health insurance markets in this country are badly damaged. They have gotten worse each year. They are now near collapse. You were told 8 years ago that if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. Millions can't. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Millions of Americans were not able to keep their doctor. You were told that your health insurance premiums would go down $2,500. They have actually gone up probably $3,500. Some people don't have a choice in plans. Some counties don't even have a plan in the exchange. If you could get a plan, you might not be able to afford it. If you could afford the plan, you might not be able to use it because of the high copayments you have to have. So it is not a very good situation. It took 6 years for the health insurance market to get as bad as I just described. It will take time for those markets to be restored. The next few years in health care will be challenging if ObamaCare is repealed or even if it is not repealed. If ObamaCare is not repealed, it will be even longer before Americans have access to a functioning health insurance market and the insurance plans they want. When it comes to health care, every second counts. We owe it to the American people who are sick or who could get sick, as well as families and businesses trying to plan for the future, to start fixing that problem right now. That is the result of the election. That is what the Senate is going to do. The Affordable Care Act, which could more appropriately be called the Unaffordable Care Act, has been a case of over-promise and under- delivery. People were told that their premiums would go down and that if they liked their doctor, their hospital, or their health care plan, they could keep all of it. The reality is much different. More than half of the country had two or fewer insurance plans from which to choose this year. Some regions had no insurance plans available at all. Even those who were strong supporters of the health care law, like the Minnesota Governor whom I like to quote, have said the Affordable Care Act ``is no longer affordable to many Americans.'' In my State of Iowa, the Affordable Care Act premium increases this year were over 40 percent for many individuals. Few people, of course, can afford that. Families that did manage to purchase Affordable Care Act insurance found that they could no longer afford to use it. One Iowan recently called my office and told me that his premiums have increased 400 percent in 3 years. He also said that his deductible went up to--can you believe it--$14,000. Last year, one of his children had a major medical problem, and they had to pay for all of that care out of their pocket--not from the insurance. The family paid $12,000 for the Affordable Care Act insurance, which did not pay for any health care. Of course, that just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The problem is that the Affordable Care Act did nothing to address the underlying causes of the high cost of health care; that is, what it costs for a hospital or a doctor to purchase or maintain medical equipment, purchase medicines, carry malpractice insurance, and a lot of other costs they have. Rather than address the actual cost to care, President Obama and his colleagues chose to bypass real health care reform for an unsustainable entitlement and bureaucratic mandates that have priced people out of the health insurance market, rather than provide those same people with affordable and quality coverage. So we are at it now. It is time for real health care reform, not the misguided policies that we were promised 8 years ago that now have turned out to be what I describe as misguided policies. It is time to deliver to Americans what we were promised. It is time to provide accessible, affordable health care to all Americans. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle need to work with us. They know that the Affordable Care Act is falling apart. They know it is unaffordable. As we have heard in speeches this week, the other side is trying to distract attention from the Affordable Care Act collapse by using scare tactics, like you recently heard. It is time for the Democrats to step up, instead of doubling down. It is time for statesmanship, not gamesmanship. It is time for the Democrats to stop defending the ``un- Affordable Care Act'' and deliver Americans what was promised. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Trump administration to deliver affordable health care to all Americans in the tradition of the Senate, which is what didn't happen in 2009. It was strictly a one-party program put before the Congress to pass. That is why it has failed--because so many of the people who could have made a good bill pass in 2009 were shut out of the process because this body had 60 Democratic Members and they didn't have to pay any attention to Republicans. They spent maybe 8 or 9 months trying to work with the Republicans to negotiate a bipartisan deal. But before that was completed, they said: Take it or leave it. The Republican minority at that time was not going to be dictated to, and we were pushed out of the room. Then what ended up being the Affordable Care Act was written in the big black hole of Senate Majority Leader Reid's office, without the bipartisan input which has made so many social programs in America successful. I would name the Social Security Act. I would name civil rights legislation, Medicare legislation, and Medicaid legislation, which all had broad bipartisan support to get them passed. In the case of the Civil Rights Act, a higher proportion of Republicans voted for it than Democrats voted for it--just one example. That is the tradition of the Senate when you have major social legislation that has been successful, and that is why the Affordable Care Act was not successful--because it was strictly a partisan approach that was used to have it become law. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for a long time, my friend Senator Leahy and I have worked hard to improve protections for FBI employees who report waste, fraud, and abuse. In March 2015, we held a hearing in the Judiciary Committee examining the FBI whistleblower program. That hearing addressed Department of Justice and Government Accountability Office reviews of the program. Both of those reviews found significant problems. The biggest problem is a longstanding loophole the Department created in its interpretation of the statutory protections for FBI whistleblowers. The Department's rules only protect FBI employees who experience reprisal after they report wrongdoing to a handful of offices or individuals. But those rules do not recognize that almost all whistleblowers first report wrongdoing to their immediate supervisor. Then they go up the chain of command. It is just human nature that, when you spot a problem at work, you tell your boss. FBI policy even encourages employees to report through their chain of command. Yet under the current rules, those same employees have no remedy if they suffer reprisal for disclosing waste, fraud, or abuse to their boss. According to the Government Accountability Office, in 5 years, roughly one-third of FBI reprisal complaints were dismissed because the employee made the report to the ``wrong person'' in their management chain. It doesn't matter if the original disclosure uncovered actual wrongdoing. If the employee who reported it experiences retaliation, there is nothing they can do about it. Worse, FBI employees are the only employees in the Federal Government without these protections. Even whistleblowers in the intelligence community, thanks to the President's Policy Directive No. 19, are protected when they make disclosures to their supervisors. But the employees of the FBI have been left behind. The problem stems from an apparent compromise Congress reached in 1978 as part of the Civil Service Reform Act. There were some in the Congress at the time that wanted to exempt the FBI completely from important whistleblower protections. But this was 1978, only a few years after J. Edgar Hoover's reign over the FBI ended. It had become very clear in those years that the FBI was not immune to abuses of power. So the FBI got its own provision in the U.S. Code, separate from the protections that apply to most other nonmilitary Federal employees. The point was to provide protections similar to those available for other Federal employees. But, when the Department wrote its rules, it strictly limited the number of people FBI employees could report to. The Department said that it should not protect disclosures to supervisors because that would mean the same people who are prohibited from engaging in reprisal--supervisors--would receive disclosures. But that was not the intent. The whole point of the whistleblower protection laws is to protect the whistleblower from the person who is going to retaliate against them for disclosing waste, fraud, or abuse. That is typically the person who receives their disclosures--which is almost always a direct supervisor. But the Department's current rules leave those employees out in the cold. The result? As I said, roughly one-third of FBI employee reprisal complaints have been dismissed because they did what FBI policy tells them to do. They reported to their chain of command. This result is absurd and not what Congress intended. Congress wanted to encourage disclosures of wrongdoing so that problems could be more easily identified and then fixed. How can you fix problems if your employees do not have a logical, safe way to raise them? The answer is that you can't. Moreover, there are many other federal law enforcement agencies that function under the same whistleblower protections as non-law enforcement