Amy Klobuchar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask if the Senator from Connecticut will yield for a question without losing his right to the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank the Senator for that. I also want to note for the Members of the House here that Congresswoman Dingell is the leader of that bill on domestic violence in the House, so we have two bipartisan bills in both Chambers.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank the Senator from Connecticut. One of our fellow Senators noted that maybe not many people are watching. I have been around talking to people tonight, and I can tell you that a lot of people are watching this. The country is watching this because people have been waiting for action. Many of us here have been involved in law enforcement. For me, it is about a series of pictures. It is the picture of those victims in Orlando, and with every picture, there is a story. Everyone killed in that massacre was someone's brother, someone's son, someone's loved one. I think of the little girl with the blue dress with stars, walking down a sidewalk to a church. Her dad had been murdered by a madman, someone who was mentally ill, someone who was a perpetrator of domestic violence. Her dad was a police officer in Lake City, MN. It is a beautiful little town on a beautiful lake. He was just doing his job one day when he was called to a home. He went to the front door and had on a bulletproof desk, but the guy shot him in the head. There we all were at the funeral, at the same church where only a week ago the children had been in a Nativity play and their dad was sitting in the front proudly watching. A week later, that same family was walking down the center aisle of the church. The little girl was in a blue dress covered with stars. I think about those Sandy Hook parents--the ones Senator Murphy knows so well--who were in my office, as well as in many other Senators' offices, the morning of the vote on the background check bill. I told this story earlier this afternoon. There was a mom sitting there. They were all so sober and so glum because they actually thought there was a chance that the people in this Chamber would respond after they lost their little children in another senseless act of violence. The mom in the office looked at me and said: You know my story? She said my son was severely autistic and could hardly speak. Every morning he would point up at a picture on the refrigerator. It was a picture of his help aide, the woman who was with him every day. The next thing she knows, she gets a call, goes to the school and sits in that fire hall with those parents. Some kids come in, and all the parents who are left know that they are the ones whose babies are never coming back. As she sat in that fire hall, she kept thinking about, of course, her son, but she also thought about the woman who was with him and sacrificed her life for him. She was found with her arms around him in that school. Both were shot dead. Those are the images that I think about--the little girl in the blue dress at the funeral, her daddy, a police officer, shot dead at the door; that mom in my office, her son and her son's faithful aide shot dead in that school. Then you think of all these young people killed in this massacre right in our midst in Orlando, FL. (Mr. PERDUE assumed the Chair.) We all know that one solution won't fit all. We all know that in some cases it is about an assault weapon and in some cases it is about background checks. In some cases it is about getting someone off a terror watch list who shouldn't have a gun. Every solution may be different, but when we start doing the right thing, we start saving lives. Tyesha Edwards was a little girl who was shot at her dining room table while doing her homework. Her mom said: You get your homework done, you can go to the mall. A gang bullet right through the house. Melissa Schmidt, a Minneapolis police officer--young, excited to do her job--was shot in a bathroom by someone who was mentally unstable. These are the images I think about. And Senator Booker has pointed out so many times that this isn't just about the massacres, it is also about the individual cases that happen every single day, the domestic violence cases that happen every single day. So while it is so important to focus today on this bizarre situation where you can have thousands of people on a terror watch list who can still get access to firearms, there are other things we can do as well. We can put sensible background checks in place. Think about Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey coming together at a time--two A-rated NRA legislators who were able to come together and put that background check together. And think about those parents from Sandy Hook who knew that bill would not have saved their babies but looked at the thing that could most likely get done in this body, what is the thing that could pass that would save the most lives, because they know that background checks, when done right and thoroughly, have saved lives. They mostly help in cases of suicide and in cases of domestic violence. They had the courage to come to this Chamber, to come to our offices time and time again to advocate for something that they knew wouldn't save their babies' lives, but they did it because they knew it was the right thing and they had the courage to do it--the courage that many people did not have in this Senate Chamber. Domestic violence, background checks help. Do we know what else helps with domestic violence? Going after stalkers. Right now you can be convicted of stalking and still get a gun in this country. That is why we have a bipartisan bill in the House and in the Senate that would stop that. We also bizarrely don't include dating partners, even though in many parts of the law, they are included. You don't have to be married to someone if you have a domestic violence conviction and you are dating partners. A Republican witness at a Judiciary hearing agreed that that part of the law could change, but we cannot get that simple thing changed in the law because people are not willing to take just the slightest risk to vote for it, even when their own constituents favor it. As Senator Murphy has pointed out over and over again, we have a situation where the majority of gun owners support these changes. We have a situation where the vast majority of people want to see these changes. I thank the Senator from Connecticut and ask him just one question focused again on the terror watch list. I know Senator Feinstein released updated information from the Government Accountability Office just yesterday which showed that roughly 91 percent of known or suspected terrorists who attempted to purchase a firearm were able to clear a background check in 2015. I think people would be pretty shocked if they knew that statistic, and obviously one of the reasons we are talking all day today is that people understand how bizarre this situation is, that we can't even close that loophole. I ask Senator Murphy, what does that mean to you when you hear a statistic like that, that you have 91 percent of known or suspected terrorists who can purchase a firearm but are still able to clear a background check?

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in favor of the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act, which I am pleased to say passed the Senate yesterday. I thank my colleagues Senator Grassley and Senator Schumer for their work on this issue. I was proud to be a cosponsor of this bipartisan legislation which reauthorizes key provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This bill was named for Adam Walsh, who was abducted from a Sears department store and murdered when he was just 6 years old. We need to work harder to prevent horrific crimes like this from happening again. In this regard, Federal support is vital to State and local law enforcement efforts to make sure sex offenders can be tracked and monitored. This legislation creates a safer environment for our children by providing needed resources for those on the frontlines. In particular, this legislation assists State and local law enforcement in improving sex offender registries and information sharing and aids them in locating and apprehending sex offenders. It also authorizes resources for the U.S. Marshals to aid State and local law enforcement. We know sex offenders are not afraid to move across State lines, and that is why it is critical to provide the resources needed to fight to keep our children safe from criminal predators and other influences that are dangerous to their safety and well-being. As a former prosecutor, I know the importance of sex offender registries in equipping our law enforcement officers with every tool available to prevent sex crimes. When I was county attorney for Minnesota's most populous county, I saw firsthand the pain and heartbreak caused by sexual abuse to survivors and their families. During that time, I made aggressive prosecution of those who victimize children a top priority. I wish I could say the tragedy that befell Adam Walsh was an isolated, one-time incident, but it is still happening across the country. Just earlier this month in St. Paul, MN, a 7-year-old girl was abducted within 1 minute of being out of her father's sight. That girl was luckier than some. Police found her and arrested her alleged abductor within hours of her abduction, but still the scars of the traumatic event will haunt her for the rest of her life. I am hopeful we can come together to prevent these horrible crimes and ensure that the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act becomes law. Now that the Senate passed this commonsense legislation on a bipartisan basis, the House should do the same. Export-Import Bank Mr. President, I now rise to speak on another topic; that is, my strong support for the Ex-Im Bank--the Export-Import Bank. With the leadership of many in this Chamber, including Senators Cantwell, Heitkamp, Brown, Graham, and many others on both sides of the aisle, we have worked very hard and were able to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank late last year. Currently, only two of the five Ex-Im Board seats are filled, and that is not functional. As a result, the Ex-Im Board cannot approve loan guarantees and other financing tools for medium- and long-term transactions valued in excess of $10 million, and the Board cannot put the reforms in place that were an important part of the reauthorization bill. Some of my colleagues who actually voted for this bill--and some who didn't--said it should be reformed and that there should be changes. We put those reforms in place and had it reauthorized. It was the will of the Senate, Congress, and President to get it reauthorized, and it was reauthorized, but it still cannot function for any new transactions of any significant size nor can any of the reforms be put in place. Why? Because of the dysfunctional situation of only having two of the five Board seats filled. In January, Mark McWatters was nominated to serve on the Ex-Im Board. He is qualified, and by confirming Mr. McWatters, we can give the Ex-Im Bank the quorum it needs to support American businesses that want to sell products overseas. The Export-Import Bank Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2015, which was included in the Fixing America's Surface Transportation bill, or the FAST Act, included several changes to the existing structure of the Ex-Im Bank, including risk management policies, fraud controls, and ethics reforms, as well as promoting exports for small businesses. Under these reforms, small business financing would be increased, electronic document systems would be modernized, the Bank's fraud controls would be reviewed, and the risk to taxpayers would be reduced. But without a quorum and Board approval, without having this additional person confirmed--the Republican nominee--the Ex-Im Bank is not able to adopt the accountability measures or update the loan limits so that American businesses have access to the financing they need to compete globally. The governance measures in the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization strengthen the oversight of the Bank's operations and procedures. They would establish the Office of Ethics, headed by a chief ethics officer who reports directly to the Ex-Im Bank Board. They would also create a chief risk officer and a risk management committee which are designed to oversee the Bank's operations, conduct stress tests of the Bank's portfolio, monitor exposure levels and review Ex-Im Bank's default rate reports. These were all issues that were raised by those who wanted either to get rid of the Bank or greatly change the Bank--right? So we put a number of these reforms