Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to congratulate a constituent and a great friend of mine, Katie Roth of West Des Moines. This summer Katie was named the 2015 Woman Business Owner of the Year, presented by the Business Record. In the spring of 2005, Katie, who is never shy to take on a challenge, opened her own staffing agency and has built it from the ground up. Ten years later, Portico Staffing has thrived under her exceptional leadership, business savvy, and highly regarded reputation as a people person. Katie knows how to build relationships and find opportunities needed to grow a business. Along the way, she has helped countless Iowa employers and job-seekers find one another. You might say she is a perfect matchmaker. For the last decade, Katie has worked hard to carve out a slice of the American dream by owning and growing her own business. She knows it comes with sacrifice and risk. And she has worked hard to make her dream come true. Katie is a great mentor and role model for the next generation. She shows that perseverance and persistence pay off. Always on the job, whether networking in the community or listening to her clients, Katie makes good connections happen. And that is a good thing for job seekers and employers looking to hire and grow their business. Katie was nominated by her peers for consideration of this prestigious award. It is no surprise to me that my fellow Iowans would sing her praises. Without hesitation, I endorse Katie's selection as the 2015 Business Owner of the Year. I have had the pleasure of knowing Katie Roth since 1980 when she joined my first campaign for the U.S. Senate. Always a tireless worker, I have enjoyed watching Katie thrive and succeed throughout the years. A loving wife and mother, Katie is fiercely loyal and Barbara and I hold her in our highest regard. Barbara and I extend our congratulations to Katie Roth for this well- deserved honor. We wish her the very best as she blazes the trail for many years to come.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor, as I often do, to speak about the efforts of whistleblowers. Many of you know my belief in and my respect for those patriotic people--men and women who, often at great cost to their own careers and personal well-being, raise their voices when they see things happening they know are wrong, usually against the law or the misuse of taxpayer money. So it was with great joy that I participated just last Thursday with about two dozen whistleblowers and hundreds of their families, friends, and supporters in the first annual congressional celebration of National Whistleblowers Day. In my remarks to that group, I said that agency leadership needs to follow the example my colleagues and I set with the Whistleblower Protection Caucus. They need to send a strong signal that whistleblowers are valued and that retaliation will not be tolerated. After all, the need to protect whistleblowers is not new and it is not going away. In the midst of the whistleblowers appreciation day celebration, I received yet another harsh reminder that retaliation is alive and well in the executive branch's bureaucracies. At the very time several of my colleagues and I shared our appreciation for whistleblowers, U.S. Marshals Service whistleblowers told me the hunt was on for folks in that agency who disclosed wrongdoing to my office. How ironic, as we recognized the bravery and the benefits of whistleblowers in the past, a new set of truthtellers were facing harsh consequences that all too often come with their brave action in exposing wrongdoing. Agencies use many pretexts to hunt, to punish, and to intimidate whistleblowers. So what is the pretext the Marshals Service is using? I am told the Marshals Service has launched an internal affairs investigation to find what they describe as a leak to the media and what harm a leak to the media does. Well, this is a dubious claim. For one, news stories about the problems at the Marshals Service are not new. Second, there are many stories in several different magazines and newspapers that strongly suggest there are many sources of those news leaks. Finally, I understand the Marshals Service internal affairs has allegedly seized the personal property of at least one of its so-called targets. I also understand this personal property contains privileged communications with the target's attorneys and protected disclosures to Members of Congress. I wish to note some things for leaders at the Marshals Service and at any Federal agency. First, protection for whistleblowers under the Whistleblowers Protection Act is not just there for reporting to Congress or reporting to the inspector general or reporting to the Office of Special Counsel. The Supreme Court has said disclosures to media may be covered if the disclosure is not specifically prohibited by statute or Executive order, even if such disclosure violates an agency rule. So not only does this investigation appear to be retaliatory, but its supposed justification is obviously not legitimate. Second, even if there were nothing suspicious or retaliatory about the so-called investigation, it cannot be true that investigators need protected and privileged material to carry it out. Third, the recent track record of the Marshals Service on whistleblower protection is pretty dismal. The internal affairs inquiry follows months of investigation by Congress, the inspector general, and the Office of Special Counsel into allegations of misconduct at the U.S. Marshals Service. It also follows at least two inaccurate and misleading responses from the Marshals Service and the Justice Department to letters from my committee. And it follows numerous letters reporting allegations of widespread retaliation and very deep fears that employees have of such reprisal. Just so we are very clear, over 60 current and former U.S. Marshals Service employees have made disclosures to my office since March. That is over 1.1 percent of the agency. Many of the reports include allegations that the Marshals Service frequently uses internal affairs investigations as mechanisms for reprisal. Reprisal for what, one might ask--for engaging in activities that are explicitly protected by law. Multiple whistleblowers from all across the Marshals Service have also told me that internal affairs does whatever it can to charge employees with misconduct, regardless of what the evidence actually says. So I thought the Justice Department would understand why I have concerns about this investigation and about the way the marshals are apparently handling it. Remarkably, the Justice Department has told me that is all none of my business, and, of course, I strongly disagree. When you hear these sorts of things once or twice, there is a bit of a problem. When you hear them more than 60 times, coming directly to my office in less than 5 months, you start to understand there is a pattern out there. From where I sit, it seems to me the best thing for the agency to do is to get some outside input into this so-called investigation. The Department should be willing to work with me, other Members of Congress, the inspector general, and the Office of Special Counsel to ensure that whistleblower rights are fully protected as the law intends. But officials won't even sit down and talk to us about it. Senator Leahy and I sent a joint letter to the Attorney General last Friday asking for a briefing as soon as possible. The answer? They claimed it would be inappropriate to discuss it with the two of us. I will tell you what would be inappropriate: using internal administrative inquiries to hunt down whistleblowers and stiff-arm a congressional scrutiny. That is what would be inappropriate. If the Justice Department and the Marshals Service think I am going to go away or give up on this, they are even less competent than I fear. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I intend to object to any unanimous consent request at the present time relating to the appointment of Bradley Duane Arsenault, of FL; Bret Thomas Campbell, of TX; Karen Stone Exel, of CA; Gloria Jean Garland, of CA; Michael H. Hryshchyshyn, Jr., of VA; Ying X. Hsu, of CA; Stephen S. Kelley, of VA; Mary Catherine Leherr, of VA; Denise G. Manning, of VA; Paul Karlis Markovs, of MI; Scott Currie McNiven, of AZ; Hanh Ngoc Nguyen, of CA; Denise Frances O'Toole, of ME; Marisol E. Perez, of NJ; Ronald F. Savage, of NM; Adam P. Schmidt, of CT; Anna Toness, of TX; Michael J. Torreano, of FL; Nicholas John Vivio, of DC; Jamshed Zuberi, of CA as Foreign Service Officer Class Two, Consular Officer and Secretary in the Diplomatic Service of the United States of America. I will object because, in addition to the multiple inquiries I have made that are still unanswered, I sent another letter to the State Department today and the Department has failed to confirm receipt, yet again. In addition, my staff placed multiple phone calls to Department personnel to inquire as to the status of the most recent letter. Department personnel have failed even to return phone calls. I warned the Department that if they failed to change their ways that I would be forced to escalate the scope of my intent to object to unanimous consent requests by including Foreign Service officer candidates. My objection is not intended to question the credentials of the individuals up for appointment. However, the Department must recognize that it has an obligation to respond to congressional inquiries in a timely and reasonable manner.