Tim Kaine

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an American memory and the absence of a memory, and the lesson I draw both from the memory and the absence compels me to submit a resolution. First, the memory. I would submit that the most known photograph in the history of the United States is the Alfred Eisenstadt photo of an American sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on V-J Day, August 14, 1945, at the end of World War II. If one Googles ``V-J Day photo,'' you will find more than 31 million links. Joy, celebration, gratitude--the photo says it all. It was important to celebrate the end of that war and to thank those from that ``greatest generation'' who had made it possible by serving, and we have continued to celebrate them, most recently in the recent commemoration of the 70th anniversary of D-day. Now the absence of a memory. Where was that photo, where was that iconic moment of joy and celebration at the end of the Vietnam war? There was none. No iconic photo, no ritual moment of celebration and thanks--and that was a mistake. This generation of Americans has lived through a war that began in the days after 9/11. I recently heard a student about the same age as our pages say, ``While I don't know war, all I've known is war.'' The combination of Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn has lasted 13 years. It is the longest period of war in the history of the United States. During these 13 years of war, over 2.5 million Americans have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands completing multiple tours. This is from an all-volunteer force that comprises less than 1 percent of the American population. More than 6,800 of our armed services have been killed in action, and more than 52,000 have been wounded in action. Now this long period of war and sacrifice is coming to an end. U.S. combat operations in Iraq ceased in 2011, and all U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan will end this year, by the end of 2014. Of course, while the combat mission may end, the sense of duty of our servicemembers continues and global challenges continue and U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan in noncombat positions, just as U.S. troops remained in Germany and Japan and Korea in noncombat posts. But in a deep and fundamental way, 2014 represents the end of a momentous and generation-defining war. The question for this generation of Americans is: How will we commemorate the end of this war? When the war started, it started with a catastrophic attack on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon in Virginia, with solemn speeches by the President to Congress and to the American public-- whether delivered in the Capitol or standing on piles of rubble at Ground Zero--with Congress debating and voting to do the most serious thing the Nation does, which is go to war. It began as serious undertakings should--with a sense of seriousness and purpose and even ritual. That is how this war began in America. How will we choose to end it? Will we take steps to publicly commemorate the end of the war or will we just allow the important moment to pass, unacknowledged and unrecognized, with no iconic moment or memory? Will we celebrate with and thank those who have served or will we just turn our attention to the next headline or the next issue or the next scandal or the next crisis? I believe that as a generation we do not want to repeat the mistake of the Vietnam era and allow the sacrifice of so many to just pass unnoticed. So, together with my cosponsors Senators Burr and Blumenthal, I submit today a resolution calling on the Nation to hold the special ``welcome home'' commemoration on Veterans Day 2014. November 11 is the day we honor the sacrifice and service of every generation of American veterans. November 11, 1918, was generally regarded as the end of hostilities in World War I, and since 1938 America has paused on November 11 to recognize veterans of all wars. This year, after 13 years of war, we wanted to designate November 11, 2014, as a special ``welcome home'' commemoration for all who have served in the military since September 11. We submit this resolution with the strong support of veterans organizations--the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Vietnam Veterans of America. The resolution promotes special awareness of our post-9/11 veterans. It encourages communities in the United States to plan activities for Veterans Day 2014 with a special focus on honoring and supporting those who served during this time. I imagine, as mayor, that the Presiding Officer had Veterans Day commemorations in Newark. As Governor, we have them in Virginia, and communities all over the country are right now planning what they will do on November 11, 2014. This provides our citizens with a formal opportunity to present a unified recognition all across this country, at a designated moment, of the sacrifices made by our ``greatest generation.'' This resolution is not all we must do for our post-9/11 veterans. We owe them a better VA system. We owe them a job market that understands and values their skills. And with so many of our colleagues, we will keep working on those issues. This resolution doesn't stand for the end of wars or conflicts. The daily papers will always be filled with wars and rumors of wars around the globe, and we know American troops will continue to stand ready to serve in harm's way for our best values. But for everything there is a season, and this year where we finish the war started earlier in this millennium, it is time to welcome home our post-9/11 veterans, to shine a light on their honor and sacrifice, to celebrate with those who have borne the battle, and to remember with affection those who will never return.