in place. Why didn't we adopt these reforms? Because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not allowing a Republican nominee to get on this Board. That is the definition of dysfunction. These reforms will help the Bank function better and protect taxpayer resources, which is what my colleagues are wanting to do to protect taxpayer resources, but yet we cannot put the reforms in place. The Ex-Im reauthorization also modified certain loan terms and increased the threshold for midterm and long-term financing and for small business working capital loans and guarantees. The increased financing amounts will help U.S. businesses access international markets. When our companies are competing against overseas companies for contracts, they need the Ex-Im Bank. In 2015, the Ex-Im Bank provided support for $17 billion in U.S. exports--not million, but $17 billion in U.S. exports. That is a lot of jobs. That means $17 billion of products from our country, made in the United States and made by American workers. It sounds like a lot. The cap that we have in place now is $135 billion for total outstanding financing. But a recent article in the Financial Times shows that the China Development Bank and the Export- Import Bank of China combined had an estimated $684 billion in total development financing. We are out there at $17 billion with a cap of $135 billion. We need to make Ex-Im fully functioning so that it can approve all deals just like its counterpart in China, just like our counterparts in other developed nations. We also want to put these important reforms in place that many of our friends on the other side of the aisle want to see in place. If we don't, countries like China are going to eat our lunch. It is not just China. There are 85 credit export agencies in over 60 other countries, including all major exporting countries. Our companies are competing against foreign businesses that are backed by their own countries' credit export programs and often receive other government subsidies. Why would we want to make it harder for our own companies-- American companies--to create jobs right here at home? That is what we are doing. We, the Congress, and certainly the President realized that we needed to reauthorize the Bank. But now we are not able to function and to put on simply one more Board member, and we don't have a quorum to make decisions. That Board member is a Republican nominee. If we want a level playing field for our businesses, we need to have our Export- Import Bank open and running. This is about jobs. In 2015, the Ex-Im Bank provided $17 billion in financing that supported 109,000 U.S. jobs. This is despite the fact that the charter lapsed between July and December of last year, meaning that they literally could only do their work for half the year. We need to make sure that the Ex-Im Bank is able to make small businesses and American businesses grow and reach markets all over the world. The Ex-Im Bank offers loans, loan guarantees, and export credit insurance. Increased accountability and oversight are needed to make sure these programs are strong. Since we reauthorized the Ex-Im Bank, 649 transactions worth $1.8 billion have been approved, supporting hundreds of U.S. small businesses. These small business owners, such as the many I have met with in Minnesota, told me that the Ex-Im Bank is essential for their ability to access new and emerging markets all over the world. Balzer is an example of an agricultural equipment manufacturer with 75 employees and based in Mountain Lake, MN, a town of 2,000 people. They now export 15 percent of the total sales with the help of the Ex- Im Bank. Over the past 5 years Ex-Im financing has supported $1.7 million in exports. But guess what. What if Balzer got bigger and became a medium-size company wanting to do something over $10 million. What if they wanted to do something new and get a new bigger loan, but they can't get it approved because we only have two of the five members on the Ex-Im Bank Board. So we cannot get the new financing approved. Do we think they are doing that in China? Do we think they are doing that in any other developed nation where they say: Well, we are just going to have two of the five people on this Board to do some of the work with some of the smaller companies, which are important, but we are not going to be able to do anything when they are competing for a major contract. That is what we are doing right now. Take Ralco, a small animal feed manufacturer in Marshall, a town of 13,500. Ralco is a third-generation family business that just celebrated its 45th anniversary. Ralco exports to over 20 countries. Over the last 5 years, Ex-Im has provided financing that supports nearly $11.7 million in exports for Ralco. If that was just in one contract that was over $10 million in new financing, they wouldn't be able to get it approved because of the fact that the Banking Committee and this Congress has decided to stall out and approve the Ex-Im Bank but cut off its ability for any major new financing. That is what is happening right now. How about Superior Industries in Morris, MN? Superior manufactures bulk-material processing and handling systems. There are 5,000 people in this town, and 500 people in Morris work at that company. That is 10 percent of the population. Ex-Im has provided financing that supports nearly $3.1 million in exports for Superior over the last 5 years. The list goes on. These are not large corporations. These are family businesses and smaller companies that are essential to the economic well-being of the towns and counties. The Ex-Im Bank helps these small businesses from all over my State compete and export globally. These are success stories, and we need more of them. These are the stories we are hearing from every State. These are the stories we want to hear--not the stories that we are now hearing about companies that are closing down operations or that are laying off employees because they are not able to access the new financing they need to make major deals. They are going to foreign companies whose countries have the foresight and have their act together in their governments or in their congresses so they don't leave three of five positions open on their financing authority boards. Ex-Im has many transactions waiting for Board approval. There are about $10 billion of deals waiting in this pipeline. So when my colleagues talk about creating jobs, there are $10 billion in private deals in the pipeline simply waiting to have one Board member confirmed so that we can get this done. The Ex-Im Bank reauthorization passed with broad bipartisan support. We need to confirm J. Mark McWatters and put in place these important reforms to start approving transactions so our businesses can export to the world. Usually, people sometimes stall on a confirmation because someone is viewed as too extreme or there is some problem with their record. This is a Republican nominee to fill a Republican slot on the Board. We need to get this done. Our workers, our businesses, and our country are counting on us to get this done. I ask my colleagues to urge the Banking Committee to get this nominee through or somehow through some other procedural genius way bring this to the floor so that we can get this done. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the Afton, MN, flotilla of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Established in 1941, this flotilla is the oldest in Minnesota. The volunteers of the Coast Guard Auxiliary dedicate their time to making sure our community's lakes and rivers are safe. As the Land of 10,000 Lakes, flotillas in Minnesota have a fulltime job. From performing search and rescue operations, to teaching boating safety courses, for 75 years, the Afton flotilla has helped to ensure that Minnesota waterways are safe and accessible. Over the years, when our State has faced natural disasters such as flooding of the Mississippi River and the Red River, the Afton flotilla has worked side-by-side with local, State, and Federal authorities to aid in search and rescue operations, evacuations, and emergency communications. When the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis tragically collapsed in 2007, the volunteers of the Afton flotilla were ready to work with emergency response teams and helped catalog the countless amount of debris examined during the investigation. Even after the disaster was over, the flotilla monitored boater safety once the river was finally reopened. Even more than responding to disasters, the Afton flotilla works to prevent disasters on the water, making sure that river navigation tools are in working order and patrolling during regattas and other events. There is no way for us to know just how many lives were saved over the past 75 years through the hard work of the Afton flotilla volunteers. I join all of my fellow Minnesotans in applauding the Afton flotilla's momentous anniversary and the dedication of its volunteer members over the past 75 years. I would also like to thank all of the auxiliary volunteers in Minnesota and across the country who keep our communities and waterways safe.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to discuss this urgent public health emergency. I am honored to be here with Senator Murray, Senator Mikulski, Senator Heitkamp, and Senator Hirono as we look at this serious crisis facing our Nation, and that is the Zika virus. The World Health Organization has declared that Zika is spreading explosively and will affect nearly all countries in North America and South America. The virus has already infected nearly 400 Americans who have traveled abroad from 40 States, including my home State of Minnesota. Over 500 people in Puerto Rico have the disease. Nearly all of them contracted the virus locally. These numbers will only continue to grow as the warmer months bring more mosquitoes that transmit this disease. In fact, researchers calculate that 60 percent of the people in our country live in an area that will likely be affected. Zika is a rapidly evolving mosquito-borne virus. Most infected patients develop mild flu-like symptoms that last for a week. However, the virus has devastating consequences for growing families. Researchers have now confirmed what many feared was true: A pregnant woman infected with Zika is at risk of giving birth to a child with microcephaly. This heartbreaking, lifelong condition results in newborns with abnormally small heads. These children will need increased access to health care and developmental services, such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. There is no known cure for this disease or even standard treatment for this condition. It is crucial that physicians have the knowledge and tools essential to diagnose and care for pregnant women who may be infected with Zika. It is crucial that moms with Zika and children with microcephaly have access to the services they need. It is crucial that we take steps now to ensure that our health care system and all levels of government are prepared for the imminent spread of the Zika virus. We are here today to continue to stress the urgent need to ensure that our country is as prepared as possible to mitigate the spread of Zika and respond to outbreaks of this virus. The administration submitted a request for nearly $2 billion in emergency funds to provide immediate support. This is about research. This is about a vaccine. This is about therapeutics and diagnostics. This is about a medical health crisis that primarily--but not only-- affects women and children. That is why the women Democrats of the Senate have gathered on the floor today to speak out, to speak out and say this is a crisis that must be funded. This is a crisis that must be responded to. Simply because it mainly affects women and children right now--and we have no idea what other effects it will have--is no reason to shirk our duties in the Congress and not fund this. Our foremost duty is to protect the health and safety of Americans. Zika is a rapidly evolving disease with severe public health implications. I ask my colleagues to support this effort. We cannot afford to delay action. I yield the floor.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today as the cochair of the Rare Disease Congressional Caucus in recognition of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and the loved ones who care for them. Duchenne is a devastating, rare disease that primarily affects boys and young men. There is no cure. It is 100 percent fatal. There are no approved disease-modifying treatments at this time, but we want to give them hope. In 1999, there were no human clinical trials for Duchenne. Today, there are 22 observational trials currently underway. Life expectancy rates have increased by about 10 years in just the past decade. The FDA has more tools in its toolbox than ever to accelerate approvals of safe and effective Duchenne therapies, but we would like more therapies to be approved in the future. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is the most common fatal genetic disorder diagnosed in childhood, affecting approximately 1 in every 3,500 male children. The disease results in the gradual loss of muscle strength, usually beginning before age 5. The progressive muscle weakness leads to serious medical problems, particularly issues related to the hearts and lungs. By age 14, over 80 percent of these boys are using wheelchairs. My work on Duchenne muscular dystrophy began when I was elected to the Senate. It was an issue my dear friend and former Minnesota Senator, Paul Wellstone, championed. Paul was instrumental in getting the Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance Research and Education Act--or as it is known, the MD-CARE Act--signed into law back in 2001. The bill dramatically increased investment at the National Institutes of Health for muscular dystrophy research and included funding for the creation of six centers of excellence. In recognition of his work, all of the centers share Senator Paul Wellstone's name. The bill also supported public health policies designed to improve quality of life and boost life expectancy of children and adults diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Since passage of the MD-CARE Act, $500 million has been leveraged for muscular dystrophy research and education programs, half of which is Duchenne-specific. I then led the reauthorization of the MD-CARE Act in 2008, and it passed the Senate by unanimous consent. In 2014, Senator Roger Wicker and I led the MD-CARE Amendments of 2014, which built upon the progress by ensuring that efforts are focused on the most critical needs of doctors, patients, and researchers. These are important accomplishments, but more needs to be done. The Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012 gave the FDA increased flexibility to grant accelerated approval for rare disease treatments that have proven to be beneficial. The bill also directed the FDA to use patient-focused drug development tools during the drug approval process. The idea is simple: Patient experience should be a factor when the FDA considers a drug for approval. This gives the FDA the opportunity to hear directly from patients, their families, and caregivers about the symptoms that matter most to them, the impact the disease has on patients' daily lives, and their experiences with treatments. To build upon that progress, Senator Wicker and I introduced the Patient-Focused Impact Assessment Act. The bill would help advocates understand how the FDA uses patient-focused drug development tools and how it engages patients, including those with rare diseases, such as Duchenne, as it reviews drugs and therapies. Last month this bipartisan bill unanimously passed the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, bringing us one step closer to ensuring strong patient engagement throughout the FDA review process. At an FDA meeting on Monday, there was one example of patient involvement in the drug approval process. It was a meeting that broke records. According to advocates, it was the largest gathering of Duchenne families in history. More than 900 members of their community were there. In fact, turnout was so large the FDA changed the meeting location to accommodate everyone. Many stories were shared during the daylong meeting--stories of hope, stories of progress. Even seemingly small improvements--such as the ability to open a bottle of water on their own or lift their arm a little higher--make a huge difference in the quality of these boys' lives. These small victories have a ripple effect across a lifetime. Monday's historic event shows the strength of the Duchenne community, the passion of the families, and the hope that treatments are on the horizon. This particular treatment was not approved that day, but we continue to hold hope that change will be on the horizon. The fight against muscular dystrophy will not be won overnight, but we have already seen incredible progress in the last few years. I am confident that by working together--by bringing families to the table with policymakers and health care experts--we can accomplish some truly remarkable things. One of the reasons Senator Wicker and I fought so hard to have the FDA officials listen directly to the families is that when you know your child has a disease that is 100 percent fatal, you might take different risks. You might see different improvements in a different way than a medical professional who does not have this experience. We hope going forward this kind of experience and testimony and information will make for better decisions by the FDA. We need to continue to ensure the FDA has the tools and flexibility it needs to increase the number of safe, effective, and affordable treatments that are available for people with rare diseases. I also thank Senator Hatch, who has done a lot of work with me on the rare disease issue, and we will continue to push for cures for people who have so little hope. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today to speak of the loss of the one of Minnesota's own, and that is Prince. Like all Minnesotans, today we were shocked and saddened. I grew up with Prince's music, starting with ``Little Red Corvette'' in the seventies and eighties. We won't forget ``Purple Rain'' in Minnesota. We were so proud of that movie, and everyone would point at every spot in the movie they knew from growing up. He was a superstar, composer, amazing performer, and a music innovator with a fierce belief in the independence of his art. He lived his art. He believed his words were his own, his name was his own, and he wasn't going to let anyone own him. There was absolutely nobody like him, and there never will be. Prince sold more than 100 million records worldwide. He released 39 studio albums. He had five No. 1 Billboard hits and 40 in the top 100. He won seven Grammys, an Oscar, and a Golden Globe. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year he was eligible. But even with all that success, even with all that fame, Minnesota never lost that sense that he was a beloved son--our neighbor, the superstar next door. I was always so proud to say: ``Prince--you know he's from Minnesota.'' He was born there, and he still lives there. The fact that Prince was a proud native of my State came through in all of his music. He pioneered the Minneapolis sound--that mixture of funk, rock, and pop that emerged in the late 1970s and 1980s and influenced music for decades to come. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Janet Jackson, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson, Justin Timberlake, The Weeknd, Beyonce--these are just some of the many artists who were influenced by that sound. But that sound didn't just influence artists, it influenced everyone who heard it. Prince's music touched our hearts, opened our minds, and made us want to dance. That is his legacy, and that is what we will always remember. Prince made ``Purple Rain'' a household name. Like most Minnesotans, I remember the first time I listened to that album. It was, as his band was then called, a revolution. It changed music forever and is considered among the best in music history. Two of the songs on that album--``When Doves Cry,'' which is especially notable because he plays all of the instruments in the song, and ``Let's Go Crazy''--rose to the top of the charts. ``Let's Go Crazy'' includes a lesson important to remember on days like today. There is a world waiting for us after this life, Prince sang, ``a world of never ending happiness, where you can always see the sun, day or night.'' I know that today all of us hope Prince is standing in that Sun. Prince sang that song at First Avenue--the venue in downtown Minneapolis--when he introduced his band to the city in 1983. There, too, Prince shot some of the scenes for his classic ``Purple Rain'' film. Today the club is a landmark and a must-play venue for some of the best artists. I personally stood in Prince's dressing room surrounded by pictures of him. The building is covered in stars with the names of artists who have performed there, and there will always be one star that will shine the brightest, and that is the man who made it the landmark it is--Prince. Minnesota loves Prince, and Prince loved Minnesota. He was born in Minneapolis. He went to Central High School, where he played piano and guitar for a band called Grand Central. He recorded his early demo tapes with Chris Moon and at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis. Throughout his life, he called Minnesota home. He wrote a song about the Minnesota Vikings--he was always a big fan--appropriately titled ``Purple and Gold.'' At the end of last year when the Minnesota Lynx--our women's basketball team--won the WNBA championship, he held a concert at his recording studio, Paisley Park, for local fans, who got to enjoy his music well into the night. Just a few days ago, he hosted a dance party there and made a brief appearance. In some way, it was his last gift to our State. But his best and lasting gift? His music, his innovation, his energy. When accepting BET's Lifetime Achievement Award, Prince said: The future's in your hands now. And the world really is yours. Well, that world is a whole lot cooler because Prince was in it, and it is a whole lot sadder today now that he is gone. My heart goes out to his friends and family and to all who mourn his loss today. We will miss the artist Prince. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the opening on the Supreme Court. Today I am going to focus my remarks on how important filling the current vacancy on the Supreme Court is for our system of governance. When our Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, they envisioned a system of governance upheld by three branches of government. The Federalist Papers outline this balance of power in detail. In Federalist Paper No. 51, James Madison spoke about the importance of checks and balances among three branches of government. As Madison stated: ``It is . . . evident that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others.'' I don't think we always refer to ourselves as members of a department, but what he meant by this is that there are three departments in our government--the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. In Federalist Papers 78 and 80, Alexander Hamilton wrote about the important role of the Federal judiciary in particular. The writings of the Founders make clear that our democracy only works when all three branches are functioning. In recent years, gridlock has hobbled the ability of the legislative branch to function. Although we have made some progress in starting to turn that around with the passage of the recent Transportation bill, the Education bill, and the budget, we also have had some very difficult times--fiscal cliff, the government shutdown. We cannot take that dysfunction to the third--as was called by James Madison-- department of government, which is the judiciary. We cannot have a Supreme Court that doesn't function, which is exactly what is happening as some continue to obstruct the process, when all we want is a hearing. We have already witnessed the Court split evenly without a ninth Justice to break the tie this year. These types of decisions can prevent the Court from responding to pressing issues in a timely fashion. In some decisions where there has been a 4-to-4 split, the result is effectively the same as if the Supreme Court never heard the case to begin with. What if there was an emergency case like we had with Bush v. Gore? Again, do we want a 4-to-4 split in a case like that? Justice Kagan has said the current Justices on the Court are doing everything they can to avoid a 4-to-4 split, but that is not how it should work. Often these types of decisions provide less guidance to States, offering them less legal certainty. Last week I held a meeting of the Steering and Outreach Committee, where I heard firsthand about what a serious issue this is for State and local governments. You have patchwork decisions across the country with perhaps 2 years that will go by before you have a High Court of the land that can decide which case and which decision rules when there is a split in the circuit. You can't continue to have a split on the Court. As the former chief prosecutor from Minnesota's largest county, I know from my own experience how important it is to have an ultimate arbiter to settle the law of the land. Cases challenging critical laws are now before the Supreme Court. We want those laws to rise or fall because the Supreme Court has decided the issue--not because of a 4-to- 4 split, not because they were unable to do their job. More split decisions are not the only risks we are facing. The current vacancy on the Supreme Court also has implications for the number of cases the Court is able to take in the first place. In March of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari-- that means they took the case--in eight cases. This year, it only did so for two cases. The current situation is compromising the integrity of our judiciary. If we allow the Supreme Court to become a casualty of the polarization in our politics, if we let politics impede the Court from having another Justice and from doing its job, people will lose confidence in the Court. That is what sets our country apart. When you talk to companies across the world that want to invest in different countries, they look at the fact that we have a functioning judiciary. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank Senator Coons for his work. As he stated, Russia's actions are very harmful in the effort to bring peace in the Middle East. Russia reportedly plans to sell advanced aircraft and missile systems to Iran, as Senator Coons noted, and may begin making these shipments in the next few days. These weapons could be used to destabilize the region and threaten the security of our allies, especially Israel. Russia also continues to block the U.N. Security Council from taking action in response to Iran's recent illegal missile tests. These actions can only embolden Iran and encourage Iran to disregard its commitment. Russia, as a JCPOA country, a world power, and a member of the U.N. Security Council, needs to be convinced that it is in its best interests and in the interests of the international community that Iran stick to its commitments under the JCPOA. I thank Senator Coons for making those points. As he noted, I also stress the need to enforce Iran's commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and also to confirm nominees for positions vital to national security and to support our allies in the Mid East. Preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is one of the most important objectives of our national security policy. I strongly advocated for and supported the economic sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table over the last few years. Those sanctions resulted in a nuclear nonproliferation agreement between Iran and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China that was implemented in January. But our work is clearly not done. As we have seen over the past few months, Iran continues to conduct ballistic missile tests and continues to support terrorism and threatening regional stability. Now we are reading news reports, as I noted, that Russia is selling a long-range surface-to-air missile defense system to Iran. All of this means we have to remain vigilant in our monitoring and in our verification. That is why I sponsored the Iran Policy Oversight Act and encourage my colleagues to pass it. The bill does three important things to hold Iran accountable. First, it allows Congress to more quickly impose economic sanctions against Iran's terrorist activity. Second, the bill expands military aid to Israel. Third, the bill ensures that agencies charged with monitoring Iran have the resources they need. We also have to reauthorize the Iran Sanctions Act in order to ensure that we can hold Iran accountable if it violates the deal. The Iran Sanctions Act is up for reauthorization this December and has been a pivotal component of U.S. sanctions against Iran's energy sector, and its application has been steadily expanded to other Iranian industries. Given Iran's history, we can anticipate that it will continue to test the boundaries of international agreements, and we have to be ready to respond when it does so. In summary, we must hold Iran accountable every step of the way. Imposing harsh sanctions, as the administration must do, against those responsible for Iran's ballistic missile program, which threatened regional and global security, is, of course, a good start, but we must continue to sanction Iran's ballistic missile program as well as its sponsorship of terrorism and abuse of human rights. Any person or business involved in helping Iran obtain illicit weapons should be banned from doing business with the United States, have their assets and financial operations immediately frozen, and have their travel restricted. Minimizing the threat Iran poses also means working to ensure that the money flowing into Iran now that nuclear sanctions are lifted is not used to further destabilize the region and spread terrorism. We must monitor the flow of terrorist financing and use every tool available to punish bad actors who seek to do harm. But it is also important for Iran to understand that we will not hesitate to snap back sanctions if Iran fails to comply its commitments under the JCPOA. Sanctions were effective at getting Iran to the table and they will continue to be a tool that allows the United States and our allies to minimize the threat posed by Iran. We must also continue to work with our partners, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union, and Russia to ensure that the agreement is strictly enforced. Iran must know that if it violates the rules, the response will be certain, swift, and severe. As Senator Coons mentioned, when the agreement was reached, its success is ultimately dependent upon every country keeping its word to keep Iran from violating its commitments under the agreement. We need the support of the international community to ensure that Iran sticks to its commitments. As we just heard from Senator Coons, Russia's actions are harmful to this effort. Russia reportedly plans to sell advanced aircraft and missile systems to Iran and may begin making these shipments in the next few days. These weapons could be used to destabilize the region and threaten the security of our allies, especially Israel. Russia also continues to block the U.N. Security Council from taking action in response to Iran's recent illegal missile tests. These actions can only embolden Iran and encourage Iran to disregard its commitments. Russia, as a JCPOA country, a world power, and a member of the U.N. Security Council, needs to be convinced that it is in the best interest of the international community that Iran sticks to its commitments under the JCPOA. We also need to make sure that we fill vacant frontline positions that hamper our ability to protect our country and work with our allies. While I was pleased that the Senate Banking Committee voted 14- 8 last month to approve the nomination of Adam Szubin as undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Department of Treasury, the fact remains that it should not have taken 325 days for the committee to vote. This position is essential to national security as it tracks the source of terrorist funding around the world and should be filled as soon as possible. We cannot delay confirmations if the reasoning has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with politics. Senator Shaheen came to the floor several times to call for swift action on his confirmation, and I join her to urge my Senate colleagues to vote on his confirmation as soon as possible. Our allies and our enemies need to see a united and functional American frontline. And in order to hold Iran accountable, we have to have these positions filled. It is that simple. The United States needs to limit Iran's destabilizing activity in the region. We need to give our allies in the region the support they need. As the Administration negotiates a new Memorandum of Understanding for security assistance to Israel, I, along with many of my colleagues, support a substantially enhanced agreement to help provide Israel the resources it requires to defend itself and preserve its qualitative military edge. Israel remains America's strongest ally in this troubled region. A strong and secure Israel remains a central pillar of our national strategy to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East. Those of us who supported the Iran nuclear agreement have a special responsibility to ensure that it works. In fact, this whole Senate has a responsibility, regardless of whether Members supported it or not. It is in the best interest of our country. We cannot shirk from our duties and we must be vigilant. We owe it to the American people, to Israel, and to our allies. Our mission here is clear: We must protect our own citizens by exercising our authority to enact strong legislation to ensure that Iran does not cheat on its international commitments. Because we know from experience that Iran will test the international community, we must be ready to respond when it does. We must also minimize the threat Iran poses to our citizens and the world by doing everything in our power to stop Iran from funding the world's terrorists. It is critical that we take additional steps to stop countries like Iran from funding terrorism and destabilizing the world. Stopping Iran's support of terrorism protects us here at home, but it also helps millions of refugees fleeing Syria, the children that are starving in cities like Madaya, and the families fleeing mortar fire in Yemen. Our values of justice, democracy, and freedom for all demand nothing less. I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am very pleased to be here with both of the Senators from Washington, one of the few States that have two Senators who are women. It is great to be here with both of them. I would also like to thank Senator Barbara Mikulski for leading the effort for the Paycheck Fairness Act. She is the longest serving woman in congressional history. She has opened many doors for all of us. When she first wrote her book about women in the Senate, it was called ``Nine and Counting.'' Well, today, our count is even higher, as there are 20 women in the Senate. She was the first woman--Barbara Mikulski was--to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee. Because of her groundbreaking work in this Congress, 10 committees have either a chair or a ranking member who is a woman. Today, as the presiding officer knows, President Obama formally dedicated a new national monument to honor women's suffrage and equal rights. I am a cosponsor of the bill to have the Sewall-Belmont House named as a national historical site. The Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument is named after Alice Paul and Alva Belmont, two leaders of the National Woman's Party. It will house an extensive collection that documents the history of the movement for women's equality. What has happened in the last decade or so? Well, in 2009, we passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to make sure that workers who face pay discrimination based on gender, race, age, religion, disability, or national origin have access to the courts. In doing so, we restored the original intent of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act. Now it is time to prevent that pay discrimination from happening in the first place. We all know women have made big strides in our country and in our economy over the last few decades. Women are getting advanced degrees. They are starting new businesses. The Fortune 500 now has 20 women CEOs. That does not sound like much, but when you look back just a few decades, there were not any. Yet, despite all of the progress we have made and all of the gaps that we are starting to close, women in this country still earn only around 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. When two-thirds of today's families rely all or in part on the mother's income--and in about 40 percent of families the mother is, in fact, the main bread winner--this pay gap has real consequences for American families and our entire economy. I wanted to focus on one issue at the end here, and that is retirement savings, which are maybe not the first things you would think about when you think about a pay gap. It is probably not what our young pages think about. They don't think: Well, what about what the retirement gap? But, in fact, it is something everyone should be thinking about. When I was the Senate chair of the Joint Economic Committee, I released a report showing how equal pay affects women's financial security. The report showed that lower wages impact women all throughout their working lives, and these lower lifetime earnings translate to less security in retirement. According to the JEC report, the average annual income for women age 65 and older, including pensions, private savings, and Social Security, is $11,000 less than it is for men. Social Security retirement benefits are based on a person's lifetime earnings. The average monthly