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, yesterday a very important Government Accountability Office report came out. I am going to present my view of that report in a little bit backward way by giving a summary before I speak about the fine points of this report. Broken bookkeeping has plagued the Pentagon for years. Under deadline pressure, the Marine Corps claimed to be ready for a clean audit. An outside auditing firm produced work papers in support of an opinion on a clean audit that employees in the Defense Department inspector general's office found lacking. However, a manager in the inspector general's office overruled his lower level colleagues. That resulted in the inspector general's release of a clean opinion on the audit of the Marine Corps. Meanwhile, work papers began to creep out of the bureaucracy showing the unsupported basis for such a clean opinion. The inspector general was then forced to withdraw that opinion. Now the Government Accountability Office is releasing a report that exposes the whole house of cards. One senior employee with an apparent bias toward the outside auditing firm led his agency down the wrong path. We need to get things back on track and prevent an embarrassing setback like this from ever happening again. I will go into those details. As I often do, I come to the floor to speak about the latest twist in the 25-year struggle to fix the Defense Department's broken accounting system. Billions have been spent to fix it and achieve audit readiness, but those goals remain elusive. Defense dishes out over $500 billion a year. Yet the Department still can't tell the people where all the money is going, and now the drive to be audit-ready by 2017--that is what the law requires--has taken a bad turn and become a fight over the truth. As overseers of the taxpayers' money, we in Congress need to get the Audit Readiness Initiative back on track, moving forward in the right direction. I last spoke on this subject a long time ago--December 8, 2011. On that occasion, I commended the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, for trying to get the ball rolling. He wanted to halt endless slippage in audit deadlines. He wanted to provide an accurate and regular accounting of money spent to comply with the constitutional requirements. He turned up the pressure and in effect drew a line in the sand. He directed the Department to, in his words, ``achieve partial audit readiness,'' with limited statements by 2014, and, in his words, ``full audit readiness'' with all-up statements by the statutory deadline of 2017. Not one of the major DOD components--including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force--reached Leon Panetta's 2014 milestone. None was or is audit ready today. That said, one component--the Marine Corps--stepped up to the plate and claimed to be ready for what Leon Panetta's goal was. To test that claim, the accounting firm Grant Thornton was awarded a contract to audit five Marine Corps financial statements, 2010 to 2014. The first two, 2010 and 2011, were unsuccessful. The Marine Corps was not ready. The third one was the 2012 audit, which is finally finished. The 2012 audit was put under a microscope and subjected to intense review by the Office of Inspector General along with two other independent watchdogs. The Marine Corps audit was a disaster. First, it took an ugly turn. It got twisted out of shape and turned upside down. Now it is getting turned right side up, thanks to the Government Accountability Office. Grant Thornton was required to produce a conclusion memorandum. This happens to be what we might call a quasi-opinion. Work was to be finished by December 2012, but it took an extra year. So right off the bat it was running into trouble. The scaled-down financial statement did not meet contract specifications. So this was a showstopper that got glossed over. The contract was modified to accept a makeshift compilation that was cobbled together. It is called a Schedule of Budgetary Activity. It covers only current year appropriations and not vast sums of prior year appropriations that are still lost in the statutory and money pipeline. Of course, that is a far cry from a standard financial statement. Even reducing the scope of the audit wasn't enough to overcome all of the other problems. The Office of Inspector General audit team was responsible for issuing the final opinion. After completing a review of Grant Thornton's workpapers in early 2013, the team determined that the evidence presented did not meet audit standards. It concluded that an adverse opinion--or what they call a disclaimer--was warranted. The team's rejection of Grant Thornton's conclusions embroiled the opinion in controversy and foul play. The trouble began when the Deputy IG for Auditing, Mr. Dan Blair, intervened and reportedly overruled his team's conclusions. He issued an unqualified or clean opinion that was not supported by the evidence in the workpapers--quite a showboat approach. Despite mounting controversy about the validity of the opinion, Secretary of Defense Hagel rolled out that opinion December 20, 2013-- with trumpets ``ablast.'' At a ceremony in the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes, he gave the Marine Corps an award for being the first military service to earn a clean opinion. The Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. John Paxton, accepted the award. According to press reports, he did so with ``reluctance. . . . He mumbled something, then bolted from the stage at flank speed.'' Why would General Paxton take off like a scalded dog? Was it because he sniffed a bad odor with this so-called clean report and all the colorful presentations that were made by Secretary Hagel? At that point, the word was already seeping out: The opinion was allegedly rigged. I heard rumblings about it and began asking Inspector General Rymer questions. Because of all the controversy, we asked his independent audit quality watchdog, Deputy Assistant IG Ashton Coleman, to review the audit. Mr. Coleman sent Inspector General Rymer reports in October 2014 and May of this year. These reports ripped the figleaf clean off of Mr. Blair's charade. They reinforced the audit team's disclaimer. After recommending ``the OIG rescind and reissue the audit report with a disclaimer of opinion,'' Mr. Coleman zeroed right in on the root cause of the problem. That root cause was impaired independence. In other words, the people involved in this charade had an agenda that wasn't about good handling of the taxpayers' money, it was protecting somebody. Mr. Coleman concluded that Mr. Blair ``had a potential impairment to independence.'' He and a Grant Thornton partner, Ms. Tracy Porter Greene, had a longstanding but undisclosed professional relationship going back to their service together at the Government Accountability Office in the early 1990s. According to Coleman, that relationship by itself did not pose a problem. However, once it began to interfere with the team's ability to make critical decisions, he said it created an appearance of undue influence. Coleman identified several actions that led him in this direction. The appearance problem was framed by a four-page email on August 2, 2013, from Ms. Greene to Mr. Blair but seen by the team and others, including me. It was a stern warning. If a disclaimer was coming--and Ms. Greene knew it was--she wanted, in her words, ``some advanced notice.'' She needed time then, as she thought, to prepare the firm's leadership for the bad news. A disclaimer, she said, would pose ``a risk to our reputation.'' At the email's end, she opened the door to private discussions to resolve the matter. The record clearly indicates that both Blair and Greene began holding private meetings--without inviting Contracting Officer's Representative Ball and the Office of Inspector General team to participate in those discussions. Both believed the contracting officer's representative and the team were--in the words of Greene and Blair--``biased toward a disclaimer rather than considering all the facts.'' I attributed those words to Greene and Blair, but those were Mr. Blair's words. This shows how the independence of the audit and the review of the audit were questionable. To put these actions in perspective, I remind my colleagues that the inspector general was exercising oversight of the company's work. The inspector general needed to keep top company officials like Ms. Greene at arm's length, and holding private meetings with Greene wasn't the way to do it. These meetings may have violated the contract. Why would the top IG audit official prefer to hold private meetings with Ms. Greene? Why would he seem so willing and eager