Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, our strongest and most loyal ally in the Middle East faces a growing existential threat under the specter of a nuclear Iran. I am deeply troubled that our President's solution won't work. Rather than enforcing punitive measures that would stem Iran's nuclear progress, this administration has opted for a policy of conciliation that does nothing to curb this growing threat. All the while, the threat to Israel grows stronger every day. Now more than ever the Congress and the American people must stand with our Israeli allies to ensure the safety and security not only of our two nations, but the Middle East as a whole. Far from being a political stunt, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to a joint session of Congress provides our Nation with a vital opportunity to demonstrate our unyielding resolve to stand with Israel and oppose Iran's development of nuclear weapons. To demonstrate our solidarity with Israel, Congress should complement the Prime Minister's address with the threat of sanctions that properly secure both of our countries against the Iranian threat. We must achieve three commonsense objectives: First, we must prevent Iran from developing or otherwise acquiring nuclear weapons. Second, we should reaffirm that Iran does not have an inherent right to enrichment and reprocessing capabilities and technologies under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Third, we must seek to reverse the development of Iran's illicit nuclear infrastructure and bring Iran into compliance with all United Nations Security Council resolutions. President Obama has failed to realize that Iran poses a serious threat to the West, and our response to that threat must be equally serious. Prime Minister Netanyahu understands the precariousness of the current situation, and he is doing his best to help us here in the United States understand. As the Prime Minister stated: ``I am going to the United States not because I seek a confrontation with the president, but because I must fulfill my obligation to speak up on a matter that affects the very survival of my country.'' The Prime Minister has good reason to be concerned. According to the Heritage Foundation, since the Obama administration began to relax sanctions after an interim agreement was implemented, the Iranian economy grew by an estimated 4.6 percent in the first quarter of Iran's calendar year--the first time it has grown after shrinking for the last 2 years under sanctions. As we lose leverage by relaxing sanctions, we must not forget the most likely reason Iran agreed to negotiations in the first place was economic restrictions. When the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is reported to have said after the announcement of the Joint Plan of Action that ``the centrifuges are spinning and will never stop,'' should we curtail our efforts in the one area that appears to give Iran pause? Times such as these require strength of purpose, which is why we should clearly lay out a series of sanctions that will be imposed on Iran if negotiations fail. We should provide for short but reasonable periods of time for Congress, and, therefore, the American people, to consider if the Obama administration has succeeded in accomplishing the three objectives necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Tomorrow, the Congress will hear from Prime Minister Netanyahu. In his message, I believe, he will tell us how we together can confront the growing Iranian threat. This is the time to rally as one Nation with one of our strongest allies to ensure a safe and secure world. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to recognize Erma H. Rosenhan in honor of her 100th birthday on February 28, 2015. Erma has devoted years of her life to genealogical research, submitting over 400,000 names--many of them German--to the Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for ordinance work in LDS temples. She has served the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in many different capacities, including as an employee, as a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and as a missionary. Her extensive genealogical work and her service to the LDS Church have blessed both her extended family and all those who know her. On her 100th birthday, she shows no signs of slowing down; in fact, she still conducts research 3 days a week at the Family History Library in downtown Salt Lake City. Erma H. Rosenhan is an example of kindness, hard work, and humble perseverance. She deserves our recognition for her lifetime of selfless, diligent service.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, last week I joined my colleague Senator Burr in unveiling the latest version of our legislative proposal to repeal and replace the so-called Affordable Care Act. We are joined this time around by our friend in the House, Chairman Upton of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. We call our proposal the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act, or the Patient CARE Act for short. As you may recall, we first unveiled this framework last year and in general it received high marks for being a serious, responsible alternative to ObamaCare. We have unveiled the latest version of the proposal in hopes of continuing the conversation we began in the last Congress. Let's face it. ObamaCare isn't working. It is not working. Sure, its proponents in the Senate and elsewhere have gotten pretty good at cherry-picking data in order to convince the American people that the President's health care law is a success. But the American people know the truth. The law is a disaster for individuals, families, and employers alike. Despite the claims that ObamaCare would lower health care costs, costs have continued to skyrocket. Due to all the mandates in the law, businesses are slowing hiring and moving employees into part-time work. Of course, the law includes more than a trillion dollars in new taxes that impact consumers and businesses around the country. We need a better path forward and a long-term vision for sustainable health care reform. I want to take just a few minutes today to talk about the approach we want to take with the Patient CARE Act and why it is a better approach than the one being taken under ObamaCare. Our plan rests on four simple principles. First, repeal ObamaCare with all its costly mandates, taxes, and regulations. Second, reduce costs by taking the government out of the equation and instead empowering consumers to make choices about their own health care. Third, provide common sense consumer protections, including protections for individuals with preexisting conditions. And fourth, reform our broken Medicaid system by giving States more flexibility to provide the best coverage for their citizens. Let me talk about each of these principles in a little more detail. For any health care proposal to have a chance of success, it must get rid of ObamaCare. The failures of ObamaCare have been well documented here on the Senate floor and elsewhere. The American people deal with those failures on a daily basis. That is why the first principle of our proposal is to repeal ObamaCare once and for all. Then we move on to address the biggest barrier to health care in this country-- skyrocketing costs. Our plan would give taxpayers affordable options to meet their health care needs by harnessing the power of the marketplace--not through Federal Government mandates. With more options in the private insurance marketplace, people will be better able to find insurance that meets their needs. The lack of choice and draconian coverage mandates is one of ObamaCare's largest shortcomings. Our proposal would allow consumers to find affordable plans that address their particular needs without making them pay for coverage they will never use or want. Our proposal would also give States more options to provide people with more coverage. Under our plan families earning up to 300 percent of the Federal poverty level would be eligible for a tax credit to purchase insurance of their choosing. In addition, our plan would help small businesses enjoy the same advantages in the marketplace as large businesses by allowing them to band together to leverage their purchasing power to buy insurance for their employees. The Patient CARE Act also proposes an expansion of the health savings accounts so that people can plan and save for their future medical needs. Under our plan, for the first time consumers would be able to use their pretax dollars to pay premiums and deductibles. Our proposal would inject more transparency into health care costs so people can know what their providers are charging and how successful they are. In addition, we include other cost-saving measures such as medical malpractice liability reform to help reduce the expensive practice of unnecessary defensive medicine. Our plan would reduce the distortions in the Tax Code that actually increase the cost of health care in our country by capping the unlimited employee exclusion. This is a key way of restraining costs that has support across the political and economic spectrum. In our proposal the exclusion is capped at a generous $30,000 for a family plan, and that threshold will continue to grow at CPI plus one. Most importantly, we make sure we preserve the employer-sponsored health care system for those 160 million Americans who rely on it by leaving the employer deduction untouched and by repealing the job- killing employer mandate. By increasing consumer choice and utilizing the power of the market, our proposal will actually reduce health care costs, something ObamaCare has miserably failed to do. Our plan also includes a number of commonsense consumer protections. For example, we would make sure a person would not see their coverage get canceled if they get sick. Our plan would also ensure that people with preexisting conditions could not be denied access to health insurance. Period. I will repeat that for my friends on the other side, who were confused about this in some of their speeches: No American with a preexisting condition can be denied coverage under our plan. End of story. We would also let children stay on their parents' plans through age 26 and prevent insurers from putting caps on total benefits paid out over a person's lifetime so that no patient will have to worry about maxing out their coverage. Finally, our plan would address the current failings of the Medicaid Program. Keep in mind, many of the newly insured people credited to ObamaCare have obtained their coverage through the expansion of Medicaid. Of course, this is absurd as Medicaid is a financially unsound program that continues to swallow up State budgets on a yearly basis. ObamaCare did not improve the stability of Medicaid, it only threatened it further. The Patient CARE Act includes a key reform that is similar to the Medicaid modernization plan that Chairman Upton and I proposed in the last Congress. Currently, Federal taxpayers have an open-ended liability to match State Medicaid spending, which is a significant driver in Medicaid's budgetary challenges. Our proposal would create per capita spending caps--something President Clinton, and many Democrats who remain in this Chamber, supported in the past. We would couple this structural reform to Medicaid with new flexibility for States to manage their Medicaid populations. On top of that, we would give those on Medicaid the option of purchasing private health insurance, which is more frequently accepted by quality doctors. I hope you are grasping a pattern when it comes to this proposal. At virtually every step, our aim with this proposal is to take the Federal Government out of the equation and put individuals and families in charge of making their own health care decisions. We trust the American people to make the best choices for themselves. The Patient CARE Act represents a sustainable and achievable alternative to ObamaCare, one that will succeed without the tax hikes, the mandates, and the outrageous government spending that came part and parcel with the Affordable Care Act. Most importantly, it will actually reduce the cost of health care in this country. Once again, our hope with unveiling the latest version of this framework is that we can continue the conversation about improving health care for individuals and families. I have given just a top-line, 35,000-foot overview of the proposal here today. I want to invite my colleagues to take a look at our ideas and give us your feedback. I hope health care experts around the country will continue to do the same. Unlike ObamaCare, this is a product that will rely on consensus and feedback. We have more work to do. It is important, and I look forward to more discussions and conversations about these issues.