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an important topic, the topic of embassy security. The safety of American embassies abroad and especially our capital ``A'' Ambassadors and our small ``a'' ambassadors, who go to work every day in communities across the globe-- 182 countries where we have embassies--to represent the United States. Embassy security has been in the news yesterday. The President announced the dispatch of 275 additional marines to Baghdad to protect the American Embassy and embassy personnel in Iraq. Today we received the news of the excellent law enforcement work that has been done by the United States to finally capture one of the leaders behind the raid on Benghazi in September of 2012. Obviously, embassy security is an important and very newsworthy and topical issue. Mr. President, I think you have noticed what I have, that in the aftermath of the tragic attack on the embassy compound in Benghazi that cost four Americans their lives, there has been much discussion in Congress about Benghazi. But too much of it, in my view, has been focused on trying to play the blame game than trying to talk about what we should do to minimize the chance of such an incident happening again. We have seen attacks on embassies. From the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in the 1980s, to attacks on embassies in Africa in the 1990s, we have seen this before. But what we ought to be talking about in this body and in the House is how to make our embassies safer instead of trying to play a blame game. I want to bring in this speech one fact about embassy security that should trouble us a lot, and especially us in the Senate. Of the 182 countries in the world that have United States Ambassadors, 54 of the U.S. Ambassador posts are currently vacant. Nearly 30 percent of the ambassador posts in the world--where the U.S. Ambassador goes to represent us--are currently vacant. Ten of the posts are vacant because the White House has not forwarded a name to the Senate, which is responsible for the consent to those nominations. One of those 10-- Syria--has not been forwarded because of security reasons. Twenty-one posts are vacant because the White House has sent nominees but the nominees are pending in the Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve. The chairman of the committee, Senator Menendez, is doing all he can to move those through but is facing some pretty significant opposition, often from members of the committee. And 23 of the positions are vacant because they have gone through the Foreign Relations Committee, they have received overwhelming votes of support, but they are being held here on the Senate floor with no action on the Senate floor, often for a very long period of time. Let me tell you about those 23 nations. The ambassador to the nation of Djibouti, which is a critical partner in Africa for the United States in counterterrorism operations--his nomination has been pending in the Senate for 67 days; for the Czech Republic, the nomination has been pending for 95 days; for the Bahamas, the nomination has been pending for 122 days; for the State of Kuwait, in the Middle East--a critical area--the nomination has been pending for 179 days; for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 200 days; for Hungary, 215 days; for New Zealand, 223 days; for Iceland, 223 days; for Zambia, 270 days; for the Gabonese Republic, 270 days; for the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, pending here in the Senate, 272 days; for the Kingdom of Norway, 272 days; for Jamaica, 272 days; for the Kingdom of Lesotho, 312 days; for the Republic of Palau, 313 days; for the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, 313 days; for Cameroon, 314 days; for Namibia, 314 days; for Niger--Niger, critical in issues of terrorism and counterterrorism in Africa--the nomination on this floor, pending for 314 days; for Trinidad and Tobago, 314 days; for Albania, 319 days; for Sierra Leone, 335 days; and topping the list, a strong ally of the United States, the Republic of Peru, the ambassadorial nomination has been pending on the floor of the Senate for 353 days--almost a year. Again, these vacancies represent nearly 30 percent of all of the in- country ambassadorships that the United States sends around the globe-- essentially just hanging a sign out in front of the Embassy of the United States with a big ``vacant'' sign on it. I would submit that ``vacancies'' means an uncertainty about leadership and that hurts embassy security. Mr. President, you and I were both Governors. We know that our agencies ran a lot better when they knew who the leaders were. An interim, a part-time, a temporary, an acting--that is not the same as a leader. That is not the same as a confirmed ambassador. So our personnel, who are serving in these 54 embassies around the world--often in very dangerous places in the world--are there waiting for their leader to come. Now they have a deputy in charge of the mission, and those people are usually fine, but even that deputy is waiting to find out: Who will our leader be? Times of uncertainty increase insecurity. So I would say to my colleagues, if you really care about Benghazi and embassy security, you should care about confirming ambassadors in these 54 nations that are