agencies. There is no logical reason for the FBI to have unique, separate, and inadequate standards for protecting whistleblower disclosures. So I and Senator Leahy drafted the FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. The bill amends the FBI whistleblower statute to clarify, once and for all, that FBI whistleblowers are protected for disclosing waste, fraud, and abuse in their chain of command. This change was recommended by the Government Accountability Office in its 2015 review. It is also supported by the Office of Special Counsel, the Department's Office of the Inspector General, and numerous good government and whistleblower advocacy groups. Even FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch have both testified before the Judiciary Committee that disclosures to supervisors should be protected. Now, we passed a version of this bill out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously. That version would have made additional meaningful changes to the FBI whistleblower program. The bill adopted by the Committee would also have addressed the other problems identified in the Justice Department report and the Government Accountability Office study. Most importantly, the bill that passed the Committee would have dealt with the lengthy delays in the Department's internal investigation and adjudication process. We also wanted to provide FBI whistleblowers with some relief when the inspector general finds in their favor. That way, FBI would be encouraged to settle cases instead of wasting taxpayer money defending reprisal. We wanted to require the Department to make its decisions on these cases publicly available. That way, the FBI would not be the only party in these cases with access to case precedent. We also wanted to be sure that FBI employees had opportunities for a fair and independent hearing and the ability to seek relief from a court of appeals. In that case, at least someone outside the Department would be able to hold the Department and the FBI accountable. But, behind the scenes, the FBI and the Justice Department objected to these provisions--although they never provided any official written comment on the bill. They claimed our reforms would jeopardize national security. But they never, ever said how. In nearly a year, they could not produce one single specific, coherent concern with the process that we developed. They had no response to the fact that classified information has not been an issue in FBI cases. Reprisal complaints generally can be considered without ever addressing classified information. The Department's own rules tell employees not to file classified information as part of the whistleblower program; and there has never been an FBI case that required the consideration of classified information. The FBI even initially objected to the provision recommended by GAO that would protect disclosures to supervisors. The FBI claimed that their employees' work was too sensitive. But that claim holds no water because employees in the intelligence community are protected for reporting wrongdoing to their supervisors. Now, we have waited nearly a year for constructive, good-faith feedback on our other reforms, but have received none. And unfortunately, we have not been able to reach a unanimous agreement on those issues this year or obtain time for debate and a vote on the floor. I am very disappointed. However, we still found a way forward on one key provision of this legislation. FBI employees have waited long enough to be protected for the same disclosures as everyone else in the Federal Government. Year after year, decade after decade, so many FBI employees have been retaliated against with no legal recourse. Well, that ends now. We can keep working together on other, much- needed reforms, and we will. We are not finished with the great work left to do to improve FBI whistleblower protections. Other issues identified by the Government Accountability Office and by the Justice Department itself still need to be addressed. But with the passage of the amendment to our bill, FBI employees will finally have a remedy if they are retaliated against for reporting waste, fraud, and abuse to their supervisors--just like every other Federal employee in the vast American bureaucracy. I am thankful for the support and hard work of Senator Leahy on these issues for so many years and for working so closely with me on this legislation. I also am very thankful for Representative Chaffetz's leadership on this issue in the House. I know that he and Representatives Jeffries and Cummings have been great advocates for this change. Most of all, I am grateful for the FBI whistleblowers I have worked with over the years, folks like Fred Whitehurst, Jane Turner, Michael German, Robert Kobus, Darin Jones, and so many more. This would never have come to pass without your leadership, persistence, and personal sacrifice. It has been a long road, but it has been a privilege to travel it with you. We are not done yet. But now, we are one very big step closer.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, the Senate passed the Inspector General Empowerment Act. This is a crucial piece of legislation to enable inspectors general to function independently and to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse within the government. I thank Senator McCain for working with me constructively to resolve the concerns he raised last week and for honoring the agreement we made in December 2015. Following Senator McCain's objection to my attempt to pass the IG bill by a live UC last Thursday, our staffs met and reached a compromise. We agreed to remove some provisions of the bill related to IG leave policy and IG reporting requirements. Although we disagreed on those provisions, I am glad that we agreed to preserve the most important parts of the bill. Namely, we preserved the provisions of the bill that provide inspectors general with timely access to all records of the agency that they are charged with overseeing. In addition, the bill contains numerous other provisions that strengthen IG independence and equip IGs with the necessary tools to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse within the Federal Government. The bill requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on prolonged IG vacancies and to provide recommendations for reducing these vacancies. It exempts IGs from getting computer matching agreements and from complying with the Paperwork Reduction Act, in order to ensure that IGs can obtain information and perform investigations without first obtaining agency approval. It improves the process by which IGs police the conduct of other IGs, to require that investigations are conducted in a more timely fashion. It promotes greater transparency by requiring IGs to report to Congress semiannually on impediments to their work, such as agency interference, reports that are not made otherwise available to the public, and whistleblower retaliation. Finally, it requires IGs to send IG recommendations to the heads of agencies and to Congress and to publicly post reports, unless otherwise prohibited by law. It is a waste of time and money to have agencies at war with their inspectors general over access to information. The inspectors general need to spend their time identifying and helping agencies eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse--not fighting for access to the information needed to do their job. The bureaucrats need to learn Congress intended for the law to mean exactly what it says. Unless a provision of law specifically mentions the inspector general and prevents access to certain kinds of documents, then those records should be provided. ``All records'' means ``all records.'' I thank my cosponsors who worked diligently with me over the past year-and-a-half to help this bill pass in the Senate.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, for the last 8 years, we have seen President Obama's administration take action after action and do it without regard for concerns expressed by the American people or their elected representatives in Congress, which amount to a great deal of unconstitutional or at least contrary-to-statute Executive overreach. The Obama administration used Executive fiat to push sweeping regulations with little thought about damage to American jobs. The Obama administration has repeatedly stretched its authority beyond limits set by Congress in law. It has twisted the same laws and even the Constitution itself to justify this Executive overreach. Despite early promises of transparency, it has kept the American people and the Congress in the dark about many of its most significant decisions. Americans are right, then, to be frustrated with what they see as more unnecessary burdens and unchecked abuses being handed down by an out-of-reach bureaucracy. In November, they made their voices heard. So now we are going to have a new President on January 20. President-Elect Trump has said that he intends to roll back the mess of harmful regulations and Executive power grabs of the last 8 years. He is certainly going to have his hands full, as we all know. But there is plenty that we can do to begin the process on January 20. President Obama's tenure has brought about an unprecedented expansion of the regulatory state. By some estimates, bureaucratic redtape now places a $2 trillion burden on the Nation's economy. You know who pays for that? The American people do. I don't doubt that there are some good intentions behind every new rule. But the notion that so-called experts in Washington, DC, need to regulate every aspect of our lives does not make much sense to many of the Iowans I talk to. They are hoping that a President Trump will bring common sense to