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I also rise today to speak about the recent progress we have made in restoring the Senate as an institution. After being sworn in as President pro tempore just over a month ago, I rose to address the state of the Senate and how we, as Members, must work together to restore its greatness. This is an opportune moment to take stock and to reflect briefly on our progress toward achieving this goal. I am pleased to report that we have embarked on a new chapter of thoughtful, productive legislating in this Chamber, just as the Framers intended us to and just as the American people expect us to. We have had hours upon hours of open, constructive debate with arguments from both sides of the aisle. We have considered dozens of amendments reflecting a full range of political viewpoints. The majority leader promised this body that he would restore regular order, and that is precisely what he has done. Not only have we engaged in fulsome debate and considered dozens of amendments, but we have also already passed four major bipartisan bills in a single month to reform and extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, to address the critically important issue of veteran suicides, and--my bill yesterday--to provide effective restitution for victims of child pornography. That is what voters elected us to do--to craft good legislation, to debate it, to improve it through the open amendment process, and then send it to the President's desk. In my remarks when I was sworn in as President pro tempore, I noted that in recent years the foundations of the Senate's unique character-- meaningful debate and an open amendment process--have come under sustained assault by those who have prioritized scoring political points over preserving the Senate's essential role in our system of government. What a difference such a short time can make. What a breath of fresh air these last 6 weeks have been for this body on both sides of the aisle. We are moving forward. We are keeping our promises, and we are helping to restore the Senate as the world's greatest deliberative body. I wish to highlight some specifics of these positive changes we have witnessed over the past work period. First, robust debate. The late Senator Robert C. Byrd liked to say that ``as long as the Senate retains the power to amend and the power of unlimited debate, the liberties of the people will remain secure.'' In this new Congress, we are restoring the right to meaningful debate. As I noted last month, when a full and robust debate has occurred, invoking cloture--a motion to end debate--is often appropriate. But we must not abuse this power by always seeking reflexively to cut off debate before it even begins. In the dark days of the previous Congress, we often saw such motions to cut off debate filed as soon as debate had begun, eviscerating any meaningful opportunity for considering the issues. The Senate desperately needed to return to a system where all Senators have a say in what the Senate does and are able to express their views without getting cut off at the pass. We are now returning to that system. We have resisted the temptation to cut off debate immediately. Under the majority leader's leadership, this body spent the better part of 3 weeks considering the Keystone XL Pipeline bill. During that time, Senators--both Republican and Democrat--enjoyed ample opportunity to voice their position on the bill as well as on our energy policy more broadly. This represents the exact sort of deliberate character the Senate was designed to embody. Indeed, the Democratic minority actually used more hours of floor debate on Keystone than did the Republican majority. To me, this is a remarkable statistic indicative of our new majority's commitment to treat the minority fairly and to approach individual Senators, regardless of party, as valuable contributors to our work rather than as mindless partisans. The Senate was also designed to be the institution in our system of republican self-government that produced wise legislation. Popular passions, parochial interests, and factionalism--what Edmund Randolph called the ``turbulence and follies of democracy''--were to be defined in the Senate where smaller membership and larger constituencies and longer terms would improve the legislative product. These structural features of the Senate led to the development of a tradition in which individual Members were allowed to offer amendments freely--one of the primary mechanisms by which this body can refine legislation for the better. For centuries, this notion of an open amendment process has been at the core of the Senate's identity. But in recent years, many of us have bemoaned the demise of this tradition. In effect, one of this institution's most defining characteristics was emasculated for partisan political purposes. But the way we dealt with amendments over the course of the last month shows that the open amendment process is making a comeback. The majority leader shepherded through votes on more than 30 amendments in January, more than double the amendment votes permitted by the Democrats in all of 2014. In fact, in 1 week alone, we voted on more amendments than the previous majority allowed us to vote on all of last year. There could be no clearer evidence of this body's resurgence. The facts speak for themselves. While one former Democratic Senator did not receive a vote on any of his amendments during the entire extent of his service in this body over the prior 6 years, the lone freshman Democrat Senator in this Congress, the junior Senator from Michigan, has already received a vote on one of his amendments in just the first few weeks of his service here. Truly, under this new majority, Senators of both parties are individually contributing to our work for the common good. A key part of returning to regular order is restoring the committee process. A healthy committee process is essential to a well-functioning Senate. In committees, Members are often best able to work together to debate, draft, and amend legislation that ultimately passes the Senate. We began resuscitating the committee process in our consideration of the Keystone XL Pipeline bill. I commend the tireless efforts of the distinguished Chair and ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who together masterfully led this body through recently unfamiliar territory of legislating through regular order. The Senator from Alaska merits particular praise for the skill she demonstrated in guiding this bill through the process, while the Senator from Washington should be lauded for her commitment to a fair and orderly process despite her opposition to the underlying policy. Their admirable work set an important example for the rest of us as we return to regular order in the 114th Congress by working together to improve legislation rather than simply trying to shut each other out of the process. I heard voices from some corners quibbling over certain elements of the Keystone debate process, but to focus on these criticisms misses the forest for the trees by fixating on one or two nitpicks and ignoring how deliberative and inclusive the process really was. We enjoyed open debate, ample opportunity to amend, and respect for committee expertise. This all contributed to the passage of a bipartisan bill. The proof is in the votes. Of the almost 50 votes on Keystone-related matters, few followed strict party lines, and the final bill won passage with 62 affirmative votes, including those of 9 Democrats. Twenty percent of Democrats present, nearly one-fifth of the caucus, voted for the Keystone bill. This was real bipartisanship. The result was a critically important piece of legislation that the President of the United States should sign into law. I urge him to do so. But that is not what we are hearing from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. No, the President has said he will veto the bill. In fact, he said he would veto it before we even took it up--before any amendments had even been offered. Instead, President Obama appears determined to ignore the will of the U.S. Congress, dismissing bills out of hand that have yet to reach his desk. I fail to see how this recalcitrance advances the cause of responsible governance or responds to the will of the American people who made their preferences clearly known at the ballot box last November. I, for one, will not let the President's irresponsible attitude toward this institution diminish my commitment to it. In fact, I call on each Senator to continue working to restore our Chamber's proper functioning. I urge all of us to participate actively in the committee process, help produce sound legislation, and carry out our institutional duties. The American people can then see for themselves the stark difference between a Senate that works and a White House that is unwilling to engage in genuine negotiation and compromise. I will close with a note on civility, that crucial ingredient we must never overlook, even in the heat of political discourse. I recall the words of Senator Chris Dodd, my friend, who represented Connecticut in this body for 30 years. In his final speech here on the Senate floor in late 2010, he reminded us that the Senate was intended to be a place where every Member's voice could be heard and where deliberation and even dissent would be valued and respected. As Senator Dodd explained, ``Our Founders were concerned not only with what was legislated, but-- just as importantly--with how we legislated.'' I have observed that debate on this floor during the past few weeks-- although tense at times--has on the whole been genuine, balanced, and respectful. We must remain true to this ethos as we continue to reinvigorate the debate and amendment process. In the weeks and months ahead, new disagreements will surely arise. This is when civility and statesmanship are most needed. We must each overcome whatever instincts may drive us away from civil discourse and toward anger, bitterness, petulance, or self-promotion. When this new Congress convened just over six weeks ago, I spoke of our collective duty to restore the Senate. I expressed my confidence that we could make the Senate work again by returning to regular order, promoting robust debate, and enabling an inclusive amendment process. We have made admirable progress over the last month. Our actions are backing up our rhetoric. Let us sustain this momentum. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the bill before us proves the axiom that big things come in small packages. This bill, the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act, may only be several pages long, but it is a very big bill. In 1994, by enacting the Violence Against Women Act, Congress required that defendants who commit certain crimes pay restitution to their victims. I had a lot to do with that bill. These are crimes--such as the sexual exploitation of children--that have a particularly devastating impact on victims, and they need help to put their lives back together. Last year, in a case titled ``Paroline v. United States,'' the Supreme Court concluded that the restitution statute cannot provide the restitution that Congress promised for child pornography victims. The only way to fix this problem is to amend the restitution statute in a way that accounts for the insidious and evil nature of child pornography itself. The Supreme Court held in Paroline that under the statute as currently written, a victim can seek restitution only for losses that are directly related to an individual defendant's distribution or possession of specific images of her abuse. That is not only virtually impossible to prove, but it pretends that defendants and images are isolated and self-contained. The truth is that in the Internet age, defendants are part of a growing, shifting, and constantly active group of individuals who keep the victimization going. As the Supreme Court put it in Paroline last year, each viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the child's abuse. Everyone who drives the trafficking in those images repeats that abuse and contributes to a victim's losses. Some of them will be caught and prosecuted, while others will hide in the shadows and seek safety in numbers. The harsh reality for a victim is that the Internet has multiplied the number of individuals who harm her and, at the same time, made it harder to identify them so she can seek restitution--or should I say, she really can't seek restitution. The bill before us today addresses this cruel catch-22. This bill is named for Amy and Vicky, the victims in two of the most widely viewed child pornography series in the world. When I reintroduced this bill on January 28, I also shared the story of Andy, a young man in Utah who is the victim in another widely distributed child pornography series. He is the named victim in more than 700 cases but has been granted restitution under Paroline in only one-quarter of the cases in which he has sought it and actually received restitution in just two of those cases. This bill provides judges with options for calculating a victim's total losses and imposing restitution