to favor the firm over his team--even when the evidence appeared to support the team's position? Why would he favor the firm over the evidence and over the truth? Why would he admit on the record that ``OIG auditors were not independent of Grant Thornton''? Why would he order the team to give the work papers to the firm so they could be ``updated to reflect the truth''? The firm was not even supposed to have those documents, so we get back to impaired independence again. Coleman cited other indications of this impaired independence. Contracting Officer's Representative Ball had rejected the firm's 2012 deliverables because they were ``deficient.'' They did not meet quality and timeliness standards. The deliverables in question were the company's final work product, including the all-important quasi-opinion called a conclusion memorandum. This posed a real dilemma. Until she accepted the 2012 deliverables, the follow-on 2013 contract with Grant Thornton could not be awarded, and Blair wanted it done yesterday. The impasse was broken with a crooked bureaucratic maneuver. A senior official, Assistant Inspector General Loren Venable, provided a certification that there were no major performance problems and Grant Thornton had met all contract requirements. Just then, with the stroke of a pen, that deceptive document cleared the way for accepting the disputed materials, paying the firm all their money, and awarding them at the same time a follow-on contract. Yet the record shows that even Mr. Blair admitted that ``we accepted deficient deliverables.'' Why would a senior Office of Inspector General official attempt to cover up a major audit failure by Grant Thornton in order to reward the poorly performing company with more money and a new contract? For a series of audit failures, the firm got paid $32 million. These actions appear to show how undue influence and bias trumped objectivity and independence. Alleged tampering with the opinion may be the most flagrant example of impaired independence. While the team identified major shortcomings with Grant Thornton's work and disagreed with its conclusions, the team was blocked from exercising its authority to issue a disclaimer. So where is the independence? Instead, that team was forced to do additional work in a futile attempt to find evidence to match the firm's conclusion, but there was no such evidence. Two weeks after Ms. Greene's email warning that a disclaimer could destroy the company's reputation, the front office resorted to direct action. With the team's disclaimer staring him in the face and with complete disregard for evidence and standards, Mr. Blair gave the Office of Inspector General team a truly stunning set of instructions. These were as follows: No. 1, the Marine Corps earned a clean opinion; No. 2, Grant Thornton has supported a clean opinion; and No. 3, do what it takes to reach the same conclusion as Grant Thornton. In the simplest of terms, this August 14 edict says: There will be a clean opinion. Disregard the evidence. Figure out how to do it and make it happen. These instructions provoked an internal brawl. The team manager, Ms. Cecilia Ball, balked. She stated flatout: I cannot do that. Our audit evidence does not support an unqualified [clean] opinion. We are at a disclaimer. She wanted justification for Mr. Blair's decision to overturn the team's opinion. She asked: Show me where my work is substandard and where my conclusions are incorrect. And I want to know what standards Mr. Blair used to reach his conclusions. She never got a straight answer. From that point on, it was all downhill. When the team ignored coaxing, they got steamrolled. Mr. Blair attacked their competence, professionalism, and independence. He repeatedly accused them of being ``biased.'' The team's top manager, Ms. Cecilia Ball, reacted to the abusive treatment. She said: I don't appreciate the accusations to my professionalism and my team's. I don't think we are the right fit as our integrity is being questioned. She later quit the team in disgust. In early December, just as the clean opinion was about to be wheeled out, Ms. Ball made one final request for explanation: Why was ``the team's disclaimer of opinion not the correct opinion''? We repeatedly documented and explained why Grant Thornton's conclusion was unsupportable. ``The vast knowledge of the Front Office could have provided us insight as to where the team's logic was flawed.'' In this case, the front office was unwilling to consider anything other than a clean opinion. These words are from the horse's mouth. The clean opinion was handed down from on high. The front office was Mr. Blair's domain. All of these actions, when taken together, appear to show a lack of independence and a flagrant disregard for audit ethics, audit standards, audit evidence, and accepted practices. In his oversight role, Blair had a responsibility to be independent, objective, and professionally skeptical. If the firm's work failed to meet standards, as it did, then he had a responsibility to face the truth and tell it like it is. He needed to be a junkyard dog and issue the disclaimer. Maybe he lost sight of his core mission and turned into a Grant Thornton lapdog. It sure looks that way. Mr. Blair's words, deeds, and prior association with the Grant Thornton partner, Ms. Greene--when coupled with their many emails that were widely distributed--gave the appearance of undue influence by the Grant Thornton partner. The tone and the substance of the Blair-Greene emails suggest a professional relationship that was just too cozy--a relationship that might have been wise to disclose according to audit standards and professional ethics. Inspector General Rymer disagrees with Mr. Coleman's findings of impaired independence. However, Mr. Rymer's evidence does not square with evidence presented by Coleman. For these reasons, Senator Johnson of Wisconsin and I will be asking the Comptroller General--the guardian of government auditing standards--to review all relevant evidence. Since independence is a cornerstone of audit integrity, we must be certain it has not been compromised. Now, just yesterday another blockbuster report has been rolled out. The Government Accountability Office has issued a highly critical report. It was prepared at the request of Senator Johnson, Senator McCaskill, and Senator Carper. The Government Accountability Office report is thorough and competent and tells the story as it happened. Over the last 2 years, the GAO team held endless meetings with the Office of Inspector General, including Jon Rymer and Dan Blair. So the IG has known for some time what was coming down the pike. They knew early on the GAO report concluded that the evidence in the workpapers did not support the clean opinion of the Marine Corps audit. Echoing Ms. Ball's unanswered pleas, the Government Accountability Office states: The OIG's management's decision to overturn the disclaimer is--in their words--``undocumented, unexplained, and unjustified by evidence in the work papers as required by professional standards.'' This is the evidentiary gap identified by the Government Accountability Office. There is no legitimate explanation for how the auditors got from point A--the disclaimer--to point B--the clean opinion. There is no crosswalk between the two poles. It is a bridge too far. Despite mounting questions about the opinion, the IG turned a blind eye to Blair's charade. The IG allowed it to go on and on. Countless man- hours and millions of dollars were wasted on cooking the books and on vicious in-fighting instead of productive problem-solving to right the ship. Mr. Coleman and the GAO got that done. On March 23, the day before the IG's final exit briefing with the GAO, came a bolt from the blue. The IG stepped forward with a brave, bold announcement. The clean opinion was formally withdrawn. It was like a rush of fresh air in a very stuffy room. The inescapable truth finally dawned on Inspector General Rymer. So I want to thank Mr. Rymer for having the courage to do the right thing. An audit failure of this magnitude should have consequences. This one is especially egregious. It leaves at least one former Secretary of Defense with egg on his face. Mr. Blair was removed as head of the Audit Office on June 10 but is still serving as the Office of Inspector General's Deputy Chief of Staff. He is the chief architect of the now discredited clean opinion. He is the one who planted the seeds of destruction when he allegedly quashed the audit team's disclaimer. Of course, those responsible for what happened ought to be held accountable. Mr. Blair wants us to believe that the muffed opinion was the result of a routine dispute between opposing auditors' judgments over evidence, a mere difference of opinion among auditors. True, it reflects an unresolved dispute between the audit team and the management, and yes, that happened; however, there is a right way and a wrong way to resolve the conflicts.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to complete this. I was told I would be given the time to do it, and I have about 4 minutes.