benefit for female retirees is 77 percent less. The same thing goes for pensions. A woman's pension income is 53 percent that of men. Women also receive smaller pension checks from Federal, State, and local government pension plans. Finally, a recent study showed that the average woman was able to save less than half of what the average man was able to save in an IRA. So what we have here is, first of all, women are making less to begin with. That is what we are talking about today. That means they save less and have less money in Social Security. Secondly, they live longer. That is great, but it means they are going to have less money. Then, finally, we have the fact that they are often a single breadwinner in 40 percent of households. The fact that they take time off often to have children--that is the third factor that leads to less savings. What we should be doing is looking at how we can address the savings gap. There are ways we can address it by making it easier to save and making it easier to set up 401(k)s and IRAs and looking at the millennials and how we can respond to what is an increasingly different economy for young people. But we also can simply make sure women make the same amount as men when they do the same job. It was the late Paul Wellstone of my State who famously said: ``We all do better when we all do better.'' I still believe that is true today and so do my colleagues who join me. We need to be focused on how we can help more women share in our economic growth and share in the American dream. I ask my colleagues to support and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the bill that is on the floor, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act. I thank Senator Thune and Senator Nelson for their leadership. I serve on the Commerce Committee. I am proud of this bill. Our State has a long history of aviation. It was the childhood home of Charles Lindbergh. We are home to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the 13th busiest airport in the United States. We are home to Cirrus Design Corporation in Duluth, which makes planes and is a very successful company, as well as many people whose jobs and ways of life depend on the aviation industry, not to mention the 148th Fighter Wing National Guard base, as well as the one in the Twin Cities and the one in Duluth. I see my colleague from Arizona is here, so I will focus on one issue, and that is aviation security. Mr. President, 9/11 was our country's wake-up call that our transportation system is a target, and the attacks in Brussels last month remind us that we must continue to do everything we can to strengthen security, and not just in our security lines at the airports but also in places like baggage claim areas and other forms of transportation, like train stations. We need to make sure our soft-target areas, as they are called--like the security lines, baggage claims, and ticketing counters at the airport--are safe. I am a cosponsor of the amendment that passed today that will help address the issue by doubling the number of visible intermodal prevention and response teams from 30 to 60. These teams help provide important deterrent security at potential air and ground transportation targets across our country. This amendment which passed today will also improve existing security systems in airports and train stations by expanding bomb-sniffing dog patrols, law enforcement training for emergency situations, and security in all perimeter areas of the airport. We must also improve the secure areas of airports where airline employees have secure access to what are called sterile areas. In March, as we all know, an airline employee was arrested after attempting to use his badge to enter the boarding area of a terminal from the tarmac, bypassing security gates. He had a backpack with $282,000 in it. In the same month, we saw another employee try to smuggle 70 pounds of cocaine in her suitcase at LAX, and she was caught at a security checkpoint. The most egregious breach of security happened at the Atlanta airport, where airline employees helped to facilitate a gun-smuggling ring and were successful at getting guns on at least 20 flights from Atlanta to New York. Needless to say, there continues to be significant concern, as much as we know that the vast majority of our airline employees are hard-working and good employees. Eighty-five Senators just voted in support of the Airport Security Enforcement and Oversight Act, a bill I cosponsored that would help address this issue of security at the airport, but I would like to add our own story out of Minnesota-St. Paul. First of all, it is a story of inefficiency, so we made a reconfiguration at our airport. There were lines at one point where the average time was 45 to 50 minutes--average time. That was just a month ago. There were passengers waiting for 2 hours and missing their flights. There were simply not enough TSA agents. They were out at a training, which was, of course, necessary because of the inspector general's report that came out this June and showed some severe problems in security at our airports. So we had a perfect storm of people out for training, a new reconfiguration, and finally the spring break travel. But it was simply unacceptable when our taxpayers are paying for TSA. In fact, this Congress authorized $100 million--$90 million more than they asked for in the last budget year. I have appreciated TSA Administrator Neffenger coming to Minnesota, saying that it was unacceptable, saying that they were hiring people with the budget money that was provided. There are also plans to use these K-9 units not just in the perimeters of the bill we passed today but also on these lines. Not only do these dog teams add more security, by working a line of passengers, they actually speed up that line because then those passengers essentially become precheck passengers and they don't have to be prechecked. They become prechecked because of the dogs, and that speeds up everything for all airport passengers. I think we have seen enough of these terrorist attacks across the country, planes with bombs going down in other places. We know this is a danger. We don't want this in our homeland. I appreciate the support of my colleagues on these amendments. We will continue to work on security issues. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the Defend Trade Secrets Act, which is before us today. I thank Senators Hatch and Coons for their important work on this bill and Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Leahy for their leadership as well. Stolen trade secrets cost American companies--and thus their workers--billions of dollars each year and threaten their ability to innovate and compete globally. This bill will help protect vital intellectual property, and I am pleased to be a cosponsor. Trade secrets are the lifeblood of so many businesses in American. Stealing those ideas can wipe out years of research by employees and development and cost millions of dollars in losses because competitors--those that steal the secrets--reap the benefits of innovation without putting in any of the work. Although measuring the total cost of trade secret theft is difficult, one study using multiple approaches estimates the yearly cost at 1 to 3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. Today, as much as 80 percent of companies' assets are intangible, the majority of them in the form of trade secrets. This includes everything from financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, and engineering information to formulas, designs, prototypes, processes, procedures, and computer code. Trade secret theft poses a particular risk for my home State of Minnesota, which has a strong tradition of innovation and bringing technological advances to the marketplace. Our companies have brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the Post-it Notes. Protecting their intellectual property is critical to their economic success, critical to our businesses, and, most importantly, critical to the workers and employees who make their living in American businesses. Here are some examples of what we are talking about and the costs when trade secret thefts occur. In 2011 a former employee of the Minnesota agricultural company Cargill stole trade secrets of Cargill and Dow Chemical regarding a product and gave them to a Chinese university. The two companies suffered combined losses of over $7 million. Fortunately, the former employee was caught, convicted, and received 87 months in prison--the strongest sentence possible. But look at the loss that occurred--$7 million. That same year, an employee of a Minnesota paint company, Valspar, tried to steal $20 million worth of chemical formulas to give to a Chinese company in exchange for a high-ranking job. That really happened. The authorities caught him before he completed his theft, and he received a sentence of 15 months in jail. But too many thefts go unprosecuted, and the costs go beyond simply dollars and cents. Medical device makers Medtronic and Boston Scientific hope to bring advanced care to patients in China. These companies would like to do even more but fear they won't be able to protect sensitive proprietary technology, and that holds them back. Stronger protection of trade secrets will benefit consumers across the world as well as trade secret owners. In 1996 Congress enacted the Economic Espionage Act, which made economic espionage and trade secret theft a Federal crime. Nearly 20 years later, the threat of trade secret theft has grown. Thumb drives and the cloud have replaced file cabinets for storage information, making stealing a trade secret as easy as clicking a button or touching a screen. Trade secret theft threatens not just businesses but jobs and, certainly, innovation. Protecting the intellectual property of American businesses needs 21st century solutions. The Defend Trade Secrets Act demonstrates our commitment at the Federal level to protect all forms of a business's intellectual property. This balanced bill gives companies two more tools to effectively protect their trade secrets. First, a party can seek an ex parte court order to seize stolen trade secrets to prevent their destruction or dissemination. To prevent abuse, the requirements to obtain an order are rigorous, access to the seized material is limited, and it is only available in what are considered ``extraordinary circumstances.'' Second, the bill creates a Federal private right of action for trade secret theft. Companies will be able to rely on a national standard to efficiently protect their intellectual property. Securing the trade secrets of American businesses and their employees is a serious issue and needs to be addressed, and I urge my colleagues to support the Defend Trade Secrets Act. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator McCain for his work. I started to work on some of these backpage issues in conjunction with Senator McCain's wife Cindy McCain, as well as with Senator Heitkamp. We took a trip to Mexico focusing on the trafficking going on across the border with that country. I want to thank Senators Portman and McCaskill for leadership on this really important resolution. Just last year, five St. Paul residents were charged with running a multistate sex trafficking ring. One of the alleged victims was 16. Those underage girls were being advertised on backpage, and the ads were placed in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois. In Southwest Minnesota, an operation involving backpage resulted in charges against 48 men around the towns of New Ulm and Mankato, the town my husband grew up in. These cases prove that sex trafficking isn't just happening in some faraway place. It is happening right now in the United States of America. It is happening in our own neighborhoods. It is happening in oil patches in North Dakota. It is happening in Cleveland, and it is happening in St. Paul. These are real stories with real people. In 2014 I spoke to the trafficking advocacy group Polaris when they released their State-by-State rankings of efforts to fight human trafficking. They said then: The scope and scale of human trafficking within the United States presents a daunting challenge to policymakers, service providers, law enforcement, and advocates. Originally, human trafficking was thought to be more of a problem in other countries, but now it is known to be happening in our backyards. It is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of victims of sex and labor trafficking inside our borders. We have learned more about human trafficking through the advocacy and dedication, as I mentioned, of our friend Cindy McCain and her work at the McCain Institute. Their 2014 report actually focuses specifically on this advertising. When I was a prosecutor for 8 years, yes, we had trafficking--of course, we did--and, yes, we had child pornography, but I would say we didn't see this tsunami of advertising that we see now. Why? The Internet has made it easier. We love the Internet. It has allowed us to communicate in ways, but it has expanded demand for sex trafficking victims because of the fact that it is easier to do than it used to be. What the McCain report shows is that the availability of potential victims of domestic minor sex trafficking exceeded researcher expectations, with no less than 38 different Web sites advertising victims who showed indications of being juvenile sex trafficking victims, with at least 4 Web sites providing customer feedback and soliciting recommendations of victims of sex trafficking. The McCain report went on to say: ``In Phoenix, during 10 days of ad screening, 34 ads were identified as possibly depicting minor victims with duplicate ads resulting in 81 distinct tips of domestic minor sex trafficking.'' Last year we successfully passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act that Senator Cornyn and I led. We are making good progress in implementing this bill. Senator Cornyn and I met recently with Attorney General Lynch. They are working hard. Ongoing work not only includes this resolution and is the focus on the advertising of illegal sex trafficking but also partnering with the private sector. Senator Warner and I have introduced the Stop Trafficking on Planes Act or the STOP Act, which is built on the work of the industry to train flight attendants and train people on the planes to find the victims. I note this investigation led by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is a bipartisan attempt to address a serious issue. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting S. Res. 377. This is just one element of this fight against sex trafficking, but it is an important one because people should not be allowed to violate the Senate rules, they shouldn't be allowed to skirt hearings, and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with this kind of behavior. Backpage and others of its ilk are not just a vehicle for advertising this crime, they are actually a vehicle for expanding this crime and hurting more people. I appreciate the work of Senator Portman and Senator McCaskill. Thank you.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am so pleased we are making strong progress on the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, and I hope we will get this bill done within a day. It is very important, especially to States with rural areas, such as the Presiding Officer's and mine, and I am glad we are starting to make headway. U.S.-Canada Relations Today, Mr. President, I am here to talk about something else, and that is the importance of the U.S. relationship with Canada. Senator Crapo and I cochair the Canada-United States Interparliamentary Group and have been working in the trenches on everything from softwood lumber, to the Detroit-Windsor bridge crossing, to issues of intellectual property, to dairy, to beef, and with the arrival of Prime Minister Trudeau, this work has suddenly gotten a little more glamorous. We are excited about that and excited about the Nation's newfound interest in our important relationship with Canada. In fact, Canada is one of our largest trading partners. There is so much business that goes on between the Presiding Officer's State and Canada, as well as my State and Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau is bringing a newfound interest in this work. Many of our two countries' priorities, which include national security, infrastructure, and energy, align closely. During this visit, I expect our relationship will deepen, and we will hear more about how our two nations will work together on our shared priorities. We hope they will discuss hockey, which is something that is very important to Minnesota and Canada. A number of our hockey players have actually come from Canada, and a number of the Canadian hockey players have come from Minnesota. But we think there are other important topics as well. First, I will start with our economic relationship--a relationship that supports 9 million U.S. jobs. Canada purchases more goods from America than any other nation. If you asked people what country in the world is the biggest purchaser of U.S. goods, I think they might not predict that the answer is Canada. Canada is the No. 1 buyer of goods produced in 35 out of 50 States, including Minnesota. Last year Canadians bought $376 billion worth of goods made by American businesses, and it is a two-way street. The United States imports more than $300 billion in Canadian goods every year. Over the years, to enhance this relationship, we have taken many important steps to improve the flow of travellers and goods across our common border. In the wake of September 11, we created a U.S. passport card, which is a secure but less expensive and more convenient alternative to a traditional passport. We removed unnecessary double screening of luggage--a bipartisan bill I passed with Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri--and then expanded the number of preclearance airports, which allows American security personnel to be in those airports. I think we are up to eight now. We have agreed to build a new bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, MI. It is a source of great concern. The bridge that is there now is privately owned and has huge lines. It is not a very good situation. So a new bridge is in the works, and we are very excited that our two countries worked on that together. I especially want to acknowledge Ambassador Doer, the longtime Ambassador from Canada to the United States who worked on that with our two Ambassadors. I also want to acknowledge the newly named Canadian Ambassador, Ambassador David MacNaughton, who will continue the strong diplomatic relations between our countries. Our national security partnership is also incredibly important. We share the longest border in the world with Canada. Obviously border issues are important, but more than that, Canada, as part of NATO, has worked with us not only in Afghanistan, where they supplied many troops and now provide funding there, but they are also on the frontline with ISIS. They actually have hundreds of trainers working on the frontline there. I would be remiss not to mention them standing up to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Believe it or not, Canada has a major Ukrainian population, and they have been our friend in dealing with Ukraine as well. Prime Minister Trudeau has also been a leader in welcoming refugees to the country. Right after his election, he showed up at the airport to greet Syrian refugees. It was not just a symbol; they actually brought in 25,000 Syrian refugees during the last year and are expected to take in 10,000 more this year, which is significantly more in total than the United States has been able to bring in. We know the vetting process is incredibly important, but we do want to thank Canada for taking part in what is a travesty internationally. They are working on combating Ebola with initiatives such as Power Africa and are also working with us on the climate change numbers. By the way, our two countries are working together with Mexico. We have formed a very powerful trading block, and we want to encourage that with our standards and other things that we do in terms of building electrical capabilities to allow us, as a North American block, with a new day in North America, which was agreed to among the three Presidents of countries in the last 2 years, to compete in the block in an increasingly competitive global economy, including harmonizing emission standards and doing other work together. As one of the cochairs of the Canada-United States Interparliamentary Group, we welcome the new Prime Minister to Washington. When I was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in 2013, my friends and colleagues celebrated at the Canadian Embassy. I am the first person I have found to have my swearing-in at the Canadian Embassy, but I chose it to make a point--that we should not forget one of our best trading partners. For years it was the only Embassy draped in banners that read ``friends, neighbors, partners, allies.'' So many other countries do not acknowledge their friendship with the United States in a way that I think they should. Canada doesn't hide it. Canada is proud of it. And we welcome the Prime Minister today. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the Supreme Court vacancy for the second time on the floor, but I did want to thank the cosponsors of our bill, Senator Portman, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Ayotte, and also Senator Shaheen for her strong amendment that I think would have made such a difference if we could get some immediate emergency funding. As we know, there are other important provisions in this bill, especially the work I am focused on with prescription drug monitoring, the simple idea that when I talk to doctors, they are never sure if this is someone who is actually abusing the system. They want to do well. They have been trained to do well to get people out of pain. But so often there is not a lot of monitoring about what is going on. And this is going to help get the States to start doing their work. I again thank Senators Whitehouse, Portman, Ayotte, and Shaheen for their work on this bill. filling the supreme court vacancy Mr. President, I come today to talk about the Supreme Court. Last Wednesday, I led a meeting of the steering and outreach committee on the Supreme Court and the Senate's constitutional responsibilities. We had the opportunity at that meeting to hear from four distinguished law professors on the constitutional implications of the current vacancy and to put some historical and constitutional context about the choice before us. I would like to share some of the insights with my colleagues. First of all, Jamal Greene, a professor of law at Columbia Law School, looked to the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution, noting that ``the Framers did not contemplate the use of the Senate's advice and consent power solely to run out the clock on a presidential appointment. As [Alexander] Hamilton speculated in Federalist 76, rejection of a nominee `could only be to make place for another nomination by [the President].' '' The critical point made by Professor Greene, which was echoed by the rest of the panel, is that inaction is not an appropriate response when the Constitution says that the President shall nominate and that the Senate has a duty to advise and consent. In fact, Professor Gerhardt from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill noted that the only time Members truly abandoned their constitutional duties and left this position open was during the Civil War. Think about that. Senators before us in this great Chamber--even before we had this Chamber, when they were meeting in other places. We have been through World War I, we have been through World War II, we have been through the Vietnam war, we have been through civil rights tumult, and always the position was filled and not left vacant for that year time period. We have to go back to the Civil War. Another common theme we heard from all of the panelists is that the proposed inaction by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is without precedent in our Nation's history. In the last 135 years, no President has been refused a vote on a nominee for an open seat on the Court. The Senate has confirmed more than a dozen Supreme Court Justices in Presidential election years, including five in the last 100 years. So it is not as if we have to go way back in time; five of them were in the last 100 years. Probably the most oft-cited example is the example of President Reagan nominating Justice Kennedy in his last few years in the White House. He nominated Justice Kennedy, and a Democratic Senate confirmed--not just confirmed but confirmed unanimously. Another member of the panel was Professor Jeff Stone. He is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School--actually, my professor, my evidence professor. I always enjoy asking my professors questions now that I am a Senator as opposed to when they used to ask questions of me. He was, of course, a former colleague of Justice Scalia's. In fact, when Justice Scalia left the University of Chicago to be appointed to the bench, he actually gave his papers and all of his notes to Professor Stone. While they had some different political views, without a doubt, he had admiration for Professor Stone and Professor Stone had admiration for Justice Scalia, as he has written about since his death. After reviewing the history