in different kinds of cases. That is not always easy for the very reason that I just described. A judge must impose restitution in an individual case for losses that flow from ongoing harm. But that is the diabolical nature of child pornography, and we must equip the criminal justice system to address it. This bill helps victims in another important way. Today a victim must chase every single defendant to seek restitution, only to be told that she must seek the impossible and, therefore, receive next to nothing. In addition to providing a way for judges to require meaningful restitution in individual cases, this bill allows defendants who harm the same victim to seek contribution from each other to spread that restitution cost. Let me put it as simply as I can. The current statute maximizes a victim's burden and minimizes her restitution. This bill minimizes a victim's burden and maximizes her restitution. Both Amy and Vicky personally endorse this bill. National victim advocacy groups also support it, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, the National Crime Victim Law Institute, the National Center for Victims of Crime, the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women, and the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Last October I received a letter endorsing this bill signed by the attorneys general of 43 States--22 Republicans and 21 Democrats. This has, in fact, been a truly bipartisan effort. The senior Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, has been my partner from the start in developing this legislation and has been a champion for crime victims for many years. It is important to have him on this bill. He is one of the great leaders in the Senate today, and we intend to do more together in the future. The cosponsors include 22 Republicans and 17 Democrats. Big things really do come in small packages. I have been contacted by advocates working with dozens of countries around the world to tackle the problem of child pornography and exploitation. They emphasize the need for meaningful restitution and say that this legislation can be an example for other countries to follow. Congress in 1994 required full restitution for child victims of sexual exploitation. The Supreme Court last year confirmed that the restitution statute cannot keep that promise to victims of child pornography. Enacting this legislation shows Congress at its best, stepping up and taking the action necessary to address this problem. Amy, Vicky, and Andy are counting on us. This is an extremely important bill. It means that victims of child pornography--usually videos that are shipped all around the world and seen by, maybe, millions--have the chance of being able to get true restitution under this bill. Before that, they would have to go and sue everyone who was involved, and there is no way they could find that out, no way they could really do that, no way they could really get restitution and justify the attorneys' fees, and no way they could really vindicate themselves and show these people, these horrible people who do these things to children, that they are not going to get away with it anymore. This bill eliminates all of that. This bill makes it possible for the victims of pornography and childhood exploitation to be able to recover and to get restitution for the very poor treatment they have undergone. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 20 minutes each.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the impending exhaustion of the disability trust fund administered by the Social Security Administration. The Social Security system contains two important programs. One is the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance--or OASI--Program, often referred to as the retirement program. That program provides income to insured workers and their families at retirement or death, based on their payroll tax contributions to the OASI trust fund. The other is the disability insurance--or DI--program, which provides income to insured workers who suffer from a disabling condition, based on their payroll tax contributions to the DI trust fund. Unfortunately, both trust funds face trillions of dollars in unfunded obligations. Each trust fund is legally distinct, although they have been commingled in the past into an imaginary fund labeled the ``OASDI trust fund'' or mingled with the General Fund. Reserves in the DI trust fund are projected to be exhausted sometime late in calendar year 2016, after which beneficiaries face benefit cuts of around 20 percent. The DI program alone faces unfunded obligations over the next 75 years of more than $1.2 trillion. Reserves in the OASI trust fund are projected to be exhausted in 2034, after which retirees and their survivors face benefit cuts of around 25 percent. The retirement program alone faces unfunded obligations of around $9.4 trillion over the next 75 years. Financial operations of the OASI and DI trust funds are overseen by a board of trustees composed of six members. Four of them serve based on their positions in the Federal Government, and two are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, Treasury Secretary Lew, Labor Secretary Perez, HHS Secretary Burwell, and Social Security's Acting Commissioner Colvin serve on the board. This is not what anyone would consider a band of fiscal hawks. Yet, in their most recent report, these trustees--who are, once again, high-ranking officials in the Obama administration-- urged Congress to take action ``as soon as possible to address the DI program's financial imbalance.'' Those are pretty clear words. Those are not the words of any Republican trying to manufacture a crisis. They are not the words of any Republican trying to hold anyone or anything hostage, as some of my friends on the other side have claimed. Rather, they come from Obama administration officials who, in their roles as trustees, are forced to acknowledge reality. I want to take this opportunity to once again urge the administration and my colleagues--particularly those on the other side of the aisle-- to begin to work with me to find solutions that will at least begin to chip away at the known financial imbalances in the DI trust fund so that we can prevent the coming benefit cuts. Last year, in a Finance Committee hearing on the DI program, I made clear my willingness to work with anyone in Congress or the administration to examine options and ideas about the DI program before the DI trust fund becomes exhausted. Indeed, I have been trying for years to get the administration to engage on this issue. Unfortunately, to date I have heard nothing from the administration and very little from my friends on the other side of the aisle about this issue. What I have heard is fearmongering about supposed Republican plans to slash benefits or engineer a false crisis or hold beneficiaries hostage. I am not exaggerating; those are the very words they have used. In budget after budget, the President has all but ignored Social Security in general and the DI program in particular. The President's budgets generally only include calls for more administrative funding for the Social Security Administration or the occasional idea for an experimental trial. After years of my asking the administration to engage on the DI program's financial challenges, the President quietly inserted his policy position on DI just recently. With his fiscal year 2016 budget, we finally learned that the President supports a ``stand-alone reallocation'' of incoming tax receipts away from the retirement trust fund over to the disability insurance trust fund. Oddly, one of the objectives appears to be to make a reallocation so that both the disability and the retirement trust funds become exhausted in the same future year, which, according to the budget, is 2033. Needless to say, having a joint trust fund exhaustion as a target does not solve any fundamental financial problem facing the long-run financial challenges of Social Security. Moreover, it takes away any urgency for Congress to improve the disability program now, before it becomes harder to do so down the road. By stand-alone reallocation, the administration means that it wants to shift funds from the retirement fund to the DI fund with no accompanying policy changes of any kind--no change in overall payroll taxes, no change in benefits, no substantive changes in program integrity aside from the persistent call for more mandatory administrative funds, not even a study. There have recently been many misconceptions and misstatements about the idea of a reallocation in general and a stand-alone reallocation in particular. The last time Congress made a reallocation from the retirement trust fund to the DI trust fund was in 1994. At that time, Social Security trustees wrote the following about the reallocation and the DI trust fund: While the Congress acted this past year to restore its short-term financial balance, this necessary action should be viewed as only providing time and opportunity to design and implement substantive reforms that can lead to long-term financial stability. . . . Unfortunately, those reforms never came. And now, also unfortunately, the President wants to tell the American people the same story: Punt now to provide time for later action. In addition, the financial challenges facing Social Security are very different from past trust fund account reshuffling, including the one in 1994. The public trustees of the Social Security trust fund wrote just last year: The present situation is very different from that of 1994. . . . The DI Trust Fund's impending reserve depletion signals that the time has arrived for reforms that strengthen the financing outlooks for OASI and DI alike. Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle say that we have had many reallocations between the DI and OASI trust funds in the past and that it is just ordinary housekeeping or a technical change. It is something we do all the time, they say, so there is nothing really to see here. True, there have been trust fund reallocations in the past--sometimes from OASI to DI, sometimes the other way around, sometimes with overall payroll tax rate changes and sometimes not. But there has never--let me repeat that: never--been a stand-alone reallocation from the retirement to the disability trust fund. Most people who would dispute this talk about the reallocation of 1994, which I mentioned earlier, but if the 1994 reallocation is somehow to be considered a model of ordinary housekeeping that we should repeat today, I think it is a bad model for the reasons I just identified. Following that model, we would defer action until later, all the while claiming that real changes were on the horizon. And following that model, we would continue to do nothing to place Social Security on a more stable financial footing. Moreover, thinking of reallocation as just a normal way of doing business raises many questions: Why was a separate DI trust fund set up to begin with? Why do we even call them trust funds if they are merely fungible accounting devices? Why not merge the OASI and DI funds and call them the singular Social Security trust fund? More generally, given the recent stimulus-inspired mingling of General Fund revenues with the OASI and DI trust funds, why have Social Security trust funds at all? And if historical reallocations are to be used to guide what we should do today, then perhaps the recent reallocations from the General Fund to both the OASI and DI trust funds, having been the most recent historical reallocation episodes, should be the most prominent precedents. When circumstances make us focus on the solvency of any trust fund, there are two options. Option one: We can face up to the known financial challenges, examine what can be done about them in a bipartisan way, and try to enact solutions. Option two: We can kick the proverbial can further down the road by taking the most expedient route to reshuffle resources temporarily in order to get the problem out of the way in the short term. Unfortunately, the President and his allies here in Congress seem to prefer the latter--to kick the can down the road, the kick-the-can strategy. This is especially disappointing given what the President said about Social Security when he took office in 2009. At that time, the President said about Social Security: What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further. We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else's. Well, the President has been on his watch for 6 years now, and if we look at his administration's proposed solution to the coming DI trust fund exhaustion, he seems more than content to push any hard decisions off until his term is over. President Obama now not only wants to kick the can down the road, but he also wants to do it in a way that has never been done before. Elementary budget arithmetic makes clear that you simply cannot strengthen the financial outlooks for our two Social Security programs and their trust