Washington, DC. Take, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency's waters of the United States rule. It is often referred to by acronym WOTUS. This rule seeks to expand what the government can regulate under the Clean Water Act. Congress intentionally limited EPA's reach under the law to what is termed navigable waterways. But the WOTUS rule would subject 97 percent of the land in my State of Iowa to EPA bureaucratic burdens. I assume it does the same in several other States. But I have only checked on Iowa. So 97 percent of the land to be regulated by the EPA bureaucracy is just an impossible situation. Think about that. Every homeowner, every contractor, and every farmer would need to seek a Federal permit for projects requiring the simple task of moving dirt, even if it is nowhere near an actual body of water. That, of course, means more paperwork, more time wasted, and, of course, more money spent to get Federal permits for activities that this Congress never intended the Federal Government to regulate. A bipartisan majority of both Houses of Congress has voiced its disapproval of the WOTUS rule, and a Federal appeals court has placed a nationwide stay on its implementation. Yet I continue to hear concerns, regardless of the court case, that some in the EPA are going to move forward with the rule's implementation, causing unnecessary fear and confusion among farmers and landowners. So on day one, President Trump should direct his administration to stop defending the WOTUS rule in the Federal courts where it is now held up. He should also direct his EPA to immediately stop implementing or enforcing the rule while the Agency begins the rulemaking process to take it off the books once and for all. It is not just official regulations that have sparked concern over the last 8 years, the Obama administration has also used Executive actions, agency guidance documents, and legal interpretations to push its agenda, leaving Congress and the American people in the dark. Often this has been done with disturbing results. In 2014, the Obama administration acted unilaterally to release five senior-level Taliban commanders who were being held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for SGT Bowe Bergdahl. Now, that is contrary to law. Despite the requirements of law, the administration never notified Congress, as the law requires, prior to this prisoner's transfer. The law required the administration to provide Congress with a detailed statement of the basis for the release, an explanation for why it is in our national security interests, and a plan to prevent the prisoners from returning to the battlefield. Instead, Congress heard only crickets. The administration provided no notice to the Congress, no legal justification for the release, and no plan to prevent these Taliban commanders from reentering a fight that has already spilled so much blood of America's sons and daughters. One reporter said the Taliban has been more transparent about this exchange than the Obama administration. Even the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office later concluded that the administration acted illegally. Well, it is pretty clear. The law says that you have to give Congress 30 days' notice. They didn't give any notice. There were and still are, then, serious questions about whether releasing these detainees from Guantanamo was a good idea, even to the extent to which the law was violated. So I asked this administration to disclose the legal advice that the Department of Justice apparently provided that justified its failure to notify Congress in a timely way--in other words, a justification for ignoring the law. But the Department of Justice refused to do that. The public deserves a full and transparent accounting of why the administration believed it could disregard the law. On day one, then, President Trump should order the Justice Department to produce any legal advice that it concocted to excuse the Obama administration from its obligation to notify Congress of this decision 30 days before the release, because that is what the law says. Unfortunately, this isn't the only legal opinion the Obama administration has used to avoid scrutiny of its actions. The Justice Department also brewed up a ludicrous legal opinion to block government watchdogs from accessing Federal records needed in the course of congressional oversight. If this year has taught us anything, it is that the government needs more oversight, not less. It is unbelievable that a handful of unelected bureaucrats would try to defy the Congress and the people it represents by ignoring that law. Unfortunately, it hasn't stopped with the case I just cited. The Obama administration practically treats a congressional subpoena as if it were a freedom of information request rather than a constitutionally mandated inquiry from a coequal branch of government. This very issue is now being debated in the courts. But it is not just Congress that can't get information; the press and private citizens have had their freedom of information requests regularly met with very long delays, if they get any response at all. You know it is bad when the New York Times calls this White House the most secretive in more than two decades. President Trump should take steps to reverse this trend of more secrecy in government because more transparency in government will bring more accountability. On day one, he should direct his agency heads to cooperate with congressional inquiries, inspector general investigations, and FOIA requests, and he should empower government whistleblowers. Whistleblowers expose facts about wrongdoing and incompetence inside the vast Federal bureaucracy, often at risk of their own career and their own reputations and, in some cases, I found out, even their health. Without whistleblowers, Americans would be none the wiser that, for instance, the Justice Department walked guns that put law enforcement agents in jeopardy--that is the Fast and Furious investigation I did-- or that the EB-5 investor visa program is riddled with fraud, or that agencies spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to pay employees under investigation for misconduct who simply sit at home on paid leave. Information provided by whistleblowers under the Securities and Exchange Commission Whistleblower Program has brought in more than $584 million in financial sanctions. The Internal Revenue Service has collected more than $3 billion in tax revenues since 2007 thanks to whistleblowers under a piece of legislation I got passed in 2006, I believe it was. Since I pushed to empower and protect whistleblowers under the False Claims Act way back in 1986, the Federal Government has recovered more than $48 billion in taxpayers' money lost to fraud. That simple, quantifiable information is a good deal. But these brave employees often face retaliation from their own ranks. So I am going to suggest that if President Trump is going to be very serious about fixing the Federal bureaucracy, he should empower these patriotic citizens to help us identify fraud, abuse, and misconduct so that we can get this government working again. I will propose to the President-elect, when I get a chance to talk to him, something I have proposed to every President since Reagan. And no President, of course, has done this, and maybe it is ridiculous for me to think President Trump will do it, but he is coming to Washington to shake things up. I will suggest to him, to empower whistleblowers, who know there is fraud and who are patriotic people who want fraud corrected, that he hold a Rose Garden ceremony honoring whistleblowers, and maybe do it once a year so that they know that the tone from the top--that the new Commander in Chief has the backs of these patriotic soldiers for good government whom we call whistleblowers. Of course, what I have gone through in these remarks as I finish is far from an exhaustive list, but the common thread in all of this is that the Obama administration frequently failed to take care that the laws be faithfully executed as required by our Constitution. When that doesn't happen and Congress lets a President get away with it, then we are not upholding our oath to the Constitution, which basically says that Congress passes the law and they ought to be a check on the executive branch to see that the laws are faithfully executed. The person coming to town to drain the swamp--a person by the name of Trump--should prioritize these failures and begin to restore the executive branch to its proper place in government consistent with the checks and balances outlined in our Constitution. These actions will help the new President make good on his pledge to fix the Federal bureaucracy and do what he said last night on television in Des Moines, IA--put Americans first. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to alert the new Trump administration to a problem in the Defense Department. There is a festering sore needing high-level attention. I am talking about what turns out to be a formidable barrier. It stands in the way of an important goal: auditing the books of the Department of Defense. At times, this barrier makes the goal seem unattainable. The need for annual financial audits was originally established by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. By March of 1992, each agency was to present a financial statement to an inspector general for audit. Today, all have earned unqualified or clean opinions, except one, and guess what. The Department of Defense is that one. It has the dubious distinction, out of all of the Federal Government, of earning an unblemished string of failing opinions known as disclaimers. In the face of endless stumbling, Congress drew a new line in the sand. It is in section 1003 of the fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. The Pentagon was given an extra 7 years to clean up the books and get ready. Guess what. The slipping and sliding never stopped. The revised September 2017 deadline is staring us in the face, and all the evidence tells us the Department will never make it. The 25-year effort to audit the books is stuck in the mud. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to solve the root cause of the problem, and that root cause is a broken accounting system. But the fix is nowhere in sight. Until control at the transaction level is achieved, auditing the books is nothing more than a pipedream. Under the fiscal year 2010 law, the Financial Improvement and Auditing Readiness Plan, called FIAR, is supposed to tell us whether the financial statements of the Defense Department ``are validated as ready for audit by not later than September 30, 2017.'' The latest FIAR report hit the street last month, but it does not answer the key question: Is the Department of Defense ready for audit? I read it, and I don't know for sure. It is a study in fuzzy thinking. It is kind of like a riddle, and here is why. True, the Department boldly declares that it is audit-ready. But in the very same breath, the Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Mike McCord, takes a step backward. He warns that earning a clean opinion is ``many years'' away. Being audit-ready should offer a reasonable prospect for success, but something is really out of whack here. So the ultimate objective of section 1003 is a successful audit or clean opinion. Mr. McCord's words seem to turn that objective upside down. How can the Department be audit-ready and meet the deadline if it is still years away from a clean opinion? Mr. McCord's message appears to be downright confusing, contradictory, and possibly misleading. If he knows the Department of Defense is years away from a clean opinion, then he must also know that it is not audit-ready or even close to it. He has to know that the accounting system is incapable of producing reliable information that meets prescribed standards. That tells me the Department of Defense is not audit-ready yet, and he knows it--like everyone else. Before he steps down, Mr. McCord owes us an explanation for the confusing statements. And once the new Pentagon leadership is up to speed, I look forward to further clarification. I also hope this new team will address the wisdom of doing full financial statement audits when there is limited control at the transaction level. By proceeding with full-scale audits without it, Mr. McCord has put the cart in front of the horse. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year for audits with a zero probability of success is wasteful. I would like to remind my colleagues why a successful audit is so important. First and foremost, it would conform with constitutional requirements. It would strengthen internal controls and facilitate the detection of fraud and theft. But it is also important for more practical reasons: It would help bring about better, more informed decisionmaking. Management can't make good decisions with bad information. If accounting information is inaccurate and incomplete--as it is today at the Department of Defense--then management doesn't know what anything costs or how the money is being spent, and if they don't have that information at their fingertips, how could they possibly make good decisions? January 2015 was when the report I was referring to was first put out, but it was just now made public. Recent revelations about the $125 billion in ``administrative waste,'' which was allegedly suppressed by senior defense officials, is living proof of bad decisions. If the time ever comes when the Department of Defense's accounting system can generate reliable information, then such mistakes could be avoided. So I keep coming back to the same old questions: Why has faulty accounting information been tolerated at the Pentagon for all these years? How is it that the Pentagon is able to develop the most advanced weapons the world has ever known with relative ease and yet, for some strange reason, it seems unable to acquire the tools it needs to keep track of the money it spends? Why is this national disgrace being tolerated at the Pentagon? There are never-ending bureaucratic explanations, but there don't seem to be any solutions. With good leadership, this problem can be solved. The man nominated to be the next Secretary of Defense, Mr. James Mattis, strikes me as the kind of person who will tackle this problem head-on and run it to the ground until fixed. His record suggests he will not tolerate this kind of endless foot-dragging and inexcusable failure. Twenty-five years of lameduck excuses probably won't sit too well with this marine general. Either he will whip the accounting system into shape or heads will roll. According to press reports, ``failure'' is not a word that he knows or uses. With a new sheriff in town, maybe the endless, helpless ``woe is me'' hand-wringing at the Pentagon is about to come to a screeching halt. A modern, fully integrated finance and accounting system might be more than just the dream it has been. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Senator Leahy and I are on the floor for the same issue. I defer to Senator Leahy if he prefers to go first.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I heard my friend and colleague Senator Leahy express his opposition, and opposition that I share, to the EB-5 Regional Center Program. I am here for the same purpose, to express the same opposition to the EB-5 Regional Center Program that was extended without reforms. One year ago, we made similar statements. I could easily read the same statement I gave at that time and it would be just as relevant today. We are very disappointed that reforms were not included in the continuing resolution, which simply extended this very flawed immigration program. The EB-5 Regional Center Program has been plagued by fraud and abuse. It poses significant national security risks. There are serious allegations that the program may be facilitating terrorist travel, economic espionage, money laundering, and investment fraud. Yet considering all of those things, the continuing resolution before us fails to include much needed reforms. So after a year, we have yet another missed opportunity. The chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees have agreed on a package of reforms. We have worked in a bipartisan and bicameral fashion. We have agreed--all four of us--on every aspect. We instituted compliance measures, we instituted background checks, and we instituted transparency provisions. We made sure rural and distressed urban areas benefited from the program, as Congress already intended and as Senator Leahy very clearly laid out the problems. Despite the bipartisan support, not a single one of our recommendations will be implemented. Instead of reforming the program, we will have the status quo. The status quo means the following: Investments can be spent before business plans are approved. Regional Center operators can charge excessive fees of foreign nationals in addition to their required investments. None of the jobs created have to be ``direct'' or verifiable jobs, but rather they are ``indirect'' and based on estimates, not knowing for sure if there are jobs created or based upon economic modeling-- again, not knowing for sure if jobs are created. Investment funds are not adequately vetted. Gifts and loans from anyone are acceptable sources of funds from foreign nationals. There is no prohibition against foreign governments owning and operating regional centers or projects. Regional centers can be rented or sold without government oversight or approval. Regional centers don't have to certify that they comply with securities laws. There is no set of sanctions for any violations--in other words, no recourse for the bad actors. There are no required background checks on anyone associated with these regional centers. The investment level is lower than Congress ever intended. Gerrymandering continues, and rural and urban distressed areas then lose out. Site visits or even audits are not required. There is no transparency on how funds are spent, who is paid, and what investors are told about the projects they are investing in. The preferential treatment we have seen in the past is enabled without a strict code of conduct rules. Those are just some of the things that are wrong. The four of us on the two committees, in a bicameral and bipartisan way, tried to address awareness and have a process for dialogue leading to reform. My committee held two hearings this year. The House held one. Staff met with very interested stakeholders who asked for and we offered more concessions than we did last year. To top it off, we were ready to provide a 6-year reauthorization. This would have provided long-term stability for investors and regional centers. But let's talk about why this package was not acceptable to some, most notably, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which was the most rigid in not compromising. Here is a list of issues raised by this leading voice of business in opposition to our package. They want, in effect, one investment level. They don't want any meaningful discount for rural or urban distressed areas. Don't forget that this law was passed 20 years ago to help rural and high- unemployment areas. That is the purpose of it. They don't want visas set aside for areas that Congress selected as targeted employment areas for fear that investors in affluent areas would have to wait slightly longer for a visa. They didn't want to incentivize foreign investors