waiting for American leadership. The ability to promptly nominate and confirm these ambassadors is directly connected to our security, and I would argue that individuals blocking or slowing down ambassadorial appointments are not being accurate when they claim to support embassy security. The effects of these vacancies are not just in the security of our embassies, obviously. I often hear colleagues on the floor of this body or see them on television criticizing America as retreating from global leadership. Well, if you care about America's global leadership, why allow 54 American embassies around the world to not have ambassadors? Why allow those vacancies to exist? The existence of these vacancies--some for nearly as long as a year-- sends a pretty powerful message to the nations where the vacancies exist. And the message could be interpreted one of two ways. Maybe the United States is retreating from global leadership because if the United States cared, the Senate would confirm ambassadors. Or in some countries the interpretation is a little bit different. It is not about global leadership. Some countries interpret it as: Maybe we are not that important to the United States. It is a sign of disrespect to nations as important as Niger, some of the nations in the Middle East I mentioned, France, to not have ambassadors for extended periods of time. This is a very important issue and I do not think this body, which is constitutionally charged with this responsibility, should be complicit in sending a message to the nations of the world that we are retreating or that we are uninterested in our relationships with them. Let me conclude by coming back to the subject of embassy security. Mr. President, I know you, like I, in this job have had the opportunity to travel around the world and meet some of our embassy personnel. What I try to do when I travel--I imagine you try to do the same--is not just spend time with the capital ``A'' ambassadors--that is important-- but I also try to spend time with the small ``a'' ambassadors: the Foreign Service officers on their first or second tour who have chosen--even though the salary is not great, even though the working conditions can be tough, even though security challenges can be significant--to serve the United States abroad. I was in Beirut, in Lebanon, in February with Senator Angus King of Maine. Let me tell you about our personnel in Lebanon. Because of the dangers in that country, they all have to live on the embassy compound. They live there in Beirut, which has been subject to some very difficult times. The U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed in the 1980s. The U.S. Embassy was bombed. Hundreds were killed in those two bombings. The U.S. embassy annex was bombed. Other U.S. Embassy personnel were targeted and killed. Hundreds of Americans serving not just in the military but as Foreign Service officers lost their lives in Lebanon, representing us in the best way they could. For that reason our embassy personnel live on the embassy compound in Beirut. Guess what kind of personal life they have. They are allowed 6 hours a week personal time to be off the embassy compound, and they have to be escorted by security. They described what it is like. They might want to go to the beach, and traffic is horrible, so in that 6 hours a week, it is an hour and a half to get to where they want to go, and then it is an hour and a half to get back from where they want to go, so what they really get is about 3 hours a week of personal time. That is what these wonderful American public servants do. I then went to Egypt, and I had a visit with a young first-tour Foreign Service officer there who was talking about needing to finish a meeting we were having because of the Skype date with her husband. I was not familiar with that terminology. She serves in a capacity where, for safety and other reasons, it was not ideal for him to be there with her. So on Friday nights they both dress up, and with a glass of wine they then fire up the Skype and talk across thousands of miles to try to keep their marriage alive. This is a person who is thrilled to serve the United States in a dangerous part of the world. Again, it is not for the salary. It is not for the comfort. It is for the honor of representing this country. We owe them something. We owe them a secure operation that can make them feel--not completely safe because there is no guarantee of safety for our personnel in many of these countries but at least that we are doing all we can to try to keep them safe. I stand today because we are not doing all we can to keep these people safe. To the extent that we in the Senate are responsible for the vacancies of nearly 30 percent of the ambassadorial posts around the world--and the absence of ambassadors leads to additional insecurity--we are not honoring our obligation to the brave Americans who want to serve this Nation in very dangerous places. I urge my colleagues, if you are talking about Benghazi and the need for more embassy security, you should be promptly confirming ambassadors to represent the United States. If you are worried about the role of America in the world, and you are asserting, critically, that America is retreating from global leadership, you should be confirming promptly the ambassadorial nominees who are pending before the Senate. With that, Mr. President, I thank you and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr President, during today's session of the Senate, six rollcall votes were taken. I was necessarily