funds simply by shifting resources from one to the other. Indeed, Director Elmendorf of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently said: ``If you want to help both programs you're not going to accomplish that by just moving money around between them.'' Rather than engaging in yet another unnecessary partisan battle, we need to take this opportunity to work together to see what can be done in a bipartisan way to address the impending exhaustion of reserves in the DI trust fund. Once again, I urge the administration and my friends on the other side of the aisle to work with me on this issue. Mr. President, I will have more to say on this issue in coming days. For now, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am grateful for this opportunity to pay tribute to a respected political leader, a cherished friend, and an exceptional human being--Richard ``Dick'' Richards. A native of Ogden, UT, Dick touched the lives of many and was deeply respected for his wisdom, his no-nonsense approach, and his remarkable integrity. When I first considered running for the Senate in 1976, Dick was serving as the Utah Republican Party chairman. At the time, I was a political novice, but Dick's early encouragement and counsel were instrumental in my candidacy and subsequent victory. I will always be grateful for his invaluable support during my first term as a Senator. Dick and I shared a great admiration and respect for President Ronald Reagan. We were both early supporters who campaigned tirelessly to help get President Reagan elected in 1980. In President Reagan, we saw a leader who shared our conservative values and our willingness to take a stand on hard issues. Impressed with Reagan's integrity, Dick and I put our whole heart and energy into campaigning for this great man. For many years, Dick and President Reagan shared a close friendship based on mutual love and respect. During the campaign, President Reagan noted Dick's political savvy and leadership skills and later tapped him to head the National Republican Committee from 1981-82. As chairman, Dick raised the Republican Party's profile and fought passionately for conservative principles across all levels of government. His leadership on the national stage set a course for many more years of campaign activity and advisory roles in Utah and across the Nation. Capping Dick's successful career in politics was his tireless help in establishing the Richard Richards Institute for Ethics at his alma mater, Weber State University. The institute is carrying on Dick's legacy to inspire future leaders to enter politics and government and lead with integrity and strength. In his book, ``Climbing the Political Ladder, One Rung at a Time,'' Dick discusses the virtues of civic engagement and encourages youth to become actively involved in the political process. Dick's public accomplishments were numerous, but his most significant achievements were personal. His greatest source of pride was his loving partnership with his wife Annette, their 5 children, 11 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren. He deeply cared for each of them and always made family his top priority. Dick also donated countless hours of service to his community and his faith. He served in many important leadership positions in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was always generous with his time. Dick Richards was a truly remarkable man who led by example, hard work, and a desire to do what is right. His impact on Utah will be felt for generations to come. Elaine and I send our deepest condolences to his beautiful wife Annette, whose loyal companionship and counsel sustained Dick throughout his career. May God's love embrace Annette and her family with peace and comfort during this difficult time.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I am introducing a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to require that Congress and the President handle the American people's money more responsibly and balance the Nation's debt and budget. Like the last two Congresses, the entire Republican Conference has cosponsored this proposal. I know the Constitution sets a high threshold for Congress to propose an amendment, but it is critical we do so for three reasons: First, piling up more debt year after year is imposing greater and greater harm to our economy and to our society. Last week, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the House Budget Committee, noting that the national debt is expected to swell by another $7.6 trillion--trillion with a T--over the next 10 years. He said: Such large and growing national debt would have serious negative consequences, including increasing Federal spending for interest payments; restraining economic growth in the long term; giving policymakers less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges; and eventually heightening the risk of a fiscal crisis. He is the Director of the Federal budget office and he said that on January 21, 2015. Just think about that. And he is a Democrat. He has been a very good budget director, as far as I am concerned, and I have enjoyed looking at his analyses over the years. Our Nation is on an unsustainable path and we simply cannot wait any longer to make responsible decisions for our future. Second, Washington will not keep our fiscal house in order unless required to do so by the Constitution. Congress has pretended that good intentions alone would keep our checkbook balanced. Congress has tried putting limits in place by legislation or other rules. Congress has stuck its head in the sand or at other times cried that the sky would fall if we really did get our fiscal act together. Over many decades we have demonstrated that nothing short of a constitutional requirement will work. Third, the American people have the right to set rules for how Washington handles their money. The Constitution is a rulebook for government and it belongs to the American people. Proposing an amendment does not add it to the Constitution but only sends it to the States for debate and consideration. And while it takes two-thirds of Congress to propose an amendment to the Constitution, it takes three- fourths of the States to ratify it. That high level of national consensus may or may not exist, but the American people deserve the opportunity to find out. On June 7, 1979, nearly 36 years ago, I stood on this floor when I introduced Senate Joint Resolution 86, my first balanced budget amendment. In today's dollars the budget deficit that year was $95 billion and the national debt was $2.6 trillion, which was about 30 percent of our gross domestic product. I said then that only in Washington could this situation be described as anything less than obscene. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I concede a few things have changed since 1979. For example, the deficit for the current fiscal year is six times higher than it was in 1979, and the national debt is seven times as large. To put that number in perspective, the national debt is now larger than our entire economy. The situation is not only getting worse, it is getting worse faster than ever. More than 40 percent of the national debt accumulated since our founding has piled up under President Obama, and he has 2 more years in office. While those things have changed, and changed for the worse, the choice before us remains the same. Some of my colleagues might disagree with the CBO Director and think that piling up trillions and trillions of dollars in debt is no big deal; that these are just numbers in the air with no impact on the real world. Perhaps they think our large and growing national debt won't have any negative consequences, won't impede economic growth, won't restrain policymakers' flexibility to respond to challenges, and won't heighten the risk of the fiscal crisis. Some of my colleagues might believe we have no obligation to handle the American people's money responsibly or perhaps they believe this money belongs to government and not the American people at all. Some of my colleagues might insist, despite decades of demonstrated failure, that Congress can somehow get its fiscal act together on its own. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Some of my colleagues might say the American people should not be able to set fiscal rules for the government they elect. Perhaps they think the Federal Government should control the Constitution, not the other way around. I say to my colleagues who think those things: I can understand why you would oppose sending this balanced budget amendment to the States for consideration. But now a word to my other colleagues: If you think this growing mountain of debt is dangerous and must be stopped, if you believe we have exhausted every other means of stopping it, and if you say the American people have the right to decide how their government should operate, then I invite you to support this joint resolution, S.J. Res. 6. The Senate has on four separate occasions voted on a balanced budget amendment since I introduced that proposal in 1979. You can see it on this chart. We actually passed one in 1982 when the national debt was $2.5 trillion. But the House, controlled by Democrats at the time, did not take it up. The Senate voted on another balanced budget amendment in 1994 when the national debt was $6.9 trillion. It fell a few votes short. Three years later, when the national debt was $7.9 trillion, we came within a single vote of passage in 1997. And in 2011, the fourth from the left there on the chart, we voted on the last balanced budget amendment I introduced. At that time, the national debt had grown to $15.1 trillion, and it is almost $3 trillion higher today. CBO tells us not only that the national debt will swell by an additional $7.6 trillion in the next 10 years, but that interest on that debt will be a larger and larger portion of the budget. The low interest rates we see today, after all, will not last forever. CBO warns that, on our current path, interest costs alone will quadruple from $200 billion today to nearly $800 billion in 10 years. In only 6 years, if we do not change course, spending on interest will surpass either defense or nondefense spending. Every dollar spent to service debt cannot be spent protecting our country or helping our citizens. This is the fiscal equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. The debt keeps growing, the danger keeps building, while Congress keeps pretending and stalling. What if we had sent a balanced budget amendment to the States in the 1970s, 1980s, or even 1990s? How different would the budget process be today? When I spoke here in June 1979, I offered two additional reasons for adopting a balanced budget amendment. First, I said a fixed spending ceiling ``requires that Congress think in order of budget priorities.'' Second, I said: In my mind, a balanced budget or spending limitation amendment offers the potential to impose new limits upon the National Government, replacing those that have largely been eroded over the years. That is why the American people have never been able to use their Constitution to set fiscal rules for Washington--because doing so would set limits the national government does not want. But our liberty depends on setting and enforcing such limits. I will repeat what I said here in 1979: This is certainly not a trivial objective. Rather, it goes to the heart of what our system of government is going to be in the future. That is the choice before us, and before the American people. I have to say that if we look at the current budget, it is a fraud the President has submitted. It is pathetic. And even with that current budget, saying they are going to save us money, we are about a half trillion dollars in debt--in further debt, I might add. It is piling up in irreducible ways. It is something we have to do something about. We can no longer sit around and pretend that, somehow, Congress is going to take care of it, when Congress doesn't have the will to take care of it. A balanced budget amendment is an important part of changing that. I will speak later on the actual amendment and what it says and what it means and how it will work. I believe it is an appropriate way of bringing this country under control and getting us to live within our means. It will take time even if we start today. But we are not starting today. This administration cannot get anywhere near what it wants in this budget without a huge tax increase. We have had tax increase after tax increase after tax increase, and it never makes a dip in the Federal debt. We have to wake up around here and start doing some things right, or this country--the greatest country in the world--will not be able to remain so. But it has to. If we look at the rest of the world--we are in terrible shape throughout the rest of the world. There is no other country in this world that can lead like ours can--except for evil. There are countries that can really lead, but they would lead for evil. We have got to stop that. And the only way we can is to have a nation that lives within its means, does what is right, and balances its budget. It is going to take years, if we pass this amendment, to balance the budget. If the amendment gets passed and then is supported by three-quarters of the States--38 States--this amendment will do the job. Whatever we do, it is going to be tough. But that is better than a profligacy that is continuing to go along under all kinds of phony arguments that, when we look back on them, are really phony. They act as though they are really trying to do something about this, while spending us into bankruptcy, and more and more causing us to not be able to live within our means. We have got to change this, and I am convinced the only way we will is with a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It is the only way we can find enough people in this country who respect the Constitution to cause the result that we live--or at least start living--within our means.