to fund manufacturing projects that create long-term, sustainable, and real jobs that this country desperately needs. They wanted to make it harder for rural areas to qualify at a discount investment level, even though it is common knowledge that small and rural communities have a harder time attracting capital. They wanted certifications and compliance measures to be delegated to the agency. They did not want Congress to dictate transparencies and reporting requirements. We must remember that our job is to legislate, not to delegate. Delegating authority to the executive branch on this program would result in more of the same, because even by the departments in charge, there is very little oversight and monitoring now, even if it might be required by law. But not enough of it is required by law. That is why they get away with all this stuff. The Chamber of Commerce didn't like a provision saying a foreign national had to be 18 years old to invest and obtain a green card through the program. They would like children as young as 14 to be able to make these major financial decisions and invest up to $1 million--a 14-year-old, to do that. They wanted restrictions on where investor funds came from lifted. Our package limited a foreign national from taking out a questionable loan or taking gifts from unknown sources. One way to find out what is wrong is to follow the money. We wanted to be sure that those investing were doing so because they obtained funds lawfully. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wanted no such restrictions. They wanted foreign governments and even sovereign wealth funds to own EB-5 projects. They wanted to delay rules saying foreign governments could not own or administer regional centers by requiring bureaucratic rulemaking. Despite the changes we made this year on this very strict provision, they continued to want to water it down in every negotiating session we had. They didn't want regional centers to have to consult with local officials about EB-5 projects to ensure that economic development efforts were coordinated. They wanted to do away with a requirement that a foreign investor would have to create at least one direct job before obtaining a green card. Now, here we have a situation where a program was instituted 25 years ago to create jobs--particularly in rural America and high unemployment areas--and they don't even want the investors to show that they are going to create at least one job right now. Then they used economic modeling to show indirect jobs. Neither the existence of those jobs nor the location of those jobs can truly be verified. When you have the Federal Government setting up a program like this that is supposed to create jobs in rural areas and high unemployment areas, wouldn't you think there ought to be a way of showing that those jobs are actually created? They raise new concerns about provisions that have been discussed way back since last June, such as requiring regional centers to pay a fee to an enforcement and monitoring fund. They wanted a 3-day notification of a site visit by the agency to determine if the regional center truly exists. Sure, tell the inspectors you are coming so you can get everything in order before the inspectors get there. They fought efforts to require transparency of how investor funds were used. Now, this is a major problem of the existing program. Nearly every story of fraud relates to how regional center operators use EB-5 funds for their own personal gain and luxury. This program is meant to create jobs, not to help individuals in charge of the program have personal gain and, more importantly, even the luxury that might go with that. But the kicker in all of this is that these business interests insist on more visas and to make those visas even cheaper. They want Congress to increase immigration numbers through controversial recapture mechanisms or by exempting certain people from the annual cap. The pro- EB-5 groups want more visas for an already faulty program, which makes more money and puts more money in their pockets. On top of that, they asked us to make the visas cheaper than it is even under current law. I, of course, refused to do that. I refuse to go below the $1 million level that has been in law since 1990. The demand for visas is there. There is no justification to further cheapen this program and the green cards that come with that program. We will have 5 months until we are faced with another reauthorization because that is how far this continuing resolution goes. In those 5 months, I expect that proposed rules changing the investment level and stopping gerrymandering will be published by the end of the year by the Obama administration, and I will support those proposed rules. I will be asking the new Trump administration to keep those new regulations and build off them. In regard to the new administration coming in, they took a very strong position on various immigration issues. In taking that position, I would expect them to consider very closely the fraud and misuse of the EB-5 Program. When this administration sees things wrong with it and they correct those things that are wrong with it through regulation, those are regulations that should be backed up very solidly by the new administration coming in. Next year, we will have to start over again. So as we heard Senator Leahy speak about this--and we know his feelings and mine are very similar; I have already referred to the House Judiciary Committee--we will continue to work in a bipartisan and bicameral way to ensure this program. Now, I want to speak about the new ranking member, Senator Feinstein. I intend to continue this work as closely with her as I did with Ranking Member Leahy, and Ranking Member Leahy will still be involved in this process. I want to point out that she is not a fan of this program at all, and she has been very vocal about closing this program down because of all the fault we find with it, whether it is fraud, whether it is misuse of the program, whether it is possible terrorist activity taking advantage of it, or whatever it is for national security reasons--all of those. Some of these have been pointed out by law enforcement agencies at the Federal level. So I want everybody to know that change is coming. I have always wanted to reform the program, but I am not sure that the industry will ever come around. The leadership of this body and the other body could help by ending this program in a continuing resolution. Let it sunset, and let all these people come to the table with a more compromising point of view to correct everything that is wrong here. But the industry loves the status quo and, of course, they love the billions of dollars that pour into affluent areas. Consequently, the money is not directed where it was intended to in 1990, when this legislation was passed, which was to rural areas and high unemployment areas. I am not sure, with the attitude of the industry, that reforms are possible. So just leaning on Senator Feinstein a little bit and considering her point of view, it may be time to do away with the program completely. I said that same thing a year ago, and I repeat: Maybe we should spend our time, our resources, and our efforts in other programs that benefit the American people as opposed to benefiting the well-healed and the well-connected. Maybe it is time this program goes away. I yield the floor and thank Senator Leahy for his speaking on it.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, this Saturday, December 10, marks the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate. I am very proud to be the chairman of that committee--the first chairman who is not a lawyer, I might add--and I will be submitting a resolution, along with some other committee members, to commemorate this 200th anniversary. Madam President, 200 years ago, the Senate established 11 original standing committees. Today, although there are many committees, the Senate Judiciary Committee is one of four original committees that still meet today. During the past two centuries, some of the most vital and important questions facing the Nation have come before the committee. For example, during the Civil War, the committee ensured that President Lincoln had the emergency powers he needed to pursue the Civil War effort, and in 1864, the committee took a critical step in ending slavery in the United States when it reported the 13th Amendment of the Constitution. The committee has jurisdiction over issues that directly impact American lives and is on the forefront of deciding important policy issues, including immigration, civil liberties, criminal laws and the protection for victims, and, of course, civil rights. In addition, the committee examines those nominated for lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. Over the years, the committee has reported legislation that has been vital to the safety and protection of the American people. I don't have time today to discuss all the committee has accomplished over the last 200 years, but I do want to take a minute to recognize this important anniversary. I am very proud of the committee's storied history. Today, I celebrate these accomplishments and will follow that up with the submission of a resolution. I am truly humbled today to be its chairman. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to recognize Lt. Col. Wade E. Wiegel for his 22 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps. Wade is a native of Iowa, and I am proud to say that I nominated him for the U.S. Naval Academy in 1990. In May 1994, he earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering and reported to the Marine Corps' The Basic School. From there he completed flight training and was designated a naval aviator in March 1997. He deployed aboard the USS Enterprise in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Wade later served as the commanding officer for the VMFA-122 ``Crusaders'' and forward deployed the squadron for 6 months into the Pacific Theater in support of theater security cooperation activities with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. After graduating from the National War College, he served as a military adviser in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Most recently, Wade has served in the Office of Legislative Affairs as a congressional affairs officer. His personal decorations include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with Gold Star, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Gold Star. As he prepares to retire from the Marine Corps, I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his service to our country and to wish him well in his future endeavors.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute to Jim Lyons. Jim was a tax counsel for Chairman Hatch on the Finance Committee. Before that, he served as a tax counsel for the committee when I was ranking member. Jim had a medical emergency during a basketball game for charity which, unfortunately for us all, he did not survive. Those who knew Jim would not be surprised that he was spending an evening at an event to help others. He was well known for his generosity, whether it was donating holiday gifts for children in foster care or sharing his extensive knowledge of the Tax Code with younger staff who were learning the ropes. He was incredibly smart and had a zest for his work and for life that was joyous and inspiring to all of those around him. He loved to laugh and had a gift for making others laugh. Jim's quick wit is legendary, and he drew others to his company to hear what funny story or observation he might share next. Devising clever floor charts that made an insightful point about tax policy was a Jim Lyons specialty. He was extremely gifted in using humor to draw attention to a serious policy concern or to point out a political absurdity. It is a rare skill and one that Jim used to great effect. People liked to hear what he had to say. The tragedy of his loss in the prime of his life is immeasurable. Those of us who knew him take comfort in learning from his example. We can do serious work without taking ourselves too seriously. In fact, we might be much more successful by finding room to share a laugh with others. I wish Jim eternal peace and send my best wishes to his loving family.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Members of the Senate, I come to the floor to speak about and to propound a unanimous consent request in regard to the Inspector General's Empowerment Act. I would like to defer. I ask unanimous consent to not lose the floor but yield to Senator Johnson.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, while I am waiting for Senator McCain to come to the floor before I speak about the specific unanimous consent request I am going to make, I would like to point out, in a very general way, that the pursuit of what we are doing, in so many other ways, is part of Congress's constitutional responsibility and constitutional authority under the checks and balances of government to make sure the laws are faithfully executed. There are several different tools that are used in that direction. They can be individual Senators. Any time an individual Senator wants to ask questions of whether the laws are being faithfully executed, that Senator can do it, that Member of the House of Representatives can do it, through the particular committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives, through both letter as well as open hearings about certain subjects of whether money being spent by the executive branch is according to Congressional intent or whether laws are being carried out the way Congress intended. That is all part of congressional oversight, but there has also been seen a need, over a course of many years, for other ways to make sure it is done. One of those was the setting up of the Government Accountability Office that has authority, at the request of committees and request of individual Members of Congress, to investigate and do research on certain problems we have in the executive branch of government. That predates, by a long time, the passage of the inspectors general law that we are dealing with, with this subject I have before the Senate now. The inspector general was set up for the purpose of being within the executive branch to see that the laws are faithfully executed and the money spent according to Congress. I see that Senator McCain has come to the floor. I would like to make my opening statement on the legislation. I thank Senator McCain for the courtesy he gives me to come and listen to my request. Whatever he decides to do with it will be his choice, but I want to tell him I appreciate the cooperation he has given me on so many different things To justify my unanimous consent request, I start out with some of the issues that are involved with the legislation, the Inspector General Empowerment Act. In 1978, Congress created inspectors general or IGs as they are often known, to be the eyes and ears within the executive branch. These independent watchdogs are designed to keep Congress and the public informed about waste, fraud, and abuse in government. They also help agency leaders identify problems and inefficiencies they may not be aware of. IGs are a very critical part to good governance and to the rule of law. In order for IGs to do their job, they need independent access to information. That is why, when Congress passed the Inspector General Act of 1978, we explicitly said IGs should have access to all records of the agency they are charged with overseeing. However, since 2010, more and more agencies have refused to comply with this legal obligation. This obstruction has slowed down far too many important investigations, ranging from sexual assault in the Peace Corps to the FBI's exercise of anti-terrorism authority under the PATRIOT Act. Those are just two of the things I have been involved in. Every one of the other 99 Senators would probably have to say that in their oversight work, somehow the executive branch agencies have not carried out the spirit of the 1978 legislation. It got worse in July of 2016. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel released a memo supporting this obstruction of congressional intent. Now, let me put this in a commonsense form that surely everybody ought to understand. In 1978, Congress passes the inspectors general law. It is voted on by a majority of the Congress. It is sent to the President. The President signs it. It has been law since that period of time, but we have a situation where 1 bureaucrat out of 2 million Federal employees sits and reads something into a piece of legislation that was never intended because the legislation says the inspector general should be entitled to all records, but the Office of Legal Counsel opinion says: Well, maybe not all. It kind of depends on the head of the department. There are some exceptions in the inspectors general law that ought to be there--those are spelled out--some of them dealing with national security, some of them dealing with the Department of Defense, as just one example. So we have this opinion in July of 2016. The memo argued that Congress did not mean what it very clearly said; that the IG gets access to all records. This is unacceptable. It undermines Congress's intent. It undermines the rule of law. It makes a mockery of government transparency. The public deserves a robust scrutiny of the Federal Government. Every eighth grade civics student understands what checks and balances is all about. Congressional oversight is one of those checks. Since September 2015, a bipartisan group of Senators and I have been working to overturn the Justice Department's opinion through S. 579, the Inspector General Empowerment Act. Among other things, this bill further clarifies that Congress intended IGs to access all agency records, notwithstanding any other provision of law, unless--and this is a big unless--other laws specifically state that the IGs are not entitled to receive such access. A lot of those fall into the area of national security and defense. The bill has a total of 20 cosponsors, including seven of my Democratic colleagues: McCaskill, Carper, Mikulski, Wyden, Baldwin, Manchin and Peters. At the Judiciary Committee hearing in August of last year, Senator Leahy also agreed that this access problem needs to be fixed by legislation because it is ``blocking what was once a free flow of information.'' Even the Justice Department witness at that hearing disagreed with the results of the Office of Legal Counsel opinion and supported legislative action to solve the problem. As of today, a large majority of Senators, the Las Vegas Review Journal--and I say that for the benefit of Senator Reid who at one time objected--the New York Times, the Washington Post, good governance groups like Project on Government Oversight and Citizens Against Government Waste, all support restoring the intent of that act through S. 579. I want to emphasize that the intent of the act was destroyed by one bureaucrat writing a legal opinion that has been a crutch for a lot of people who don't want to cooperate with the inspector general. Despite strong bipartisan and public support for the bill, we have not been able to pass the bill by unanimous consent. We attempted to pass the bill by unanimous consent September 2015 and again December 2015. In December, the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee raised concerns about the bill. It