absent and missed five of these votes, due to attending funeral services in Richmond for Ray Boone. While I missed votes on the confirmation of Leo T. Sorokin, of Massachusetts, to be United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts and Richard Franklin Boulware II, of Nevada, to be United States District Judge for the District of Nevada, I did vote to invoke cloture on these two nominees on Monday, June 9, 2014. I also missed three cloture votes on nominations for the Federal Reserve: Lael Brainard, of the District of Columbia, to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Jerome H. Powell, of Maryland, to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; and Stanley Fischer, of New York, to be Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors. However, I do intend to vote to confirm these three Fed nominees on Thursday, June 12, 2014.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KAINE. I rise in support of one of the judicial nominees whom we will consider first by cloture vote in a few minutes and then a vote scheduled on confirmation tomorrow. It is the nomination of U.S. Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck to the Federal bench in the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Lauck is somebody whom I know quite well, because she serves as a magistrate in the Richmond division of the Eastern District where I live, and that is a court where I spent probably the majority of my 17-year legal practice. She has come full circle. She is a native Virginian, went to college outside of Virginia but came back to the Commonwealth after graduating from Yale Law School. She began her legal career as a law clerk for Judge James Spencer, whose retirement has opened this position on the Federal bench. It is fitting as she was one of his first law clerks, and now she has the opportunity with this nomination to fill his shoes on the court. Judge Lauck is very well prepared. She began, as I explained, as a judicial law clerk, which is a prestigious position, for a wonderful Federal judge, Judge James Spencer. She has included in her public career over the past 20-plus years both public service and private practice. Before she joined the bench as a magistrate, Judge Lauck served as a corporate counsel for Genworth Financial, a Fortune 500 company, in Richmond. For 10 years before that she was assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, where she started in civil litigation, handling the entire spectrum of civil cases involving the United States as a party, and finished as a criminal prosecutor. Coupled with her service as a magistrate, this extensive experience in both private practice and work in the U.S. Attorney's Office makes her very familiar with the docket of this court. She became a U.S. magistrate judge in 2005. I know the Presiding Officer practiced law and understands the important work Federal magistrates do. Her work has involved all Federal misdemeanors. Magistrates in the Richmond division try Federal misdemeanors, and they also try complex civil matters fully with the consent of the parties. It is the practice in eastern Virginia for parties to often consent to magistrate judges trying their cases. She has since 2005, 9 years, acted as a judge in virtually the entire range of matters that this court handles, this Federal court. Along the way, Hannah has distinguished herself as an excellent attorney and earned awards for her work, including various commendations from the U.S. Attorney's Office, U.S. Marshals Service, the Virginia State Police, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and Genworth, her previous private sector employer. She was also named as a Virginia Leader in the Law for her work and service to the bench. I am excited to be here on behalf of Judge Lauck. This is a vacancy on which both Senator Warner and I have worked very hard. We first asked our local bar association, especially the Virginia State Bar, to conduct interviews and then make recommendations to us. We did that first, and then all the candidates were interviewed by us. We are proud to recommend her to the President and thankful that the President nominated her for the position. In closing, I will say this is a court that I am very close to. My wife clerked for a Federal judge on this court when she started her legal career, just as Judge Lauck started her legal career in the same way. I served as a civil litigator for 17 years with a Richmond firm directly across the street from the courthouse and spent a lot of time there. I know--the Presiding Officer reminded me; thank you for doing it-- that the Presiding Officer's father was the first Federal magistrate in Virginia in this same court, the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria division. So the Presiding Officer knows well the work magistrates do. I have stayed very close to this court since I tried my last case in 2001. I know the judges, I know the court personnel, I know the lawyers, and I know many of the parties, and they speak with uniform plaudits in regard to the work Judge Lauck has done as a magistrate. There is no better person for this seat being vacated than Judge Lauck to have the full article III power that will come if she is confirmed. I am very happy to recommend her to all my colleagues. She will be an excellent judge to serve on that court.