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I am introducing a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to require that Congress and the President handle the American people's money more responsibly and balance the Nation's debt and budget. Like the last two Congresses, the entire Republican Conference has cosponsored this proposal. I know the Constitution sets a high threshold for Congress to propose an amendment, but it is critical we do so for three reasons: First, piling up more debt year after year is imposing greater and greater harm to our economy and to our society. Last week, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the House Budget Committee, noting that the national debt is expected to swell by another $7.6 trillion--trillion with a T--over the next 10 years. He said: Such large and growing national debt would have serious negative consequences, including increasing Federal spending for interest payments; restraining economic growth in the long term; giving policymakers less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges; and eventually heightening the risk of a fiscal crisis. He is the Director of the Federal budget office and he said that on January 21, 2015. Just think about that. And he is a Democrat. He has been a very good budget director, as far as I am concerned, and I have enjoyed looking at his analyses over the years. Our Nation is on an unsustainable path and we simply cannot wait any longer to make responsible decisions for our future. Second, Washington will not keep our fiscal house in order unless required to do so by the Constitution. Congress has pretended that good intentions alone would keep our checkbook balanced. Congress has tried putting limits in place by legislation or other rules. Congress has stuck its head in the sand or at other times cried that the sky would fall if we really did get our fiscal act together. Over many decades we have demonstrated that nothing short of a constitutional requirement will work. Third, the American people have the right to set rules for how Washington handles their money. The Constitution is a rulebook for government and it belongs to the American people. Proposing an amendment does not add it to the Constitution but only sends it to the States for debate and consideration. And while it takes two-thirds of Congress to propose an amendment to the Constitution, it takes three- fourths of the States to ratify it. That high level of national consensus may or may not exist, but the American people deserve the opportunity to find out. On June 7, 1979, nearly 36 years ago, I stood on this floor when I introduced Senate Joint Resolution 86, my first balanced budget amendment. In today's dollars the budget deficit that year was $95 billion and the national debt was $2.6 trillion, which was about 30 percent of our gross domestic product. I said then that only in Washington could this situation be described as anything less than obscene. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I concede a few things have changed since 1979. For example, the deficit for the current fiscal year is six times higher than it was in 1979, and the national debt is seven times as large. To put that number in perspective, the national debt is now larger than our entire economy. The situation is not only getting worse, it is getting worse faster than ever. More than 40 percent of the national debt accumulated since our founding has piled up under President Obama, and he has 2 more years in office. While those things have changed, and changed for the worse, the choice before us remains the same. Some of my colleagues might disagree with the CBO Director and think that piling up trillions and trillions of dollars in debt is no big deal; that these are just numbers in the air with no impact on the real world. Perhaps they think our large and growing national debt won't have any negative consequences, won't impede economic growth, won't restrain policymakers' flexibility to respond to challenges, and won't heighten the risk of the fiscal crisis. Some of my colleagues might believe we have no obligation to handle the American people's money responsibly or perhaps they believe this money belongs to government and not the American people at all. Some of my colleagues might insist, despite decades of demonstrated failure, that Congress can somehow get its fiscal act together on its own. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Some of my colleagues might say the American people should not be able to set fiscal rules for the government they elect. Perhaps they think the Federal Government should control the Constitution, not the other way around. I say to my colleagues who think those things: I can understand why you would oppose sending this balanced budget amendment to the States for consideration. But now a word to my other colleagues: If you think this growing mountain of debt is dangerous and must be stopped, if you believe we have exhausted every other means of stopping it, and if you say the American people have the right to decide how their government should operate, then I invite you to support this joint resolution, S.J. Res. 6. The Senate has on four separate occasions voted on a balanced budget amendment since I introduced that proposal in 1979. You can see it on this chart. We actually passed one in 1982 when the national debt was $2.5 trillion. But the House, controlled by Democrats at the time, did not take it up. The Senate voted on another balanced budget amendment in 1994 when the national debt was $6.9 trillion. It fell a few votes short. Three years later, when the national debt was $7.9 trillion, we came within a single vote of passage in 1997. And in 2011, the fourth from the left there on the chart, we voted on the last balanced budget amendment I introduced. At that time, the national debt had grown to $15.1 trillion, and it is almost $3 trillion higher today. CBO tells us not only that the national debt will swell by an additional $7.6 trillion in the next 10 years, but that interest on that debt will be a larger and larger portion of the budget. The low interest rates we see today, after all, will not last forever. CBO warns that, on our current path, interest costs alone will quadruple from $200 billion today to nearly $800 billion in 10 years. In only 6 years, if we do not change course, spending on interest will surpass either defense or nondefense spending. Every dollar spent to service debt cannot be spent protecting our country or helping our citizens. This is the fiscal equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. The debt keeps growing, the danger keeps building, while Congress keeps pretending and stalling. What if we had sent a balanced budget amendment to the States in the 1970s, 1980s, or even 1990s? How different would the budget process be today? When I spoke here in June 1979, I offered two additional reasons for adopting a balanced budget amendment. First, I said a fixed spending ceiling ``requires that Congress think in order of budget priorities.'' Second, I said: In my mind, a balanced budget or spending limitation amendment offers the potential to impose new limits upon the National Government, replacing those that have largely been eroded over the years. That is why the American people have never been able to use their Constitution to set fiscal rules for Washington--because doing so would set limits the national government does not want. But our liberty depends on setting and enforcing such limits. I will repeat what I said here in 1979: This is certainly not a trivial objective. Rather, it goes to the heart of what our system of government is going to be in the future. That is the choice before us, and before the American people. I have to say that if we look at the current budget, it is a fraud the President has submitted. It is pathetic. And even with that current budget, saying they are going to save us money, we are about a half trillion dollars in debt--in further debt, I might add. It is piling up in irreducible ways. It is something we have to do something about. We can no longer sit around and pretend that, somehow, Congress is going to take care of it, when Congress doesn't have the will to take care of it. A balanced budget amendment is an important part of changing that. I will speak later on the actual amendment and what it says and what it means and how it will work. I believe it is an appropriate way of bringing this country under control and getting us to live within our means. It will take time even if we start today. But we are not starting today. This administration cannot get anywhere near what it wants in this budget without a huge tax increase. We have had tax increase after tax increase after tax increase, and it never makes a dip in the Federal debt. We have to wake up around here and start doing some things right, or this country--the greatest country in the world--will not be able to remain so. But it has to. If we look at the rest of the world--we are in terrible shape throughout the rest of the world. There is no other country in this world that can lead like ours can--except for evil. There are countries that can really lead, but they would lead for evil. We have got to stop that. And the only way we can is to have a nation that lives within its means, does what is right, and balances its budget. It is going to take years, if we pass this amendment, to balance the budget. If the amendment gets passed and then is supported by three-quarters of the States--38 States--this amendment will do the job. Whatever we do, it is going to be tough. But that is better than a profligacy that is continuing to go along under all kinds of phony arguments that, when we look back on them, are really phony. They act as though they are really trying to do something about this, while spending us into bankruptcy, and more and more causing us to not be able to live within our means. We have got to change this, and I am convinced the only way we will is with a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It is the only way we can find enough people in this country who respect the Constitution to cause the result that we live--or at least start living--within our means.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise today to discuss a matter of utmost importance: the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, H.R. 240. We live in a world of extraordinary threats. Around the world, terrorists continue to devise ways to harm Americans and our interests. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, we see a resurgent Al Qaeda, which continues to plot attacks from increasingly ungoverned safe havens. Throughout the broader Middle East, we see Al Qaeda's affiliate groups--from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to al-Shabaab--posing sophisticated new threats. In Iraq and Syria, we see the self- proclaimed Islamic State controlling vast swaths of territory, shocking the world with its brutality, and announcing its deadly serious intent to kill Americans. Within Western societies, we see the potential for radicalization at home, the danger of which has been made manifest in the attacks on Ottawa, Sydney, and Paris. Inside the United States, the Department of Homeland Security serves as our critical line of defense against many of these threats at critical points--from our borders, to our airports, to our coasts and our ports. In the realm of cyber space, criminals, terrorists, and other nations' governments present sophisticated threats on a variety of fronts. Defending against these many serious threats requires efforts that range from securing critical infrastructure to guarding against the sort of espionage and blackmail that Sony recently experienced. These are enormously difficult tasks, especially in an ever-changing, high-tech operating environment. As the agency charged with protecting civilian networks and coordinating on cyber defense issues with the private sector, the Department of Homeland Security stands at the crossroads of our Nation's defense against this next generation of threats. When the dangers we face are natural rather than manmade, the Department plays no less of a critical role. From hurricanes and tornadoes to volcanos and forest fires, the Department's component agencies, such as FEMA and the Coast Guard, play a critical role in the preservation of lives and property. The House-passed bill provides the Department with nearly $40 billion in funding--a level consistent with the Budget Control Act's spending limits. That money will not only fund the critical programs I have mentioned so far, but will also provide critical improvements on a wide range of fronts, including more border control agents, new ICE detention facilities, increased funding for E-Verify, more effective security screening at our airports, improved Secret Service protection, increased support for cyber defense, and important disaster relief. These provisions all enjoy broad bipartisan support, and I commend my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for their hard work on this package. But this work has been complicated by a troubling development: some of my colleagues--almost all of them Democrats--actively seeking to block consideration of this vitally important funding. Why? Only because they seek to protect a President of their own party who has acted lawlessly and overstepped proper constitutional bounds. Instead of following the examples of great Senators of the past who stood up to Presidents of their own party on behalf of the Constitution and the rule of law, today we have witnessed far too many Senators instead shamefully toeing the party line. Our Nation's Founders knew, in the sage words of Montesquieu, that ``in all tyrannical governments . . . the right both of making and enforcing the laws is vested in one and the same man . . . and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.'' For this reason, when drafting the Constitution, the Framers divided power between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and between the Federal Government and the States. Despite these constitutional foundations, President Obama has decided that he ``won't take no for an answer'' when Congress refuses to go along with his agenda. In direct opposition to our centuries-old system of legislation and to the binding authority of the Constitution, the President has audaciously declared that ``when Congress won't act, I will.'' And he has followed up these threats with a variety of unilateral Executive actions, many of which are flatly inconsistent with the law and the Constitution. Over the past weeks and months, I have come to the Senate floor to speak out about a series of specific instances that exemplified the brazen lawlessness of this administration. This pervasive and illegitimate overreach has come in many different forms. With his recent move on immigration, President Obama seeks not only to prevent enforcement proceedings against millions of people unlawfully present in this country, but also to license their unlawful presence with affirmative work permits. In doing so, he not only ignores the duly-enacted laws of the land but also seeks to unilaterally replace them with his own contradicting policies. The President and his allies in this Chamber want nothing more than to turn this into a debate about immigration policy, but that is not what this debate is about. Immigration is a complex and divisive issue, and Americans hold a wide variety of views on the matter that don't always divide neatly along partisan lines. Many conservatives--myself included--share some of the same policy goals as President Obama. Instead, this is a debate about loyalty. As Senators, where do our loyalties lie? Do we owe our loyalties first to the Constitution, to the protection of the American people, and to the goal of lawful and lasting immigration reform, or do we owe our loyalty, out of reflexive partisanship, to a President bent on dangerous unilateralism? President Obama's Executive action is a direct affront to our system of republican self-government. The Constitution vests legislative authority with the Congress, not the President alone. Instead, the President is charged with the duty to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'' This is not a suggestion or an invitation for the President to enforce the law; it is an obligation for him to do so. The President and his executive branch exercise prosecutorial discretion--the discretion to choose not to prosecute certain cases. But that power stems from considerations of fairness and equity in particular cases. Instead of requiring individualized determinations based on individuals' specific situations, the President's latest action sweeps up millions of people based on only a few broad, widely shared criteria. An administration, of course, cannot prosecute when there are not sufficient resources to do so. But the Obama administration has never explained how these Executive actions will save money. In fact, the administration's own policy advisers have acknowledged that a work- permitting program will be expensive and will actually take away resources from law enforcement. While no one disagrees that capturing and removing violent criminals should be our highest immigration priority, President Obama has gone much further and made current immigration law essentially a dead letter for millions of illegal immigrants. Despite the administration's claim to the contrary, President Obama's action is not comparable to the Executive actions taken by President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush. Even the Washington Post editorial board found that claim by the White House to be ``indefensible.'' Presidents Reagan and Bush simply implemented the enforcement priorities established in laws that Congress actually passed. By contrast, President Obama sought to change the law before Congress has acted, so he cannot rely on Congress's authority to enforce the policy he prefers. Indeed, President Obama has acted directly in the face of congressional opposition, so we should call his Executive order what it is: an attempt to bypass the constitutionally ordained legislative process and rewrite the law unilaterally. Perhaps the most persuasive case against this disturbing unilateralism was laid out by President Obama himself. On at least 22 different occasions since he took office, the President acknowledged that he lacked the legal authority to carry out these actions. As he himself said, by broadening immigration enforcement carve-outs, ``then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that's not an option . . . What I've said is there is a path to get this done, and that's through Congress.'' He was right then; he is wrong now. Faced with this brazen lawlessness, the House of Representatives passed a bill that both funds our critical homeland security priorities and fulfills our duty to respond to the President's lawless actions. This is a careful line to walk, and our colleagues in the House deserve praise for their admirable work. Their bill represents a responsible governing approach by funding our critical homeland security needs while preventing President Obama's constitutional abuse. When faced with such a sensible approach, I have frankly been shocked and dismayed by the opposition that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have expressed to this bill. On the floor today, many of my colleagues have indicated that they will oppose letting us vote on Homeland Security funding and even oppose allowing a formal debate and an open amendment process on the bill unless we allow President Obama's Executive action to come into effect. Senators of both political parties have often stood up to Executive encroachment--not for purposes of partisan gain or political grandstanding, but in defense of Congress as a coordinate and coequal branch of government with its own essential authorities and responsibilities. Implicit in the constitutional design of separating the Federal Government's powers is the idea that each branch would have the incentive and authority to resist encroachments from the other branches, ensuring that unfettered power is not concentrated in any one set of hands. The Founders recognized this as indispensable to preserving the individual liberty of all citizens. As Madison counseled in Federalist 51, ``The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.'' Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia embodied this institutional idea as much as anyone with whom I have served. Although he helped to lead this body for more than half a century and left us less than 5 short years ago, I was surprised and dismayed to learn recently that nearly half of current Members never served alongside Robert C. Byrd. Senator Byrd fiercely defended this body's prerogatives and independence against the encroachments of the executive branch--whether they were Republicans or Democrats in the executive branch. He neither censored his criticisms nor weakened his defenses based on the President's political party. Even in his twilight years, when President Obama took office with extraordinarily high approval ratings, Senator Byrd was willing to hold the new President's feet to the fire to defend the Senate's right to give advice and consent to nominees. He publicly chastised the White House for its excessive reliance on czars, observing that unconfirmed policy chieftains ``can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.'' How far we have fallen since the days of Senator Byrd. Indeed, this brinksmanship by my colleagues in the minority represents the height of irresponsibility. They risk our homeland security funding at a time when our terrorist enemies have repeatedly demonstrated a renewed capability to threaten the homeland. They risk our very system of constitutional government by sacrificing our power to make the laws and the President's duty to enforce them. They risk many of the immigration reform goals that are shared across party lines. I am committed to making real progress toward implementing lasting immigration reform. I supported the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill in the last Congress. Even though that bill was far from perfect, I voted for it because I believe in working together to make much needed progress on this vitally important issue. As I have long argued, the way to get real immigration reform back on track is not for the President and his allies to insist on his ``my way or the highway'' approach. Responsible legislating--not unilateralism-- is the right way forward on immigration. The President's Executive action risked the opportunity for meaningful bipartisan progress and undermined the Constitution in the process. And now, his allies in this Chamber are apparently willing to risk the security of our Nation at a time of extreme danger just to close partisan ranks and provide political cover to the President. If my colleagues in both parties are serious about protecting our Constitution's separation of powers and the liberty it ensures, if they are committed to protecting Americans from the sorts of terrorist attacks we have lately witnessed with alarming frequency, and if they are committed to working together to achieve lasting immigration reform the right way, I urge them to reconsider their vote earlier today and to agree to--at the very least--debate this critically important bill. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am grateful for the opportunity to pay tribute to a wonderful staff member and dedicated public servant, Linda Gibbons. Linda will be retiring this week after 22 years of devoted service. I know I speak for everyone on my staff when I say she will be deeply missed. As a member of my constituent services team, Linda helped thousands of Utahns who contacted my office seeking assistance. In serving constituents, she was always sympathetic to their needs and worked tirelessly to resolve their problems. Constituent casework is difficult, often requiring hours of tedious research and coordination with Federal and State agencies. But Linda was always equal to the task, and I can say without reservation that she was among the best caseworkers I have ever had. Linda was passionate about public service. Her work ethic always impressed me, and I was grateful for her willingness to assume new responsibilities. She is tenacious, honest, and always believes in doing the right thing. Most importantly, Linda has a deep capacity to care for and love others. Both constituents and staff know this well. She has always gone out of her way to listen to and help anyone in need. I will always be grateful for Linda's work in helping me nominate Utah's most talented young students to military academies. Military academy nominations can be laborious and cumbersome, but Linda always saw candidates through the process with a remarkable degree of efficiency and professionalism. In doing so, she mentored some of Utah's best and brightest. She also built strong ties between our office, the students, their families, and officials from military academies. Although Linda has achieved much in her professional life, perhaps her greatest success has been in the home. Linda has been married to her husband, Phil, for over 40 years, and together they have three children and seven grandchildren. She loves her family dearly and looks forward to spending more time with them in her retirement. Her compassion and strength have shepherded them through some of life's most difficult challenges. I am truly grateful for the tremendous service Linda has rendered to my staff, her community, and the great State of Utah. I will miss Linda greatly, but I know that this next chapter in her life holds many exciting and wonderful opportunities. I will be forever grateful for her dedicated service and loyal friendship.