is perfectly legitimate for them to do that. My cosponsors and I worked with our colleagues on those committees to address and resolve their concerns. Ultimately, Chairman McCain and Chairman Burr lifted their holds, and in December 2015 the bill cleared the Republican side with no objections. But when we tried to pass the bill on the floor by unanimous consent, Senator Reid, as I previously said, objected on the Democratic side. In the meantime, the House passed its own version of the bill. Since then, we have worked closely with the House to resolve minor differences between the House and Senate bills. Now it is time to press forward and finally pass this critical bill to ensure the effective oversight of waste, fraud, and abuse in government--in other words, to make very clear that when the act says they are entitled to all records, ``all'' means all. There is one provision of the bill we had to remove from this version at the insistence of Senator Leahy. It relates to testimonial subpoena authority for inspectors general. First, let me be clear about why the testimonial subpoena authority is important to the ability of IGs to conduct effective investigations. When employees of the U.S. Government are accused of wrongdoing or misconduct, IGs should be able to conduct a full and thorough investigation. Unfortunately, employees who may have violated that trust are often able to evade the IG's inquiry simply by retiring from the government. Testimonial subpoena authority empowers IGs to obtain testimony about waste, fraud, and abuse from employees after they leave the agency. Similarly, the subpoena authority helps IGs investigate entities that receive Federal funds. In other words, if you want to know what is wrong, follow the money. The subpoena authority enables IGs to require testimony from government contractors, subcontractors, grantees, and subgrantees. Currently, most IGs can subpoena documents from entities outside of their agency, but most cannot subpoena testimony. The ability to require witnesses outside the agency to talk to the IG can be critical in carrying out an inspector general's statutory duties or recovering wasted Federal funds. Let me also be clear that when we learned of Senator Leahy's concerns with this provision in November 2015, my bipartisan cosponsors and I worked in good faith for 12 months to address them. We offered at least half a dozen accommodations that would provide meaningful and appropriate limitations on the subpoena in question, but Senator Leahy continued to demand the removal of that from the bill. Despite a year of negotiation, we were unable to reach a resolution, so I proposed bringing the provision to the floor for debate. I offered Senator Leahy the option of debating on the floor the merits of the testimonial subpoena authority so that the Senate could vote on whether to keep or remove the provision from the bill, but my colleague declined to agree to floor time so that we could have an open debate on the issue. His continued refusal to debate and vote on the much needed testimonial subpoena authority threatens to derail the entire bill, which has such substantial bipartisan public support. Despite my strong belief that IGs need that subpoena authority, I also recognize that the IG bill contains many other critical provisions the IG needs to move forward with it, and now is the time to do that. We cannot afford to wait any longer for those provisions that empower the IG. This bill is still necessary to help IGs and to ensure to the American people that there is transparency and accountability within the government. Before I ask unanimous consent, I wish to say for the benefit of the position that I think Senator McCain is going to take that the Secretary, under existing law, may block an IG investigation if it is necessary to preserve the national security and interests of the United States and if the information the IG has requested concerns any one of five categories: sensitive operation plans, intelligence matters, counterintelligence matters, ongoing criminal investigations, or other matters that would constitute a serious threat to national security if they were to be disclosed. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 68, S. 579. I further ask that the Johnson substitute amendment be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I knew ahead of time that we would have this objection. The only difference between this objection this time and a year ago is the fact that a year ago we worked out differences with other committees of the Congress and had, evidently, 99 Senators ready to pass this bill, except for Senator Reid. So it is disappointing that when we work out one problem we had a year ago, that now we have serious objections, very numerous, as it worked out, considering the fact that the committee of jurisdiction--Senator Johnson is chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, passing this bill out unanimously, getting it cleared on both sides a year ago, except for Senator Reid, and now all these other problems come up. It is impossible for me to respond to all the problems that have been presented by the Senator from Arizona. Obviously, the legislative process does emphasize cooperation between Members when there are differences, but I believe that it is probably going to be impossible this year for us to work out those differences. So I will be prepared to come back next year and pursue this legislation again and see what we can do.

Mr. GRASSLEY. OK. I will take that under advisement. I would simply close with further evidence of the importance of this legislation and try to respond to what the Senator from Arizona said about its impact on the Defense Department. Section 8 of the IG Act already contains an exception that allows the Secretary of Defense to prohibit the inspector general from conducting an investigation and gathering documents to protect national security. The exception is broad. The Secretary may block an IG investigation if it is necessary to preserve the national security interests of the United States and if the information the IG has requested concerns sensitive operation plans, intelligence matters, counterintelligence matters, ongoing criminal investigations, and other matters that would constitute a serious threat to national security if disclosed. In addition, cosponsors and I worked with the Committee on Armed Services last year to ensure that the bill makes the Secretary of Defense's authority to restrict certain types of sensitive information even more clear than it was in the 1978 legislation. After we made those changes, Senator McCain, as I have already said, cleared this version of the access language last year. I guess at this point I am going to yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, soon I will offer a unanimous consent request with regard to a bill that would reform and reauthorize Federal juvenile justice programs. This bill is known as the Supporting Youth Opportunity and Preventing Delinquency Act of 2016. It passed the other Chamber last month by a vote of 382-29. The bipartisan House bill is modeled closely to one that I introduced over a year ago with the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse. That legislation was titled the ``Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act.'' It has 19 Senate cosponsors and cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, without a single dissenting vote last year. The House companion before us today also won the unanimous approval of a committee in the other Chamber before passing the House with overwhelming support a few weeks ago. The two bills are remarkably similar in most respects, indicating their objectives. One such objective is to extend the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act for 5 more years. That Federal statute was last reauthorized in 2002, and it is long overdue for an update. Congress is still funding juvenile justice programs that expired in 2007, nearly a decade ago. I think my colleagues know of the hard work of Senator Enzi, chairman of the Budget Committee, and a program that he has of the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money we are spending that has not been authorized by the authorizing committees. So getting a lot of bills that have expired reauthorized is in the spirit of what Senator Enzi is trying to promote among the 15, 16, or however many committees we have in the Senate that don't do their work on a regular basis. The centerpiece of the 1974 act is its core protections for youth. Over 40 years ago, Congress committed to making Federal grants available to States that observed these core protections, of which there are now four. The first core protection discourages the detention of children and youth for extremely minor infractions, such as truancy, underage tobacco use, disobeying parents, and running away. No State would ever jail an adult; that is an important emphasis. No State would ever jail an adult for this same conduct. And research shows that nothing much positive comes out of locking up children for conduct that isn't even criminal. The second core protection calls for juveniles to be kept out of adult facilities except in certain very rare instances. The third calls for juveniles to be separated from adults when they are held in adult facilities. And the fourth calls for States to try to reduce disproportionate minority contact in their juvenile justice system. That is from 1974, and those goals are still legitimate goals. Under our proposed legislation, as under this current law, if a State commits to meeting these core protections for youth, it can expect to continue receiving Federal grant money to support its juvenile justice activities. Our