of Supreme Court nominations, Professor Stone concluded: Despite all the fuss and fury over the Supreme Court confirmation process, the plain and simple fact is that the Senate always defers to the president as long as the president puts forth nominees who are clearly qualified and who are reasonably moderate in their views. And this is true even when the Senate is controlled by the opposing party. In short, nominees who are both qualified and moderate are confirmed. Period. I think he was using as an example--we know there have been nominees who have been turned down by the Senate in past, including in the recent past, but the point is, they got a hearing and they got an up- or-down vote. There are cases where people withdrew their names. There are cases where the up-or-down vote was not in their favor. But they always were moved forward. Although we have been accustomed to a certain level of partisanship in Congress, Professor Stone pointed out that the nomination process for Supreme Court Justices has remained in large part a bipartisan process. Again, people may vote differently, but as a member of the Judiciary Committee and a relatively new member in confirmation processes for both Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor, those hearings were very civil. At the time, Senator Sessions was the ranking member and Senator Leahy was the chair. At those hearings, people asked the questions they wanted to. They went on for a number of days. Then we had a final vote, and then we came to the Senate and all was done. As we know, among the Justices currently serving, the longest time from the nomination to the confirmation was actually 99 days; that was Justice Thomas. So we have always had a process that has worked. And while the result has, sadly, become more partisan--although there have been a number of Republicans who voted for the recent nominees, it has been more partisan over time. When we look at the unanimous vote Justice Kennedy got, the process itself worked, and that is very important to the functioning of the Senate. The fact is, we may have a very difficult atmosphere around us politically and sometimes right here in this Chamber, but we have tried to keep our dignity and move forward with our processes, and we find ways to work together and we treat each other with respect. For me, that is a lot about what this is about, this process for a nominee. Yes, it is about what the Constitution says. Yes, it is about respecting history. Yes, it is about not leaving a vacancy on the third pillar of our government when, in fact, our only job as Senators is not to determine what happens in those cases or what the individual decisions are, but it is to fund that Court and make sure that vacancies are filled in our advice and consent function. But it often goes beyond all of that for me. It is about how we function as a body, that we keep to our processes, that we move legislation, that we move nominees, and that we respect our traditions, we respect the Senate, and we respect each other. Looking beyond the constitutional duties of the Senate and the historical precedent of the Senate considering Supreme Court nominees, we have had the opportunity to hear from our panel, as I mentioned, as well as from a number of others, about the importance of filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Professor Greene, whom I mentioned before, and others noted that this inaction could leave the Court for two full terms without the ability to resolve closely contested cases. They don't get the easy cases on the Supreme Court. That is not why they are there. That is not why they are called the Supreme Court. They get the tough cases. They get the cases in the gray area. When the lower courts are in disagreement and can't figure out what to do, they are the decisionmaker. Professor Greene went on to say in our panel: ``The Supreme Court has multiple responsibilities, but one of its main, core functions is to resolve those disagreements [among the lower courts], and [this vacancy] leaves the law in a state of uncertainty.'' The people of this country have enough uncertainty to deal with. Of course, because of our democratic functions, we do not know who our next President will be. There is a lot of blame and a lot of finger- pointing going on throughout our political system right now. There is a lot of uncertainty. There is uncertainty with the way our laws have worked. But one of our jobs is to put some certainty in people's lives. We did that with the budget at the end of last year. We did that with the Transportation bill last year. We did that with a number of pieces of legislation that were passed on a bipartisan basis. Now it is our job to not leave the entire legal system in a state of uncertainty. Former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has also spoken out. When asked about Republicans seeking to wait a year until considering a nominee, she said: ``I don't agree. I think we need somebody there to do the job now and let's get on with it.'' In fact, former President Ronald Reagan, who nominated Justice O'Connor to the Supreme Court, said in 1987: ``Every day that passes with a Supreme Court below full strength impairs the people's business in that crucially important body.'' He made that statement around the same time he nominated Justice Kennedy, who was confirmed, as I noted, unanimously by a Senate controlled by the opposite party in the last year of a Presidency. That is our closest and most recent example--confirmed in the last year of the Reagan Presidency by a Democratic Senate, with a Republican President. We now have a Democratic President who is not running for President again--he can't--who is in the last year of his Presidency, with a Republican Senate. The critical importance of filling this seat is clear, and it is not something we can wait on for over a year. Not since the Civil War have we had a vacancy for over a year. And, may I add, there is plenty of time for the Senate to consider and confirm the nominee. Is it convenient? No, it is not convenient. There is a lot going on. It is an election year. Things happen. Unexpectedly, Justice Scalia died. And many people who knew him well, such as my law professor in Chicago, miss him. But he died, and that triggered a duty on the part of the President and on our part. The Senate has taken an average of only 67 days--about 2 months--from the date of the nomination to the confirmation vote since 1975. This means that if the President offers a nomination this month, that nominee should receive a vote in the Senate by Memorial Day. If for some reason that doesn't happen and the hearings take longer than we think, I would put one other day forth: We could finish this by the Fourth of July. For those who love the Constitution, that is certainly a good holiday and end date. Looking at the text of the Constitution, the precedent of the Senate, and the importance of the circumstances, the matter is clear: It is the duty of the Senate to thoughtfully consider the President's nominee to the Supreme Court, and anything less than that disregards our oaths of office. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in favor of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. Senator Whitehouse and I have been working on this together for years, along with Senator Portman and Senator Ayotte, so this bill has been bipartisan from the beginning. I thank my colleagues, and I also thank Senator Grassley and Senator Leahy for their leadership in bringing this to the floor and all members of our committee, including the Presiding Officer, who have contributed to this bill. Our Nation is facing a serious problem with drug addiction, and I am glad to join my colleagues today to talk about how we can tackle this problem and work toward a solution by passing this bipartisan bill. Just last week I was out in Montevideo, MN, and we gathered together some people from the town. It is a town of a couple thousand people. Our goal was to just talk about this problem. I was shocked that early in the morning on a Saturday we had 50 people there. We had every doctor in the town there, to my knowledge. We had the sheriff there, the police chief there. At one point a regular citizen who was there, who had suffered from some diseases and had been in the hospital, actually emptied out her purse and tons of medications and opioids came rolling out onto the table that she hadn't used. It was an image I will not forget and an image I bring to the Senate floor to remind us there are too many of these drugs out in our communities. I heard stories of young children who had dealers--people who were trying to get the opioids--actually saying to them: Hey, I will give you a beer if you will go to your parents' medical cabinets and look for these drugs, and they would write them down for them. The kids would then go, get the drugs, and bring them back. There was a story of one doctor who was treating someone, thought he was pretty normal. He had back pain, and the doctor had given him some painkillers for years. Then, all of a sudden, one day the Secret Service shows up because this man had actually made a threat on the life of the President. He had an entire nightlife that was different than his day life, and it was completely dictated by the fact he was addicted to prescription drugs. Four out of five heroin users get their start these days from prescription drugs. I don't think anyone would have ever imagined that. When I was growing up, when we saw heroin addicts on the corner or when I was a prosecutor for years, we never had those kinds of statistics. People got hooked on heroin because they got hooked on heroin. They started with heroin and they, sadly, would end with heroin. In this case, we have 80 percent of people becoming addicted because they have a surgery because they have back pain. They then get too much of the drug or no one figures out that getting hooked on the drug is worse than the pain they had in the first place, and they get hooked on the drug. We also have stories of overdoses of people who are not even taking the drugs for periods of time. So we have a crisis in this country, and when I met with those people in Montevideo, it hit home to me that it can happen at any time. We didn't pick this town because they were having a big crisis or because they had a number of deaths. We just happened to be in that area of the State and decided we wanted to focus on the issue. Before I was elected to the Senate, I spent 8 years serving as chief prosecutor in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis. Drug cases made up about one-third of our caseload, which meant we handled everything from trafficking and selling to production and manufacturing. From this position, I had an opportunity to see firsthand the devastating impact of drug addiction. Mr. President, I see my colleague from Indiana has arrived. I am managing the bill for this hour, and if he wants to speak, I can go back and finish my remarks later. I will just finish up while he is getting back to his desk. I was talking about my time as county attorney. Many of those people who were affected by addiction that we saw were hooked on opioids, including both heroin and we saw the start of this prescription painkiller epidemic. We would be sadly mistaken if we think drug abuse only happens in our cities or the metropolitan areas of our States. As I saw this weekend-- when I met with some of our people--Beltrami County, MN, received three emergency calls for heroin overdoses in 1 day. One of those individuals passed away. So this is happening every day. Mr. President, I am going to turn it over now to Senator Coats of Indiana. I see he is here to support this bipartisan bill, but I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I come to the floor today to speak in favor of our bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. I thank Senator Whitehouse, Senator Portman, and the Presiding Officer for their leadership. We have worked together on a bipartisanship basis on this bill from the beginning. Our Nation, as we know, is facing a serious problem with drug addiction, and I am glad to join my colleagues to talk about how we can handle this problem and how we can do something about it. Earlier in my speech today I referred to a group that I met with in Montevideo, MN, with only a few days' notice. All the doctors in the town showed up. The sheriff, the police chief, and regular constituents poured a bunch of medications on the table to show how much we are seeing in terms of overprescription and how this can so easily get in the wrong hands or turn people into addicts. I came to this issue first as a prosecutor. I spent 8 years serving as the chief prosecutor in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis. Drug