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words about some of the amendments we will be voting on later this afternoon--three of them in particular. The amendments I am referring to are the Merkley amendment No. 125, the Carper amendment No. 120, and the Heitkamp amendment No. 133. All three of these amendments address sensitive tax issues that fall squarely into the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee, and all of them address issues that are likely to be litigated as the Finance Committee continues its efforts toward comprehensive tax reform. The Finance Committee is going to be very active in this Congress. We had our first bipartisan markup this morning. We already had two hearings, with more scheduled for next week, and perhaps more importantly--at least in the context of these three votes we will be having today--we have taken concrete steps in a process we believe will end in the introduction of bipartisan tax reform legislation. We have appointed five tax reform working groups to address the various areas of reform. Our hope is that over the next few months these working groups will study the issues and provide ideas we can use as we develop a comprehensive tax reform proposal. Ranking Member Wyden is on board with this effort. We are working together every step of the way. If we start singling out individual tax issues here on the floor--even issues Members may feel passionately about--we are going to undermine this bipartisan process. Virtually everyone in both parties agrees that we need to fix our broken, inefficient Tax Code. Sure, there are disagreements on what the substance of tax reform should look like, but there is a growing consensus on the need for reform, which is encouraging. If we are going to be successful in tax reform, we need to make sure these issues are addressed in the tax-writing committees. I think it is safe to say that all of the issues my colleagues are trying to address with their amendments are going to be litigated one way or another in the Finance Committee's efforts this year. That being the case, raising these issues as floor amendments on an unrelated bill is, in my view, very counterproductive. Finally, I would like to note that these amendments would all be subject to a constitutional point of order as they all deal with revenue and would need to be passed first by the House of Representatives. I am not going to raise that point of order at this time; I just want to make note of it for the record. Given all of these concerns, I hope my colleagues--Senators Merkley, Carper, and Heitkamp--will withdraw these amendments so these issues can be addressed in the proper forum. If they do not withdraw their amendments, I plan to vote against all three of them and urge all of my colleagues--particularly those who have an interest in a successful tax reform effort--to do the same. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 23

Mr. HATCH. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 48

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to help victims of child pornography, one of society's most heinous crimes. I am joined by 34 Senators on both sides of the aisle. I hope this legislation will soon become law. Sexually exploiting a child distorts her life and leaves scars long after the abuse itself ends and the abuser has been prosecuted. For this reason, the Violence Against Women Act includes a provision requiring that in such cases a defendant must pay restitution to cover all of the victim's losses. Those losses can include future lost income as well as medical care, mental health counseling, and therapy. Child pornography isn't merely the record of a child's sexual abuse, it is itself an instance of abuse. The ongoing trafficking and those images pile harm upon harm. As a result, it becomes even more difficult for a victim to put together a life that was shattered before it had barely begun. As the Supreme Court has recognized, ``every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim's abuse.'' The current restitution statute was enacted in 1994, before the Internet became prime real estate for trafficking of child pornography. It puts victims in an impossible bind. In a case decided last spring, the Supreme Court said the current restitution statute requires the victim to prove how much of her losses were specifically caused by a single defendant's possession of her images. With a burden like that, it is no wonder that under this statute victims receive no restitution at all in more than three-quarters of child pornography cases. The cruel irony today is that the more individuals who participate in harming a victim, the less any of them is financially responsible, and the less timely help the victim will receive. Perpetrators are easily lost in a crowd. The bill I introduce today will amend the restitution statute so that it works for child pornography victims. It is named for Amy and Vicky, brave women who are the victims of two of the most widely viewed child pornography series in the world. Amy's case went before the Supreme Court last year, and my staff worked with the legal team for these women in developing this bill. I want to mention in particular James Marsh, whose legal practice in New York focuses exclusively on helping victims; Professor Paul Cassell at the University of Utah, who argued Amy's case before the Supreme Court; and Carol Hepburn, who practices law in Seattle on behalf of Vicky and many other victims. This bill changes the current restitution statute in three important ways so that it works for child pornography victims. First, it gives judges options for determining a victim's losses and calculating restitution. Second, it gives judges the ability to impose restitution on defendants in different kinds of cases to ensure that victims actually receive meaningful restitution. Third, it shifts the burden of chasing defendants all over the country from victims to defendants who can share the restitution costs with other defendants. Both Amy and Vicky personally support this bill. I am also pleased that many national victim advocacy groups support this bill, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, the National Crime Victim Law Institute, the National Center for Victims of Crime, and the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women. Last October I received a letter endorsing this bill signed by the attorneys general of 43 States, 22 Republicans and 21 Democrats. I want to share with my colleagues the story of a young man, a Utah resident, who uses the name Andy. Between the ages of 7 and 12, he was sexually abused by a trusted adult and family friend. Dr. David Corwin, the University of Utah child psychologist who examined him, said that based on 30 years of experience with child sexual abuse victims, the images and videos of Andy's abuse were the most disturbing he had ever seen. According to the FBI, the images and videos created from Andy's abuse are one of the most widely distributed boy series in the country. The FBI says that as of last month Andy is a named victim in 726 cases. He has been granted restitution in 24 of the 101 cases in which he requested it and has collected anything at all in only 2 cases. Andy wrote to support the bill I am introducing today. He addresses letters to the Members of the Congress, which means that he is writing to each Member of this body. Andy says this legislation will prevent him from having to spend decades trying to recover minuscule amounts of restitution from hundreds, if not thousands of defendants all over the country. I want my colleagues to hear his words: My images may never be taken off the Internet and may always be circulating around the country. At least with this congressional change, I can start to heal, learn how to handle my circumstances, and re-build my life. There are many more Amys, Vickys, and Andys than any of us want to admit, and they need our help. In our system of government, we have the responsibility to pass or change legislation to address issues and problems Americans face. All the courts could do was confirm that the current restitution statute is no longer suited to help child pornography victims. It is now up to us to do our duty and enact a statute that will. Amy, Vicky, and Andy are counting on us, and we must not let them down.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to help victims of child pornography, one of society's most heinous crimes. I am joined by 34 Senators on both sides of the aisle. I hope this legislation will soon become law. Sexually exploiting a child distorts her life and leaves scars long after the abuse itself ends and the abuser has been prosecuted. For this reason, the Violence Against Women Act includes a provision requiring that in such cases a defendant must pay restitution to cover all of the victim's losses. Those losses can include future lost income as well as medical care, mental health counseling, and therapy. Child pornography isn't merely the record of a child's sexual abuse, it is itself an instance of abuse. The ongoing trafficking and those images pile harm upon harm. As a result, it becomes even more difficult for a victim to put together a life that was shattered before it had barely begun. As the Supreme Court has recognized, ``every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim's abuse.'' The current restitution statute was enacted in 1994, before the Internet became prime real estate for trafficking of child pornography. It puts victims in an impossible bind. In a case decided last spring, the Supreme Court said the current restitution statute requires the victim to prove how much of her losses were specifically caused by a single defendant's possession of her images. With a burden like that, it is no wonder that under this statute victims receive no restitution at all in more than three-quarters of child pornography cases. The cruel irony today is that the more individuals who participate in harming a victim, the less any of them is financially responsible, and the less timely help the victim will receive. Perpetrators are easily lost in a crowd. The bill I introduce today will amend the restitution statute so that it works for child pornography victims. It is named for Amy and Vicky, brave women who are the victims of two of the most widely viewed child pornography series in the world. Amy's case went before the Supreme Court last year, and my staff worked with the legal team for these women in developing this bill. I want to mention in particular James Marsh, whose legal practice in New York focuses exclusively on helping victims; Professor Paul Cassell at the University of Utah, who argued Amy's case before the Supreme Court; and Carol Hepburn, who practices law in Seattle on behalf of Vicky and many other victims. This bill changes the current restitution statute in three important ways so that it works for child pornography victims. First, it gives judges options for determining a victim's losses and calculating restitution. Second, it gives judges the ability to impose restitution on defendants in different kinds of cases to ensure that victims actually receive meaningful restitution. Third, it shifts the burden of chasing defendants all over the country from victims to defendants who can share the restitution costs with other defendants. Both Amy and Vicky personally support this bill. I am also pleased that many national victim advocacy groups support this bill, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, the National Crime Victim Law Institute, the National Center for Victims of Crime, and the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women. Last October I received a letter endorsing this bill signed by the attorneys general of 43 States, 22 Republicans and 21 Democrats. I want to share with my colleagues the story of a young man, a Utah resident, who uses the name Andy. Between the ages of 7 and 12, he was sexually abused by a trusted adult and family friend. Dr. David Corwin, the University of Utah child psychologist who examined him, said that based on 30 years of experience with child sexual abuse victims, the images and videos of Andy's abuse were the most disturbing he had ever seen. According to the FBI, the images and videos created from Andy's abuse are one of the most widely distributed boy series in the country. The FBI says that as of last month Andy is a named victim in 726 cases. He has been granted restitution in 24 of the 101 cases in which he requested it and has collected anything at all in only 2 cases. Andy wrote to support the bill I am introducing today. He addresses letters to the Members of the Congress, which means that he is writing to each Member of this body. Andy says this legislation will prevent him from having to spend decades trying to recover minuscule amounts of restitution from hundreds, if not thousands of defendants all over the country. I want my colleagues to hear his words: My images may never be taken off the Internet and may always be circulating around the country. At least with this congressional change, I can start to heal, learn how to handle my circumstances, and re-build my life. There are many more Amys, Vickys, and Andys than any of us want to admit, and they need our help. In our system of government, we have the responsibility to pass or change legislation to address issues and problems Americans face. All the courts could do was confirm that the current restitution statute is no longer suited to help child pornography victims. It is now up to us to do our duty and enact a statute that will. Amy, Vicky, and Andy are counting on us, and we must not let them down.