second objective for this legislation is to make reforms to current law so that taxpayer-supported juvenile justice programs will yield best possible outcomes. To that end, our bill reflects the latest research that works best with at-risk children and youth. We added provisions to promote the rehabilitation of runaways who are at high risk of being trafficked. We included language to discourage shackling of pregnant juveniles during childbirth. After learning that a handful of States receiving Federal grant funds are locking up children as young as 8 or 9 for minor infractions, such as truancy, we called for a phaseout of valid court orders permitting that practice. Last but not least, we responded to concerns voiced by whistleblowers by adding accountability measures to protect the taxpayers and promote more oversight of justice reforms. These accountability measures are something I have been working on both as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of that committee for a long period of time, not just on the juvenile justice program but on a lot of other programs where taxpayer money is being wasted by having different standards in some programs versus the others, particularly when the bureaucracy at the Justice Department is not policing what States do and they let the States get out. We have all kinds of GAO reports or reports from inspectors general that come back to us saying that this money to the States is not following the intent that was intended by Congress. I think all Senators assume a responsibility to make sure that taxpayer money will go as far as it can. So we worked some of those accountability issues into every bill I can get out of the Justice Department that affects these programs. Groups such as the Campaign for Youth Justice, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, Boys Town, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, among many others, endorsed the legislation and contributed input. We also consulted the National Criminal Justice Association, the National District Attorneys Association, and a coalition of roughly two dozen anti-human trafficking groups that endorsed the legislation as well. The House bill before us today includes many or most of the same provisions that Senator Whitehouse and I championed, and it enjoys the support of virtually all of the same 100-plus organizations that endorsed the versions we sponsored in this Chamber. The House made a few key changes to preserve more flexibility for States. Speaking of those 100-plus organizations, I feel a responsibility to them to work as hard as I can to get this legislation passed because they have worked so hard at the grass roots level. Let me go back to the flexibility we give to the States that the House put in. States that object to phasing out the detention of status offenders over a period of 3 years can invoke a 1-year hardship exception. That hardship exception is renewable every year for an indefinite period, and that is at the State's option. The House-passed measure also includes a modified version of legislation by Senators Inhofe, Casey, and Vitter in this Chamber. That language would encourage the rehabilitation of youth who are at risk because of involvement in gangs or the criminal justice system. The House bill shouldn't be controversial, which is why we are requesting unanimous consent to have the Senate pass it today. Again, I remind my colleagues that the other Chamber passed it by an overwhelming vote in September, after the Education Committee, under Chairman John Kline's leadership, reported the measure without a single dissenting vote. I also thank our cosponsors, which include the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, as well as ranking member Senator Feinstein, for their support of this legislation. Unfortunately, when we sought to bring up the Senate version by unanimous consent back in February, a single Senator objected, preventing its passage. He has objected to the language that would require States to embrace one of the 42-year core principles. Before this Congress comes to a close, we have a great opportunity to pass an important piece of legislation to help some of the most vulnerable children and youth in the United States. But it is not only these at-risk children who would benefit due to the reforms we have included in this bill; the legislation would benefit taxpayers as well. I see Senator Whitehouse on the floor. Before I ask unanimous consent, I wish to yield to him for the purpose of his speaking on the bill.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I see my colleague from Arkansas on the floor. He is right so many times; I am sorry that we disagree on this issue. I don't believe the Senator will make me wrong on that point, but I do want to respect his right. He is such a good legislator. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 649, H.R. 5963. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I am disappointed that the Senator from Arkansas continues to impose the only remaining roadblock to passage of this critical piece of legislation. Back in February, Senator Cotton indicated a willingness to work with Senator Whitehouse and me to resolve our sole point of disagreement. Senator Cornyn tried to resolve our differences as well. As you can see, we are still at an impasse. Our disagreement stems from a 42-year-old provision of the federal juvenile justice law that encourages States to phase out the detention of children who commit infractions, such as running away from home, skipping school, disobeying parents, or underage tobacco use. This statutory provision--which has been on the books since 1974--extends a ``carrot'' in the form of Federal grant funds, to any State that commits to deinstitutionalizing juveniles who commit extremely minor infractions, also known as ``status offenses.'' The reason for this core protection is simple: Locking up children for conduct, like running away or underage tobacco use, which could never, ever result in an adult's being jailed, defies logic and common sense. For example, when you lock up a child for truancy, you ensure that the child will miss even more school and fall even further behind in schoolwork. At the same time you have done little, if anything, to resolve the underlying issue that led to the truancy. Similarly, very little is accomplished by locking up a repeat runaway who is being abused at home. I urge my colleague to consider what happens when a judge sends an especially young child, who has committed the most minor infraction, known as a ``status offense,'' in juvenile detention with hardened or violent offenders. That young child, who has committed no crime whatsoever, is particularly vulnerable to abuse by older juveniles in detention. Consider, too, that some of these children come from broken homes or have mental health issues. They are among the most vulnerable members of our communities and need our help. They don't need to be dumped in a detention facility where they will be exposed to violent criminals who have committed much more serious crimes than skipping school. In the decades since 1974, Congress made good on its pledge to appropriate resources for every State that committed to fulfill the core requirements under the federal juvenile justice statute. About half of the States, recognizing that the detention of status offenders is mostly ineffective and tremendously costly, have made good on their commitment under this grant program. These States have phased out the practice of locking up status offenders entirely. In another couple dozen States, judges invoke the ``valid court order'' exception sparingly. The exception is just that, an exception to be invoked only rarely. Status offenders end up in detention only occasionally in these states. But in a tiny handful of States, some judges send status offenders to detention much more regularly. It has been reported that some of the children in detention for status offenses in one state are as young as 8 or 9. Juvenile advocates have charged that some judges are sending status offenders to detention as a general practice, which has led to calls for reform. The Arkansas legislature has chosen to retain the option of jailing children for status offenses as a last resort option. This bill does not change that. This bill is not a mandate that would override the State's law. It merely lays out conditions for receiving Federal grant money. Arkansas is still free to not comply with the conditions set forth in this legislation. I want to remind my colleague that over 100 nonprofit groups, numerous judges, and about 1000 law enforcement officers support this legislation. They agree that detaining child status offenders is not good public policy, based on significant research that points to the same conclusion. I would also remind my colleagues that judges have multiple other options to hold these juveniles accountable. The other options include, for example, suspending the juvenile's driver's license, imposing fines, or ordering the juvenile into counseling, with or without parents. Counseling and other community-based alternatives not only cost much less, but are more effective than locking up children alongside violent criminals, research suggests. This one issue is holding up a bill that is vital to help the children in our country. Once again, I would like to point out that this legislation does not affect State law in Arkansas. We are merely imposing conditions to receiving Federal grant money. If this bill passes, which I hope will happen today, Arkansas is free to continue to invoke ``the valid court exception.'' So I ask that the Senator lift his hold on this critical piece of legislation. Madam President, I yield the floor.