Mr. GRASSLEY. That is OK.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Those responsible for what happened ought to be held accountable. Mr. Blair wants us to believe the muffed opinion was the result of a routine dispute between opposing auditors' judgments over evidence and a mere difference of opinion among auditors. True, it reflects an unresolved dispute between the audit team and management, and yes, that happened; however, there is a right way and a wrong way to resolve such conflicts. According to audit standards cited in the GAO report, the dispute should have been addressed, resolved, and documented in workpapers before the report was issued. It was not because the two opinions were irreconcilable. The team's disclaimer was based on evidence measured against standards documented in workpapers. Blair's so-called ``professional preference,'' by comparison, is none of these things. As the GAO's evidence gap suggests, Mr. Blair's opinion was hooked up to nothing. It was unsupported, and it was improper. So plain old common sense should have caused senior managers to realize that issuing the report with the opinion hanging fire was a senseless blunder. Doing it had one inevitable result: The opinion had no credibility, and that opinion had to go. True, the integrity of the Office of Inspector General audit process may be damaged, but the final outcome of this tangled mess may help clear the way for recovery. That recovery ought to lead us to being able to have clean audits not only of the Marine Corps but all of the four services. The Marine Corps audit was the first big one out the box. If Inspector General Rymer had not embraced the truth, we might be staring at a bunch of worthless opinions awarded to the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Department of Defense could have declared victory and buried the broken bookkeeping system for another 100 years. Hopefully, the Defense Department will begin anew with fresh respect for the truth, audit standards, and the need for reliable transaction data. Reliable transaction data is the lifeblood of credible financial statements. Unreliable transaction data doomed the Marine Corps audit to failure from the get-go. Without reliable transaction data, the probability of conducting a successful audit of a major component is near zero. With the right leadership and guidance, a plan with achievable deadlines can and should be developed. In the meantime, we watchdogs-- and that is all of us in the Congress of the United States, or at least it ought to be all of us--must remain vigilant. My gut tells me we are still not out of the woods. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I intend to object to any unanimous consent request at the present time relating to the nomination of David Malcolm Robinson to be Assistant Secretary for Conflict and Stabilization Operations and Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. I will object because the State Department has engaged in unreasonable delay in responding to Judiciary Committee investigations and inquiries. Since June of 2013, the Judiciary Committee has requested a number of documents related to an investigation into Ms. Huma Abedin regarding her possible conflicts of interest created by her simultaneous employment with the State Department and private sector entities. In addition, the Judiciary Committee has inquired about former Secretary Clinton and Ms. Abedin's questionable email practices that may be in violation of Department policy and Federal law. Furthermore, the committee's inquiry also centers on the possible interference of Freedom of Information Act requests by State Department personnel, including Secretary Clinton's former Chief of Staff, Ms. Cheryl Mills. To this day, the committee has not received a complete response. Moreover, the committee recently acquired information that shows the State Department has been in possession of material that would answer some of the Committee's inquiries. Yet, the requested material is still not forthcoming. This willful lack of cooperation is made more evident by the example of repeated failures by State Department personnel to respond to emails or respond days or weeks later. And in yet another recent committee investigation beginning in June 2015, the State Department has still failed to provide any communication, via email or a phone call, to acknowledge or confirm that they have received a committee letter, despite three emails sent by committee staff. Not only has the Judiciary Committee experienced unacceptable delays in receiving information, other entities inside and outside of the government have experienced delays as well. The Associated Press sued the State Department over the failure to satisfy repeated document requests under the Freedom of Information Act related to these same issues. One of these requests dates back 5 years ago. Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the judge responsible for this case, chided the State Department for its failure to produce documents on time, ``Now, any person should be able to review that in one day--one day. Even the least ambitious bureaucrat could do this.'' In total, these actions illustrate a pattern of conduct that clearly demonstrates a lack of cooperation and bad faith in its interaction with Congress. This is unacceptable and cannot continue. In order to maintain the proper balance of separation of powers and in order for Congress to exercise its proper oversight function, government agencies must respond to inquiries. The State Department apparently believes that it can simply ignore Congress. It is important to note that my objection is not intended to question Mr. Robinson's credentials in any way. However, withholding consent to suspend Senate rules on nominations is one tool a Senator has to incentivize executive agencies to respond to congressional inquiries. Frankly, this should not be necessary, and the nominee is an innocent victim of the State Department's contemptuous failures to respond to congressional inquiries. I urge the State Department to change its ways and if they choose not to, I will be forced to escalate the scope of my intent to object to include unanimous consent requests relating to Foreign Service officer candidates as well.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object----

Mr. GRASSLEY. Before I speak about reserving the right to object, I would like to have the floor immediately after the Senator from New York gives up the floor, if I could. Is there any objection to that?

Mr. GRASSLEY. OK. I want to reserve the right to object, and I will object. I would like to make a few comments on the pace of judicial nominations. First of all, during President Obama's Presidency thus far the Senate has confirmed 313 judicial nominees. In contrast to that, there were 283 judicial nominees that the Senate had confirmed at this very same point of the previous Presidency. That is 30 more judicial nominees confirmed at this point than in the year 2007. Concerning this year's pace, the Senate is simply following the standard that my colleagues on the other side established in that year, 2007. By this point in 2007, the committee had held six hearings for a total of 20 judicial nominees. So far we have held 7 hearings for a total of 21 nominees, 5 executive nominees, and 16 judicial nominees, including hearings on both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General. I would like to remind my colleagues that the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General nominees took significantly more time to process on both staff and Members. So we are doing a little bit better than the pace that was set on the other side during the last 2 years of the previous Presidency. And I am trying to compare to the last 2 years of that Presidency to this Presidency. I would also note that the nominees from New York are below other Article III judges on the Executive Calendar. As I understand it, our side has agreed to vote on the next judge on the calendar when we return.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I will yield. Of course, I will yield.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would agree to that, and I will speak to that point right now. It is very appropriate that my colleague would know exactly what I was going to say to answer his question.