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I rise in support of S. 165, which restores many of the terrorist detainee transfer safeguards that were weakened in the fiscal year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, as well as imposes a 2-year bar on the transfer of detainees to Yemen. This legislation has been authored by Senator Kelly Ayotte, one of the Senate's foremost leaders on national security, and its cosponsors include the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, and the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Richard Burr, as well as the Senate's preeminent expert on military law, Senator Lindsey Graham. I am honored to add my name to the list of Senators who have cosponsored this legislation. Mr. President, the effect of this legislation is to preserve the ability of the United States to detain at our facilities at Guantanamo Bay members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban--the organizations responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Why is keeping Guantanamo open so important? Simply put, Guantanamo affords our military a safe and secure location to detain those individuals held under the law of war or for violations of the law of war. If an enemy combatant is captured during an armed conflict, that individual can be held under the law of war. It is a generally accepted legal principle, affirmed repeatedly by the Supreme Court, that enemy combatants can be held at least until a conflict is concluded. If an individual is held for a violation of the laws of war, that means they are being detained until they can be prosecuted for a war crime they are alleged to have committed. The detainee population of Guantanamo contains battle-hardened terrorists. Indeed, the threat they pose is amply demonstrated since 29 percent of Guantanamo detainees released so far are confirmed or suspected of rejoining the fight against the United States. Now, Mr. President, Cliff Sloan, who was the State Department's envoy for closing Guantanamo Bay, recently wrote in a New York Times editorial that this nearly 30 percent recidivism rate was ``deeply flawed.'' It appears Mr. Sloan only wants the Congress and the American people to consider the confirmed rate rather than the combined confirmed and suspected recidivism rate. Mr. President, if Congress and the American people are truly to understand the risks inherent in this administration's insistence on releasing Guantanamo Bay detainees, we must consider this combined number. How can that be deeply flawed? Mr. Sloan goes on to state that the level of recidivism is much lower since 2009. However, this lower rate, if accurate, undoubtedly does not include the five senior Taliban leaders who were illegally released to Qatar and whose 1-year travel ban is about to expire. Unless the Qatari Government prevents it, soon these terrorists will be free to go wherever they wish. I am also concerned that this new number might not fully incorporate the activities and future actions of those detainees who have been transferred in recent months. One of the major advantages of locating our detention operations at Guantanamo Bay is that it is well-settled law that the United States can hold individuals held under the law of war or for violations of the law of war at our facilities there. Now, I personally believe current Supreme Court precedent would enable us to hold both law of war and violations of law of war detainees in the United States. However, if these detainees are moved into the United States, every attorney representing detainees would rush to federal court and file new lawsuits seeking their clients' release. Indeed, there exists a very real possibility that a court might release a detainee into the United States, especially in light of the Obama administration's unwillingness, in some cases, to defend against detainees' habeas petitions to the fullest extent. As such, the risks of transferring these detainees into the United States are great. Guantanamo Bay also affords us a much better environment to bring and hold newly apprehended terrorists. Inside the United States, the Supreme Court has mandated that criminal suspects be read their rights--including their right to remain silent and right to a lawyer-- subject to only a narrow public safety exception. Such limits on interrogations severely hinder our ability to gather information from captured terrorists, who have time and again proven to be the source of vital intelligence. Consider, for example, how officials were only able to interrogate the Boston Marathon bomber for just 16 hours before he was read his rights and immediately stopped cooperating. As one of the longest serving members ever of the Intelligence Committee, I can assure you that it takes far longer to gather all of the important information we can from most terrorists. Moving detainees into the United States also presents serious domestic security concerns. A number of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have become quite adept at jailbreaks. Bringing a concentration of terrorist detainees into the United States therefore could create a particularly appealing target in the homeland for jihadist radicals, whereas at Guantanamo Bay they are essentially isolated in a facility well secured by the U.S. military. Clearly there are ample and compelling legal and national security reasons to maintain our detention operations at Guantanamo Bay. That is why Senator Ayotte's legislation is so important. It ensures we will continue to use this vital facility by restoring the transfer restrictions that have enabled us to keep these individuals in such a secure location. A little over a year ago, there was a profound change in the laws governing the transfer of Guantanamo detainees overseas. Before fiscal year 2014 legislation, the Congress had repeatedly enacted provisions in the annual Defense Authorization Act which all but prevented the transfer of Guantanamo detainees. Specifically, these previous laws required the Secretary of Defense to certify in writing, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, that certain criteria had been met before the transfer of a detainee abroad could occur--in particular, that the foreign entity receiving a detainee has ``taken or agreed to take effective actions to ensure that the individual cannot take action to threaten the United States'' as well as ``taken or agreed to take such actions as the Secretary of Defense determines are necessary to ensure the individual cannot engage or reengage in any terrorist activity.'' Despite this, with few exceptions, the law prohibited the transfer of detainees to countries to which detainees had previously been transferred and subsequently reengaged in terrorism. Yet the law did afford the Secretary of Defense a national security waiver that negated the requirements if other standards were met. So the bottom line here is that under the old law it was very difficult--as it should be--to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees overseas. But the Obama administration, bent on an ideological crusade to empty Guantanamo no matter the cost, successfully lobbied to relax these restrictions in the Fiscal Year 2014 Defense Authorization Act. The newly weakened provisions permitted the transfer of detainees overseas as long as the Secretary of Defense determined that ``the individual is no longer a threat to the national security of the United States.'' This is, of course, a lesser standard than requiring a certification that the individual cannot threaten the United States or reengage in terrorist activity. In addition, under the Fiscal Year 2014 law, the Secretary could even authorize the transfer of a detainee as long as the Secretary determined the transfer was in the interest of the United States and action had been or was to be taken which will substantially mitigate the chance of recidivism. While the statute does require the Secretary of Defense to take into consideration a number of factors before making this decision, the reality of the new regime is that the Secretary has far more ability to transfer detainees overseas. The Obama administration quickly seized on this new power. In the past year the number of Guantanamo Bay detainees has been decreased from 155 to 122. And despite this new transfer authority, the Obama administration had the audacity to violate even the relaxed transfer restrictions less than 6 months after the law's enactment--specifically by transferring five senior Taliban commanders to Qatar without providing Congress 30 days of notification. Since then, the administration, after a brief lull, has continued and even increased the pace of detainees being transferred overseas. These deeply troubling moves by the Obama administration demonstrate the vital importance of Senator Ayotte's bill. It restores the previous transfer restrictions. Specifically, it requires the Secretary of Defense, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, to certify that certain safeguards are in place and that threat of recidivism is very small before a transfer can be undertaken. Furthermore, this legislation also places a 2-year ban on the transfer of detainees to Yemen. This restriction is especially important because approximately half of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo are from Yemen. Yemen is one of our most critical partners in the fight against terror, and we cooperate closely with the Yemeni Government in the fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. But because of the presence of this menacing group within Yemen's borders, the security situation there is dire, and it seems to be deteriorating as we speak. Just last week the Houthi, a Shia rebel group, seized control of Yemen's Presidential palace, forcing the resignation of the President, Prime Minister, and Cabinet. In December of 2013 AQAP launched a well- coordinated assault on the Yemeni Ministry of Defense that left 52 dead, not to mention a number of jailbreaks from the Yemeni correctional facilities in which, according to press reports, numerous members of AQAP were freed. The unvarnished truth is that it will take many years and much effort to bring about the security improvements in Yemen needed before we can be confident that detainees returned there will not return to the battlefield. That is why this section of Senator Ayotte's legislation is so important. Our policies must be based on defeating the real threats facing our Nation, not pacifying the ideological passions of an extreme few, which is why I was so disappointed by another recent New York Times editorial about this legislation. The Times called Senator Ayotte ``opportunistic,'' if you can believe that, for citing the very real threat of a Paris-style attack on the homeland and termed her description of Yemen as ``the wild, wild West,'' as ``odd.'' I cannot imagine a better way to describe the disturbing security situation in Yemen. And based on years of evidence, one can only conclude Senator Ayotte is right. Frankly, I believe the New York Times owes Senator Ayotte an apology, and I hope they will be big enough to do that. We need this legislation because it restores proper protections from the threats posed by released detainees. I hope the rest of my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

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