cases made up about one-third of our caseload, which meant we handled everything from trafficking and selling to production and manufacturing. From this position, I had an opportunity to see firsthand the devastating impacts of drug addiction. Many of those affected were hooked on opiates, including both heroin and prescription pain medication. But even when I left that office in 1998, I didn't see anything near what we are seeing today. We were starting to see the beginnings of the addiction on prescription drugs, but nothing like we are seeing today. In fact, four out of five heroin users are getting their start by misusing prescription drugs. We would be sadly mistaken if we thought this was only an urban problem. We know it is a huge problem in our rural areas. In Beltrami County, MN, just this past weekend there were three emergency calls for overdoses. One of those people passed away. That is a rural county in our State on one weekend. Many of those who have been affected by this epidemic are young people. Over just 6 months in 2013, three people died of opiate overdoses and another three were hospitalized for overdosing on heroin in one 7,000-person town in Minnesota. These statistics and stories are troubling, and they show why we must focus on both treatment and prevention. Minnesota is home to Hazelden Betty Ford Addiction Treatment Center. We are proud of the work and the leadership our State shows when it comes to treatment--one of the reasons I got involved in this issue. Hazelden Betty Ford has had impressive success with its comprehensive opiate response program. Their program offers the best of both worlds: lifesaving medicine to help treat the medical causes of addiction, as well as counseling to help people get on the right path. However, too many people have been unable to get the treatment they need. Almost 10 percent of Americans are estimated to need treatment for issues related to drug and alcohol, but only about 1 percent receives treatment at a specialty facility. That is why my colleagues and I have come together to introduce this bill. Our bill covers strategies for prevention, evidence-based programs such as strengthening prescription drug monitoring programs--something I worked on with the Presiding Officer. These types of programs help States track data on controlled substances like opioids so that when they are dispensed, they can be a strong, effective tool in making sure that they are used for the right reasons. This last week I was near the South Dakota border. There were doctors who knew patients were also going into South Dakota to get prescriptions. It was very difficult for them to trace what was going on--which pharmacy they would go to in rural areas. They could drive an hour and go to a different pharmacy, drive another hour and go to a different pharmacy--maybe see a different doctor in South Dakota and maybe check into an emergency room somewhere else. That is going on today in our country. Another important provision in our bill will help make drugs less accessible by providing consumers with safe and responsible ways to dispose of unused prescription drugs. According to the DEA, more than 2,700 tons of expired, unwanted prescription medications have been collected through these programs since the drug take-back law that we passed in 2010 was put into place. That is a bill I worked on with Senator Cornyn, who is also on the Judiciary Committee with me. It is called the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act. It took a long time for the DEA to get their act together to get the rules up. The rules came up, and guess what. Literally, a few months later, Walgreens has now said they will offer kiosks and places for people to return drugs on a nationwide basis. Right now, we have law enforcement doing it. Minnesota is at the front of the curve. We have some of our libraries taking these drugs into secure facilities. But the best would be that the places where people got the drugs would also be taking back the drugs. So we are glad that bill has finally helped in that way. We believe this bill before us today will help even more. We also have in this bill increasing the availability of naloxone, which is used to save lives in emergency overdose situations and a number of things that are going to be helpful going forward. This bill is a framework, but it is an important step forward that the Federal Government is finally saying to the Congress and the Senate that we need to take steps here. Our bill has the support of a broad range of stakeholders, including the National District Attorneys Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, Faces and Voices of Recovery, and the Major County Sheriffs' Association. Finally, we must also recognize that combating this kind of drug abuse will require a serious investment of resources. It is for that reason that I have cosponsored Senator Shaheen's amendment to appropriate emergency funding to address the heroin and opioid drug abuse epidemic. I am hopeful that the Senate will come together to curb the problem of prescription drug abuse and save lives across our Nation. I am hopeful we will pass the amendment as well as our bill. I think there will be a number of other good amendments that are considered, including medical education and other things that need to be done here. I see this bill as the beginning and not an end. I think more work is going to have to be done with funding. I think more work is going to have to be done with the prescription drug monitoring. We have a start here. But when people and addicts are crossing State lines, when we have a very difficult situation with trying to regulate where the drugs are and how many are going out--I figure that if a Target in my State can find a pair of shoes in Hawaii with a SKU number, we should be able to figure out if people are getting too many prescription drugs. We should be able to educate our doctors so they are not giving them out in quantities that are too big. These are some of the things I am going to continue working on. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Ms. KLOBUCHAR

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week and bring attention to millions of Americans struggling with eating disorders. It is not something we often talk about on this floor, but eating disorders are more common in our country than breast cancer and Alzheimer's and do not discriminate by class, race, gender or ethnicity. The all-too-sad truth is that eating disorders take the lives of 23 Americans every day and nearly 1 life every hour. Our understanding of how eating disorders develop and progress is constantly evolving. We know there are between--and, again, because we don't have statistics except for when people die--15 and 30 million people across the country struggling with an eating disorder. We know that anorexia has the highest morality rate of any mental health disorder. Listen to that. Of any mental health disorder that you can think of, anorexia has the highest morality rate. We know that eating disorders affect women 2\1/2\ times more than men, making this the important women's mental health issue. Unfortunately, far too few of these people are getting the help they need. Only 1 in 10 people with an eating disorder will receive treatment for that disease, and for those who don't receive any treatment, the rate of recovery sharply declines, while the likelihood they will be hospitalized rises. The numbers illustrate a grim reality. Too many Americans are suffering in silence, unable to access a treatment they need to conquer their eating disorder and to go on to live healthy lives. To help the millions of people suffering from eating disorders get the treatment they need, I have introduced the Anna Westin Act with Senator Ayotte, Senator Capito, and Senator Baldwin. We are very proud that this is a bipartisan bill that is supported by both Democrats and Republicans. As to the fact that it is led by all women Senators, it may be that our time has come, given that women are 2\1/2\ times more likely than men to suffer from this disorder. We remember in the early days when it was the women Senators who united to do something about breast cancer research or when it was women Senators who said: Why are we just studying men when it comes to various drugs and various diseases and cancer? Women have different interactions. Women have different problems. In fact, these eating disorders affect women 2\1/2\ times more than men, yet, literally, hardly anything is going on with this in terms of help and funding. The number one mental health disorder that leads to death and has the highest morality rate is anorexia. The bill is named in honor of Anna Westin of Chaska, MN, who was diagnosed with anorexia when she was 16 years old. Her health started deteriorating quickly after she completed her sophomore year at the University of Oregon. She began suffering from liver malfunction and dangerously low body temperatures and blood pressure. Even though her condition was urgent, Anna was told she had to wait until the insurance company certified her treatment. This ultimately delayed and severely limited the treatment that she received. After struggling with the disease for 5 years, she committed suicide at the age of 21. My colleagues, we have a moral obligation to help people like Anna and families like the Westins, and we cannot afford to wait any longer. Last week marked 16 years since Anna's death, yet people with eating disorders are still not guaranteed coverage for lifesaving residential treatment by insurance companies. The bipartisan Anna Westin Act fixes this problem by clarifying that the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act specifies that residential treatment for eating disorders must be covered. We are talking about when a doctor diagnoses an eating disorder and believes, after trying different treatments, that there is an immediate emergency situation, that there should be coverage for residential treatment, which has been found to be really helpful with eating disorders because it helps to change how someone is eating and what they are doing and how they are interacting and how they are going on with their day-to- day life. My friend, the late Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, fought hard for that Wellstone and Domenici mental health parity law. As Paul always insisted, a mental health parity bill is about equality and fairness. It is time patients struggling with an eating disorder receive that equality and fairness. It is time that so many of these women who suffer from this disease, which is much more particular to women than to men, get to receive that treatment that you get for other kinds of mental health disorders. This bill would ensure that patients like Anna Westin aren't prevented from getting the treatment they need simply because their insurance doesn't cover it. Eating disorders become life-threatening when left untreated, making early detection absolutely critical. That is why this bill would also use existing funds to create grant programs to train school employees, primary health professionals, and mental health and public health professionals on how to identify eating disorders, as well as how to intervene when behaviors associated with an eating disorder have been identified. I think most young people today know someone who has an eating disorder. I remember in college a number of young women who had eating disorders, but they were hiding it. Nobody did anything about it. I have no idea how they are doing now. Making this investment is a no-brainer. By drawing on existing funds for the training programs, this bipartisan bill is designed to have no cost associated with it. These commonsense and long overdue actions will help give those suffering from eating disorders the tools they need to overcome these diseases and prevent more tragedies like Anna's. We wish that Anna was still with us. We wish that she could have graduated from college, started a career, and had children of her own. Well, it may be too late for Anna. We know she would want us to do everything we can to create a world where eating disorders are acknowledged, are recognized, are treated, and are prevented. I am so proud this bill has been out there for a few years. This is the first time this last year where it has been a bipartisan bill led by four women Senators, two Democrats and two Republicans. The time has come. With affected families in every corner of our country, I invite all of my colleagues to join us in support of this bipartisan bill. We must act now to give the millions of Americans struggling with eating disorders the help they need. Doing so will not just prevent suffering; it will help save lives. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.