Mr. GRASSLEY. With respect to the judges on the Executive Calendar, everybody knows at the end of last year the Senate rammed through 11 judges, which under regular order--and regular order is very important in the U.S. Senate--should have been considered at the beginning of this Congress. That is what happened in 2006 when 13 nominations were returned to the President instead of being returned to the U.S. Senate in the next Congress. The end of 2006 is comparable to what was done at the end of 2014. Had we not confirmed those 11 judicial nominees during the lame duck last year, we would be roughly at the same pace for judicial confirmations this year compared to 2007. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Senator Schumer. We are moving at a reasonable pace. Therefore, I object.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Senator from New York gave very good words that I want to follow up on. He said that we were promised when Republicans took over we said things would be different in governing. They are different. I would just like to show the Senator from New York that promises made are promises kept. I think the best example of promises made was a January 2014 speech by the leadership of the Republicans where a speech was given that if there were Republican control of the United States Senate, then we would govern. I think the best way to show that Republicans are governing is this: there were 370 House bills that died in the U.S. Senate under the leadership of the Democrat majority. We had 15 amendments with rollcall votes. So far this year, we have had over 160 rollcall votes on amendments. We have passed over 40 bipartisan bills, reported over 160 bills out of committee, had 29 bills signed into law, and balanced the first budget for over a decade. Under Republican leadership, we had a budget agreement for the first time in 6 years, whereas under the Democratic majority we had one budget in 6 years. The law requires that we adopt a budget every year, and we have done that. We made a promise that the Senate was going to function as a deliberative body, unlike the way it was run under the Democratic majority for the 6 years of this Presidency. From that standpoint, we have done that with the statistics that I just gave you. The Senator from New York says we were promised a Senate that would govern, but the only metric he is using is whether judges are moving at the same pace as they did when they took over the U.S. Senate in 2007. And that is an inadequate way to measure how well the Senate is governing. We must look at all the work the Senate is doing. And the Senate is doing the good work we promised we'd do before the election. We have delivered. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I often come to the floor to honor whistleblowers but more importantly to talk about their very important role in making government function. On July 30, 1778, the Continental Congress passed the very first whistleblower law in the United States. It read: [I]t is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States . . . to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge. Probably for the last 6, 7 years, I have been referring to this around the time of July 30. Going back to 1778, we have had recognition of the important role whistleblowers can play in making sure government is responsible. Whistleblowers have always been crucial in helping Congress and the Federal Government root out fraud and misconduct. It is simple common sense to reward and protect whistleblowers who report waste of taxpayers' money, fraudulent use of taxpayers' money, and outright simple abuse. The False Claims Act does that. In fiscal year 2014 alone, the Federal Government recovered nearly $6 billion under the False Claims Act. That makes more than $22 billion since January 2009 and more than $42 billion since I got the legislation passed in 1986. These recoveries represent victories across a wide array of industries and government programs. Those programs include mortgage insurance, Federal student aid, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as defense contracts. The Department of Justice credits whistleblowers for their important role in the success, for the money that has come back to the Federal Treasury, and for the carrying out of the False Claims Act. According to the Justice Department, whistleblowers accounted for $3 billion in recoveries under that act in just fiscal year 2014. In fact, over 80 percent of False Claims Act cases are initiated by whistleblowers. Clearly, the False Claims Act is working very well. Of course, the act has no shortage of critics--typically in the groups where you find perpetrators of fraud. But we have learned our lesson that a weak False Claims Act is not in the taxpayers' best interests. In 1943, Congress bowed to the pressure to undo the act's crucial qui tam provisions. Amendments passed in that era of World War II barred actions where the government already had knowledge of fraud. The result was to block nearly all private actions. Congress assumed--and now we can say assumed wrongly--that the Justice Department could do a good job prosecuting fraud all by itself. As I said, they were wrong. Between 1943 and 1986, when the False Claims Act was amended, fraud against the government skyrocketed. Most of those accused went unpunished. A 1981 report by the Government Accountability Office said: For those who are caught committing fraud, the chances of being prosecuted and eventually going to jail are slim. . . . The sad truth is that crime against the Government often does pay. So in 1986 I coauthored much needed amendments to the False Claims Act. The 1986 amendments once again gave citizens the ability to help the government go after fraud in a meaningful way. For example, the amendments provided protection for whistleblowers and eliminated the impossible government knowledge bar. Essentially, a relator's suit was only barred where the fraud had been publicly disclosed. The amendments also clarified that the act covers false claims made not just directly to a government agency; it also covers fraud against grantees, States, and other recipients of Federal funds, whether or not the fund obligation is fixed. These provisions and others were intended to give the False Claims Act teeth again, and they did. However, as happens with a lot of legislation Congress passes, the courts chipped away at the heart of the False Claims Act and ignored the intent of Congress. The assault on the act came to a head in the Supreme Court's erroneous opinions in the well-known cases of Allison Engine and Totten. The Court held that the act required proof of intent that the government itself pay a claim and that a claim is presented directly to the government. The problem with that logic is it creates a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. A third party paid with government money would get away with fraud because a contractor, not the government agency, paid the claim. So in 2009 we passed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act and made very clear that was not consistent with the original intent of the 1986 False Claims Act. The act reaches false claims for government money or property, whether or not the wrongdoer deals directly with the Federal Government. It was never the intent of Congress to give a free pass to subcontractors or other parties receiving government funds. In fact, those folks are some of the biggest perpetrators of fraud today. The inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services has reported a 134-percent increase in complaints against Medicare Part D in just the last 5 years. By not stopping fraud against programs such as Medicare Part D, the government is hemorrhaging funds. Taxpayer money is taxpayer money. Fraud does not magically become OK just because a third party is involved. Of course, the issue of presentment to government officials is not the only sticking point. There has been pushback in courts and from lobbyists about all sorts of issues, such as the ``public disclosure bar,'' settlement practices, and award shares for relators. Through it all, Congress has had to stay vigilant in keeping courts and Federal agencies generally true to our original legislative intent. As an example, just recently the Justice Department tried to minimize a relator award in a Medicare and Medicaid fraud case. The relator contributed significantly to the case. The judge recognized that Congress intended that ``the only measuring stick'' for an award is ``the contribution of the relator.'' Those are the words the judge use, and that judge was right. Congress intended to empower, to protect, and to reward relators who identify fraud against the taxpayers. History teaches us that weakening the relator's rights weakens the government's ability to fight fraud. All that does is let wrongdoers off the hook, and it costs the taxpayers money. That is not the result we intended with the False Claims Act. And the Continental Congress, which was so concerned about identifying misconduct, fraud, and misdemeanors, would not have wanted those results I just talked about. I want to remind my colleagues to stand strong for the effective tool that we have to combat fraud. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to give my analysis of the last year of Supreme Court decisions. There is a misconception that our Supreme Court is conservative, but in the term that just ended, the Supreme Court upheld a key provision of ObamaCare. It read the plain language of that ObamaCare statute that provided that health insurance subsidies apply only to exchanges established by the States and said that they are available on exchanges created by the Federal Government. It ruled that fair housing discrimination cases can be brought even where there is no intent to discriminate. A harmful impact, then, is enough to bring a case. It found that same-sex marriages are constitutionally required. It expanded the reach of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and made it easier to win cases under that law. The Court decided that racial gerrymandering cases under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act must consider the effect on individual districts regardless of minority voting in the State as a whole. The Court said as well that in those cases, courts must look beyond the numbers when deciding whether minority voters have been packed into districts to dilute their influence on elections. In fact, the Court reflected a very liberal bent in the last term. More worrisome, its liberalism derives not from the Constitution but the policy preferences of the Justices. Application of longstanding political science models shows that this year's Supreme Court rulings were the most liberal since the Warren Court years of the 1960s. As a UCLA professor stated, ``Shockingly, the Supreme Court may have been more liberal than the Obama Administration this term.'' The liberal Justices and the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court judge differently, and that is what I want to show to my colleagues. The conservative Justices acted as umpires, for the most part. They considered the facts and the law and decided the cases as they understood the Constitution. The liberal Justices prevailed so frequently because Justice Kennedy, Chief Justice Roberts, and--at least one time--Justice Thomas each voted with the liberals in at least two close, significant cases. As a University of Michigan professor commented, ``The chief justice really does take restraint seriously. At times, that is going to put a justice in contraposition to what his ideological preferences might be.'' By contrast, looking at the other end of the spectrum, there are no close cases in which even a single liberal Justice voted with conservative Justices to make a majority. Only two of the major cases were decided 5 to 4 in a conservative direction. The New York Times identified the 10 most important cases of the term. The Washington Post selected 13 cases. Whichever list is consulted, liberal results predominated. In each of the cases, the four liberal Justices voted as a bloc for a--as you might expect--liberal result. I want to show why this isn't a coincidence. The liberal Justices act like players on the same team. Liberal Justices have actually admitted that they strategize in advance to vote as a bloc in support of liberal outcomes. Justice Ginsburg stated this last year: ``We have made a concerted effort to speak with one voice in important cases.'' I fear that this attitude and the votes of these Justices give rise to an appearance that their loyalties are to each other and to their preferred principles and policies rather than to the Constitution. Certainly, it is easier to make cases come out the way you want than to carefully consider the facts, precedent, text, and the arguments of the parties before reaching a decision that might run counter to your preferred outcome. And for those Justices, it is easier to do so if you know you have four votes in your pocket before you begin the task. We accept the important role the Supreme Court plays in our constitutional system. The Constitution trumps the inconsistent policy choices of the American people enacted through their elected representatives. That is what we call the rule of law. But when Justices strike down laws based not on the Constitution but on their own policy preferences, that is the rule of judges. The Court in that instance acts as a superlegislature. Those rulings should, therefore, be questioned. At my town meeting Saturday in Iowa, they were being questioned. The Justices' personal policy views are entitled to no more respect than the policy views of the American people. When Supreme Court nominees come before the Judiciary Committee for confirmation, they know better than to say they will enforce their own views. They don't say the Constitution is a living document with a meaning that changes over time. They know they wouldn't be confirmed if that is what they said. Instead, they say the text controls or if the text is unclear, the structure and the original intent of the Founders govern. They say constitutional interpretation is not about politics or good policy; they tell us it is ``law all the way down.'' But when they get on the bench, all bets seem to be off. For instance, the text of the Constitution allows the government to deprive people of life if due process of law is provided. It makes references to capital--or death penalty--cases. It is therefore clear that the death penalty is constitutional. There may be some valid questions on when the death penalty would be legal. Nonetheless, last month Justice Breyer and another Justice wrote that they think it is very likely that the death penalty is unconstitutional in all cases--in other words, just throw out the words of the Constitution. That ought to be extremely disturbing to all of us. It is essentially a revival of the Warren Court, where the Justices' personal views trump the Constitution. The Court also ruled this year on same-sex marriage. I support traditional marriage, as a sizable percentage of the American people still do. However, I do respect people of different views. The Constitution says nothing about whether same-sex marriage is required. That is for the people to decide through the democratic process. When the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, that prompted a significant portion of the populace to believe that the Justices were reading their own view into the Constitution. The decision was based on a doctrine called ``substantive due process.'' Substantive due process is really nothing more than an open invitation to Justices to read their own policy views into the Constitution. This year, the Court ruled that the word ``liberty'' includes the right to define and express identity, individual autonomy, and dignity. Where do you find those words in the Constitution? In the past, the Court had narrowly construed substantive due process to protect only those rights established in light of objective history and their deep roots in society. The majority effectively then overturned those rules. The Court now thinks the meaning of the clause does not turn on the text or the intentions of the Framers. Rather, the Court ruled that the meaning of due process changes as ``we''--the Justices--apply, as they would say, ``new insight'' that derives from, in their words, a ``better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.'' In the view of the slim majority, the role of the Court is to make, in their words, ``new dimensions of freedom . . . apparent to new generations.'' This is the language of the doctrine of the living Constitution. It is the Justices, then, amending the Constitution without Congress and the States voting to do so. It is another Earl Warren deciding cases by asking what is just and what is fair, and that is in his mind and not what the Constitution and the laws require. It is not law at all, never mind ``law all the way down.'' While the decision permits those who hold the traditional view of marriage to discuss their views, it said nothing about the real constitutional right to freely exercise religion--with the emphasis upon ``exercise.'' Another of the Court's liberal decisions gave short shrift to another right protected by the Constitution: free speech. That decision treated as government speech what is actually private speech. It is an important distinction in the real world. Government must treat private speech neutrally. It cannot play favorites, but the government can discriminate against viewpoints it does not like when the speech is the government's speech. It can fund speech that discourages use of illegal drugs, for instance, without funding speech that encourages drug use. As a result of the First Amendment ruling, the government may be able to deny many kinds of government benefits to those who dare to express views with which the government disagrees. This then would be an ominous development for everyone. Specifically, the government may be able to deny tax exemptions and charitable deductions based on the free expression of the groups involved. That would make a scandal such as the IRS's denial of tax- exempt status to organizations based on their presumptive conservative policy stands constitutionally permissible. Substantive due process has been used for the last 50 years only to invent new liberal constitutional rights. Conservatives have not used substantive due process to invent new conservative constitutional rights. In creating new such rights, liberal Justices never are hesitant to overturn conservative precedents, but those same Justices consider the liberal substantive due process precedents to be sacrosanct under stare decisis. In other words, they are effectively saying ``what is mine is mine and what is yours is negotiable.'' Conservatives issue legal rulings that produce liberal policy effects, but liberal Justices will not issue legal rulings that are conservative. So as I am trying to show to my colleagues, each side plays by different rules. Is it any wonder that so many people in this country think the game is not on the level? A recent CNN poll--a media organization that no one would say is rightwing--found that 37 percent of those surveyed think the Court is too liberal. Only 20 percent characterized it as being too conservative. I am concerned about how that backlash could manifest itself. Even if Justices abuse their power of judicial review by substituting their policy views for the Constitution, we need judicial independence to safeguard the actual Constitution. We should not do anything to undermine judicial independence, but if the Court does not give the public the confidence that the meaning of ``liberty'' in the due process clause means something other than the policy preferences of five Justices, the consequences could be serious for our constitutional order. The Supreme Court, similar to a river flooding its banks, is not staying within its proper channel. I strongly encourage all Justices of the Court to exercise the self-restraint the Constitution demands and that its Framers anticipated. Ultimately, that will be the only way the courts will retain their necessary powers to preserve the Constitution. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in 1965, Congress passed the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The centerpiece of that law, then as now, is title I funding provided as a block grant to local school districts to serve children in poverty. The assumption in 1965 was that simply providing an infusion of Federal cash to schools with more disadvantaged children would correct educational inequities compared to more affluent schools. As it turned out, simply providing more money didn't result in improved educational outcomes for disadvantaged children. So every time this law came back up for reauthorization, Congress added more stipulations on the use of the funds and additional programs that well-meaning Members of Congress hoped would help students. Meanwhile, Congress kept raising the level of funding. Over time, there began to be a bipartisan realization that all this funding and all these programs were not resulting in improved student achievement, so something needed to change. In this context, President Bush proposed what became the No Child Left Behind Act. His original proposal promised to fundamentally change the old Washington-knows-best approach to improving teaching and learning. The theory was that we would cut the Federal strings that tied the hands of local administrators and teachers, allowing them to focus on teaching kids. In return, the law would require greater accountability in terms of student achievement outcomes. However, the final compromise that passed Congress included a very detailed one-size-fits-all assessment and accountability system, but not the degree of local freedom that many had hoped for. In retrospect, I think most people believe the focus on achievement for all students was positive. But like with many Federal laws, how it worked in practice didn't live up to the good intentions. The reality is that the new federally mandated accountability system included required interventions that were cooked up in Washington and designed for big city failing school districts. These were not a good fit for communities in Iowa and many other States. Moreover, they set a new precedent for Federal intervention into how local schools are run. Secretary Duncan took this a step further through the Race to the Top program and his abuse of the Federal waiver authority by adding conditions found nowhere in law. He used these tools to coerce States into adopting his preferred policies. These included new, even more heavy-handed mandates regarding reorganizing local schools, specific methods for schools to evaluate their teachers, and most infamously, pushing States to adopt the common core standards. I believe these actions go well beyond any authority Congress gave the Secretary of Education, and I told him so in a letter when he denied Iowa's waiver. This should be a warning to Congress that if you give an inch, Federal officials might just take a mile. The high-stakes system in No Child Left Behind also created negative incentives for schools to focus on getting passing test scores rather than meeting the individual learning needs of each student. For instance, I have had a concern for a long time in how Federal education policy affects gifted and talented students. The exclusive focus on bringing struggling students up to some minimum level means that we are setting our sights on mediocrity. Left out of this equation are gifted students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have enormous potential but need to be challenged to reach that potential. At the end of the day, the goal of making sure all students are receiving a quality education is a good one, but the record of Washington's intervention in this issue has not been a success. It is time for Congress to take a step back and have a little humility. We don't know what's best for every child in every school. We can't design a single national education system that can meet the individual needs of children we will never meet. Our Founding Fathers designed a federal system of government for a reason. The principle of federalism is that decisions should be made at the level of government as close as practicable to the people those decisions impact. When it comes to education, no one has a greater stake in educational decisions, or knows better what is right for a specific child, then that child's parents. As a result, parents should have maximum control over their child's education. When governments make decisions that impact education, it should be at a level of government as close as possible to the parents and children who are affected. The Every Child Achieves Act is a step in that direction. It eliminates the very specific mandates on States requiring that they evaluate schools based on test scores and apply federally designed interventions. States will be free to design their own assessment and accountability systems. The bill retains the requirement that States test annually in grades 3-8, which I understand was necessary to get a bipartisan agreement. However, States will have wide discretion in how they design their assessments. And, the elimination of the federally mandated school interventions that raise the stakes on the test results will reduce teaching to the test. This bill also consolidates Federal funding in a way that provides more latitude to local school districts to better meet their individual needs, although less so than in the House- passed bill. By contrast, the Obama administration's blueprint for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act called for replacing the current set of Federal mandates with a new set of Federal mandates. What the President proposes would include even more intrusive, mandatory Federal interventions for certain schools. It also proposed a series of new Federal competitive grants with broad purposes, which puts smaller rural schools at a disadvantage and gives the Secretary of Education an inappropriate degree of control over which schools get funding for which purposes. Moreover, the President's blueprint proposes tying Federal education funds to the adoption of State content standards that are ``college and career ready,'' which is code for common core. In short, the Obama blueprint would have essentially ratified this administration's heavy-handed intrusions into how and what students are taught and enabled further Federal overreach. The Every Child Achieves Act represents a rejection of that approach and an admission that the model of Federal control of local schools has not worked. As a result, President Obama has said he cannot support the bill as it stands unless it adds back more power for the Secretary. That position flies in the face of what I hear from Iowa educators and parents. In fact, this bill quite intentionally tightens up some of the language in current law to prevent future overreach by the Secretary of Education. For instance, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has always required States to develop a State plan to show how it will comply with the law in order to get Federal funding. Under current law, the Secretary of Education is charged with approving the plan unless it does not meet the requirements of the law. That should be sufficient to tell the Secretary that he must approve a plan so long as it complies with the law. However, given the current Secretary's track record, the language in this bill is more explicit. It requires the Secretary to deem a State plan approved within 90 days of its submission unless he can provide a detailed description of the specific requirements in law that the State did not comply with. It then lists three pages of explicit limitations on the Secretary's authority describing what he cannot consider in evaluating a State plan. That is then followed by a rule reemphasizing that the Secretary cannot require anything at all from States beyond what is in the law. This bill also voids any conditions attached to waivers already granted by the Secretary of Education and prohibits the attaching of any new ones in the future. I am also glad that this bill includes very comprehensive language I worked on with Senator Roberts to explicitly shut off all the avenues this administration has used to coerce States to adopt the common core standards. This will free States to adopt whatever content standards they choose based on the input from their citizens without Federal coercion or fear of Federal repercussions. Too often, Congress passes vague laws that delegate excessive discretion to Federal agencies to fill in the blanks. This bill is an improvement over the standard practice. It makes congressional intent more clear and fills in many gaps to ensure that the Department implements the law as intended rather than based on the whims of the Secretary. Some bipartisan compromise is necessary for any bill to pass the Senate, and like any compromise, most people can find some things they don't like in this bill. Some Senators feel this bill goes too far in reducing the Federal role in education and some Senators feel it doesn't go far enough. I am one of those Senators who would prefer to see a maximum degree of State and local control and I voted for amendments to that effect. However, the Every Child Achieves Act is a step in the direction of reducing Federal control on local schools so teachers can teach and parents know who to hold accountable for decisions that affect their children. Given the current mess with an unworkable law on the books, many States ceding control over major policies to Washington in return for a waiver, and an unprecedented degree of Federal intervention into what happens in neighborhood schools, it is overdue for Congress to act. Local schools can do more when Washington does less. Let's give them that chance. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, just 12 days ago, Kate Steinle was walking along Pier 14 in San Francisco with her father when she was shot by an individual in this country illegally. At the age of 32--a very young age--her life was taken. Friends and family mourned her death and laid her to rest late last week. Kate Steinle should be with us today. Her death is a result of weak immigration policies, an insecure border, and a lack of will to enforce the law. Her alleged killer was deported five times and has a rap sheet that dates back to 1991. Despite his criminal background, San Francisco's sanctuary policy allowed this man to walk the streets. Today we are learning that there are thousands of detainers placed each year on undocumented immigrants by Federal officials, but these detainers go ignored. Detainers are requests to another law enforcement entity that it wants to take custody of a person. The Federal Government will ask, for instance, a State or local jurisdiction to hold an individual for 48 hours until the Federal Government can assume custody. According to government documents provided by the Center for Immigration Studies, between January and September of 2014, there were 8,811 declined detainers in 276 counties in 43 States, including the District of Columbia. Of the 8,811 declined detainers, 62 percent of them were associated with over 5,000 individuals who were previously charged, convicted of a crime or presented some other public safety concern. And nearly 1,900 of the released offenders were arrested for another crime once they were released by the sanctuary jurisdiction. This is very disturbing--not only to me but to most Americans. There is no good rationale for noncooperation between Federal officials and State and local law enforcement. Public safety is put at risk when State and local officials provide sanctuary to lawbreaking immigrants just to make some political point. But San Francisco isn't the only one to shoulder blame here. The Obama administration has turned a blind eye to law enforcement in this area, even releasing thousands of criminal aliens on its own, many of whom have gone on to commit serious crimes--even murder. They have also turned a blind eye to sanctuary cities, all while challenging States to take a more aggressive approach to immigration and enforcing immigration laws. That is why I wrote to Attorney General Lynch and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Johnson