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to offer a few words about the colloquy that just was completed. I often find, when I am on the floor or presiding, that I feel sorry for the spectators in the Chamber. Either they are seeing the body not work as well as it should or sometimes they are watching a lot of silence, depending on when they are here. But I have been in the chair for the last hour. I think the spectators have been treated to what the Senate does when we do our best. First Senators Portman and Landrieu put a bill on the floor dealing with a commemoration in connection with the 70th anniversary of D-day, which is tomorrow. It was a bill they are seeking unanimous consent for. It was a very worthy one. But, second, I know many of us, all of us in the Chamber, have been very discouraged about the recent revelations and challenges within the VA. Many of us feared earlier this week that what we would get in this discussion were competing proposals or bills that would be partisan, where each side would fall short of doing what they wanted, and the veterans would not receive the kind of relief they should get. What we have seen, with Senator Sanders and Senator McCain putting this bill on the floor just now, is exactly how this should work for the veterans, but in the legislative process more generally. So I am pleased to congratulate my colleagues for taking two different approaches to this veterans challenge and working it out so a bipartisan bill can be offered. I think we owe it to the veterans, and especially in light of these recent challenges, to show a unified face in trying to fix these problems. I look forward to working with my colleagues to do so.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. I rise today also to speak about health care issues, the Affordable Care Act, and Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Affordable Care Act has completed its first year of open enrollment. Despite some significant technical challenges, 8 million Americans have used the State or Federal health insurance marketplaces, as created by the ACA, to access insurance. I want to talk about the status of the ACA today, some challenges-- including some comments made by my colleague from Louisiana--and then talk about Sylvia Mathews Burwell. Of the 8 million Americans who have used the exchanges to access health insurance, over 216,000 of them are Virginians. In addition to the 8 million, 3 million more people have been enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP as of February--in addition to the marketplaces open--and those Medicaid and CHIP expansions were because of the Affordable Care Act provisions. In addition, an estimated 3.1 million young adults have gained coverage by being able to stay on family policies until age 26. The combined number, just in this expansion of coverage, is now more than 14 million Americans. Let me put that in context. One year in, 14 million Americans have insurance through the ACA. That is more than the total population of the following States: West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. One year in, more people have insurance through the ACA than the combined populations--entire populations--of those 10 States. The number dwarfs the population of New Jersey, which is about 9 million today--this 14 million number, which is growing every day. So imagine a program, even with all the challenges and the rollout, within 1 year providing insurance to more people than the combined population of these 10 States, significantly more than the Virginia population as well. Gallup has polled, since 2008, the percentage of Americans who don't have health insurance--American adults who don't have health insurance. The number was down to 13.4 percent when the poll was last taken in April, which is the lowest monthly uninsured rate since Gallup started taking this poll. Have there been challenges? Sure. Have there been those who have had some difficulty? Sure. We have been dealing with them on the phone--as the Presiding Officer has too. But the uninsured rate is dropping dramatically. Even at 1 year with the problems, people are receiving insurance as a result of the ACA. Each one of them has a story. Each one of them has a story of what it was like to live without health insurance and what it is like to live now with the security and comfort of health insurance--not only for when you get ill but also for when you are going to bed at night worried about what will happen to you if you get ill, what will happen to you if your spouse is in an auto accident, what will happen to you if your children get diagnosed with something that might well be a preexisting condition under an earlier day. The stories aren't just about the 14 million who have health insurance because of the ACA. They are also stories of the nearly 20 million Americans who have received rebates because they overpaid premiums and the insurance companies now have to send them money. It is people who cannot be charged discriminatory rates because they are women. It is seniors who are able to get preventive care under Medicare for free or reduced-price prescription drugs for free. It is all the Americans who had preexisting conditions which would have blocked them from insurance coverage before the ACA passed. Just briefly, I am one of these stories. When I went onto the open market to buy health insurance a couple of years ago--and like most good families, when you want to do something, you put this really smart person on it--my wife. She started to call around about health insurance. Two insurance companies said to her: We can write you a policy on four of your five family members. One wouldn't insure me. I think politics is