just last week. I urged them to take control of the situation so that detainers are not ignored and undocumented individuals are safely transferred to Federal custody and put into deportation proceedings. I implored them to take a more direct role in this matter. This administration needs to stop turning a blind eye to State and local jurisdictions that thumb their nose at the law and harbor criminals who are evading immigration authorities. But this isn't a new issue for this administration. I wrote to then- Secretary Napolitano in 2011 and asked her to intervene in Cook County, IL, another sanctuary jurisdiction. I wrote to her again, along with then-Attorney General Holder, about sanctuary cities in January of 2012. They failed to do anything at the time. In fact, since then, administration officials have made it clear that detainers did not have to be honored. The man charged with the murder of Kate Steinle told officials that he sought refuge and moved to San Francisco precisely because of its sanctuary policy. This is a tipping point, however. There are many other victims we need to remember. That is why, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I plan to hold a hearing on the President's immigration policies and the tragic effect they are having on Americans. I have invited the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to testify. Before they testify, I plan to have relatives of victims present to tell Congress how their loved ones and how their lives have been forever changed because of criminal aliens. This hearing will take place next Tuesday. This is far too important an issue to go unresolved. The heartbreaking death of Kate Steinle at the hands of a criminal alien in the country illegally underscores the need for swift and decisive action to prevent further tragedies of this nature. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 4:30 p.m.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, over the past year and half or more, many small business owners have discovered they could be subject to punitive penalties simply for helping their employees purchase health insurance. This is the result of a little understood provision in the Affordable Care Act, ACA. Farmers, ranchers, and small business owners frequently do not have the resources to offer a traditional group health plan to their employees. However, many still want to help their employees obtain health coverage. They have frequently done this by reimbursing their employees on a pre-tax basis for the cost of health insurance the employee purchases on the individual market. However, as a result of so-called market reforms in the ACA, small business owners who want to help their employees purchase insurance on the individual market could be subject to a $100 a day per employee penalty. This fails to meet the common sense test. These businesses have no obligation under the ACA to offer any form of insurance. However, they would like to do what they can to help their employees obtain coverage. This is a practice that should be commended, not penalized. I have had a number of farmers, small business owners, and accountants reach out to me over the past year explaining how this penalty has the potential to be devastating. Just as examples, I want to read excerpts from a couple emails I have received from Iowans. The first is from a constituent who is a dentist in Sioux City, IA: Help! . . . I am a small business owner--7 employees. I have been helping to subsidize my employee's health insurance for 20 years. I just found out that the Market Reforms of the ACA have made that illegal. . . . Now all of my employees will have to pay taxes on the money I gave them for Health Insurance. They all live paycheck to paycheck and won't be able to come up with the taxes on this money. They also most likely won't qualify for the exchanges and any government subsidy. They are caught in the middle. I can't subsidize their Health Insurance because I risk a $100/day/employee penalty . . . Please hurry and do something to help the millions of middle class small business employees who are caught between a rock and a hard place. This next one is from an accountant in Zwingle, IA: I recently completed two classes for CPE credit for my CPA license. These classes covered the Affordable Care Act and the presenters were adamant that we contact our senators and representatives on behalf of small businesses. I do have a client that this affects that could potentially be put out of business. Businesses that have section 105 plans or that provide additional salary to employees for the employees to purchase health insurance privately or through the government marketplace can be fined $100 per day per employee. That is $36,500 per employee per year! I'm trying to help my client to figure out how to stop the payments to the employees and not be destroyed by the potential fines. This could be absolutely devastating. No doubt, there are countless other small business owners who have similarly been caught off guard. In fact, due to widespread confusion, the IRS granted penalty relief earlier this year. However, this penalty relief runs out at the end of this month. Legislation is necessary to eliminate this unfair and potentially devastating penalty once and for all. Toward this end, I have been working with Senator Heitkamp, along with Representatives Charles Boustany and Mike Thompson in the House, on bipartisan, bicameral legislation. Today, we are pleased to introduce this legislation. This common sense legislation will permit small businesses to continue offering a benefit to their employees that many have provided for years--namely reimbursing their employees for the cost of health insurance purchased on the individual market. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, around 18 percent of small businesses last year reimbursed employees or provided other financial support to workers who bought individual insurance plans. Many others responded that they would be interested in such an option. Our legislation ensures this option is, and continues to be, available by eliminating the potential for devastating penalties. This legislation should be a no brainer for anyone who supports small business. I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join in this effort.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, over the past year and half or more, many small business owners have discovered they could be subject to punitive penalties simply for helping their employees purchase health insurance. This is the result of a little understood provision in the Affordable Care Act, ACA. Farmers, ranchers, and small business owners frequently do not have the resources to offer a traditional group health plan to their employees. However, many still want to help their employees obtain health coverage. They have frequently done this by reimbursing their employees on a pre-tax basis for the cost of health insurance the employee purchases on the individual market. However, as a result of so-called market reforms in the ACA, small business owners who want to help their employees purchase insurance on the individual market could be subject to a $100 a day per employee penalty. This fails to meet the common sense test. These businesses have no obligation under the ACA to offer any form of insurance. However, they would like to do what they can to help their employees obtain coverage. This is a practice that should be commended, not penalized. I have had a number of farmers, small business owners, and accountants reach out to me over the past year explaining how this penalty has the potential to be devastating. Just as examples, I want to read excerpts from a couple emails I have received from Iowans. The first is from a constituent who is a dentist in Sioux City, IA: Help! . . . I am a small business owner--7 employees. I have been helping to subsidize my employee's health insurance for 20 years. I just found out that the Market Reforms of the ACA have made that illegal. . . . Now all of my employees will have to pay taxes on the money I gave them for Health Insurance. They all live paycheck to paycheck and won't be able to come up with the taxes on this money. They also most likely won't qualify for the exchanges and any government subsidy. They are caught in the middle. I can't subsidize their Health Insurance because I risk a $100/day/employee penalty . . . Please hurry and do something to help the millions of middle class small business employees who are caught between a rock and a hard place. This next one is from an accountant in Zwingle, IA: I recently completed two classes for CPE credit for my CPA license. These classes covered the Affordable Care Act and the presenters were adamant that we contact our senators and representatives on behalf of small businesses. I do have a client that this affects that could potentially be put out of business. Businesses that have section 105 plans or that provide additional salary to employees for the employees to purchase health insurance privately or through the government marketplace can be fined $100 per day per employee. That is $36,500 per employee per year! I'm trying to help my client to figure out how to stop the payments to the employees and not be destroyed by the potential fines. This could be absolutely devastating. No doubt, there are countless other small business owners who have similarly been caught off guard. In fact, due to widespread confusion, the IRS granted penalty relief earlier this year. However, this penalty relief runs out at the end of this month. Legislation is necessary to eliminate this unfair and potentially devastating penalty once and for all. Toward this end, I have been working with Senator Heitkamp, along with Representatives Charles Boustany and Mike Thompson in the House, on bipartisan, bicameral legislation. Today, we are pleased to introduce this legislation. This common sense legislation will permit small businesses to continue offering a benefit to their employees that many have provided for years--namely reimbursing their employees for the cost of health insurance purchased on the individual market. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, around 18 percent of small businesses last year reimbursed employees or provided other financial support to workers who bought individual insurance plans. Many others responded that they would be interested in such an option. Our legislation ensures this option is, and continues to be, available by eliminating the potential for devastating penalties. This legislation should be a no brainer for anyone who supports small business. I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join in this effort.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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