viewed as a dangerous line of work. One wouldn't insure one of my children. Well, here is an important safety tip. Don't tell my wife or any wife or mother: We will only insure part of your family. My wife said in each instance: I actually think this is against the law now. I think you have to provide insurance for everybody, and not just for four of the five. The insurance company rep called the boss and then called back and said: We are sorry; you are right. We have to write you insurance on every member of the family. Everybody has a story and increasingly these stories accumulate. Whether it's coverage or a preexisting condition ban or equal treatment in rates between men and women, these stories are starting to accumulate and are showing us that this ACA can and will be successful. Of course, there are measures to improve it that we still need to embrace. I am proud to cosponsor today a bill that the lead sponsor, Senator Franken, called the Family Coverage Act. It was introduced today. The ACA requires large employers to offer affordable health care coverage to the employees. The IRS definition of affordability suggests that means that an employee's share of the premiums of individual coverage, rather than family coverage, is less than 9.5 percent of family income. If the employee has an offer of affordable insurance, the employee in the family cannot receive premium tax credits. If it is not affordable, you can receive tax credits. This measure of affordability, based on what the premium is for the individual, versus what the family premium is, leaves a lot of spouses and families cut out from the possibility of receiving tax credits under the ACA. An average plan for an individual costs about $5,600, but according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, that average rises to about $15,700 for families. GAO estimates that the currently used definition of affordability would prevent nearly 460,000 uninsured kids from accepting tax credits, even though their parents qualify for the tax credit under the ACA. This is known as the family glitch. It was sort of an unforeseen consequence when the bill was written. The Family Coverage Act, which Senator Franken is championing with many other cosponsors, would change the definition of affordability within the ACA so that family members of the parent who works for a company that offers health insurance can qualify for tax credits as well. I have cosponsored fixes and improvements to the ACA in the Small Business Tax Credit Accessibility Act, a small business tax credit enhancement, and in the Expanded Consumer Choice Act. Through a plan called the ``copper plan,'' it provides all of the coverage but at a lower premium, because those choosing the plan will pay more on the deductible so they can buy down their premium by more cost sharing. There is the Commonsense Reporting Act of 2014, introduced by Senator Warner, to ease the compliance burden on employers, and the Protect Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act. Many of us were cosponsors of that bill. There is an act called the EACH Act, which is a technical correction to the religious exemption in the ACA. I have also written a lot of letters to the administration asking them to do things within their administrative purview to make the act better. This is what we should be doing. We shouldn't be talking about repealing the Affordable Care Act and taking 14 million people who have insurance through the ACA and telling them: Back out into street with you. We shouldn't be talking about stonewalling a wonderful public servant from coming in and being head of the HHS. We should be engaged in the business of reforms and improvements. This is what legislators do. When I was Governor of Virginia, my legislature would pass about 1,000 bills a year. They would come to my desk for my review, editing, amending, signing, and potentially vetoing. What I noticed was that of the action of my legislative body, 800 bills were reforms to existing law. Only about 200 were new laws. What legislative bodies do is they go into existing laws, improve them, fix them, and make them better, and that is what we should be about here. Certainly we have learned, through the bad rollouts and some other things, that nobody can stand back and say this thing is perfect and no reforms are needed. Reforms are always needed. But I would also hope my colleagues might have learned something-- those who wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Those who were willing to shut down the Government of the United States to advocate a repeal of the Affordable Care Act should also be focused now on reforms not repeals, because repeals mean those 14 million would lose insurance and families like mine would now be subject again to being turned down because of preexisting health conditions. It strikes me that the reform caucus is growing and the repeal caucus is shrinking--as it should. Every day finds more and more people who have had this experience and understand that the ACA should not be allowed to be repealed. I am thrilled that is occurring. One more item about the Affordable Care Act. It has been stated by some, including some in this Chamber, that the Affordable Care Act has done a horrible thing by allowing Members of Congress and their staffs to get a subsidy in their health insurance that the American public doesn't get. Then there are those who have stood and made that case on the floor of this body, on television, and in this country. They have talked about that subsidy as this horrible thing that these congressional staffers--such as those who are sitting here at the desk or those who work in my office--shouldn't be getting. The Presiding Officer knows--and I know--that statement is inaccurate. The subsidy that anyone gets in this building is an employer contribution to their health insurance premium. It has been a long and standard feature of employer-provided health care plans in this country that employers contribute to the health insurance of their employees. In the private sector, over 55 million Americans have employers who contribute to the health insurance premium of their employees. Hard- working men and women who are working in this Senate or working in the House or who are working on congressional staffs have every bit as much right to have an employer that would contribute part of the premium cost for them as do the people who work at newspapers, automobile manufacturers, retail stores, and restaurants. All over this country, employer provision of a portion of the premium is a standard feature of how insurance has been provided for decades. For those who say that Members of Congress are getting some special treatment, some congressional subsidy, when the reality--and they know the reality--is that this subsidy is just the employer-provided share of a premium that is standard among all Americans, I find it very troubling. What would they propose? Would they propose that uniquely, if you happen to work for the article I branch--the legislative branch--you should be denied an employer contribution to your health insurance, just like other Americans get, because you work for the article I branch that is specified in the Constitution? I think that is essentially their argument. I had not intended to get into this topic today, but I think it is very clear we should make plain to the American people that public servants who do work in this Chamber and in the House Chamber, and for Members who were elected in the States and districts in this country-- they are entitled to the same kind of treatment by their employer, which is a standard feature of life in most American companies, nonprofits, State and local governments, and other institutions. I have known Sylvia Mathews Burwell for 25 years. I met her when she was working for the Clinton administration as a young hotshot West Virginia student, educated at Harvard, a Rhodes scholar like some other notable Members of this body. I am proud to support her confirmation to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. She has had a strong background not only in the public sector, most recently as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, but she has also had a superb track record in the private sector. When dealing with health care issues, we know that strong private sector experience is very important in an issue that is so significant. I have been very impressed with Sylvia Mathews Burwell's work in the Office of Management and Budget. I think she brought a more businesslike and regular order approach to the Federal budgeting issues that are so important, and I think she will take that approach and expertise into the HHS position--not just around matters of the Affordable Care Act but around a whole portfolio of issues which are so critically important. We have got to be about reforms and improvement. Sylvia Mathews Burwell is a person who walks in to work every day, wanting things to be better today than they were yesterday, and she has the experience to do this job. I am proud to stand and support her nomination. Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Relations, and the District of Columbia of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 5, 2014, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Wildfires: Assessing First Responder Training and Capabilities.''

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 5, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 5, 2014, at 9:15 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Preserving Public Safety and Network Reliability in the IP Transition.''

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 5, 2014, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Developments in Ukraine.''

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Kaine pertaining to the introduction of S. 2341 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. KAINE. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, since taking office, one of my highest priorities has been finding solutions to the unemployment rate among American veterans. We proudly in Virginia proclaim a tighter connection with the American military than any other State--and I know 99 or 98 other Senators would argue with me about that, but 1 in 9 Virginians is a veteran. Virginia has 27 military installations, including the largest naval base in the world in Norfolk, and all marine officers are trained at Quantico. Virginia's map is a map of Virginia's military history: Yorktown, where the Revolutionary War ended; Appomattox, where the Civil War ended, and other Civil War battlefields; and the Pentagon, where one of the two attacks on 9/11 occurred. Our servicemembers in Virginia and nationally make a tremendous sacrifice for our country, and we have to have a commitment to honor these sacrifices and demonstrate to service men and women the same degree of commitment as they have demonstrated to our country. That is what makes the unemployment rate among our veterans so troubling. Veterans who are exiting military service in the Iraq and Afghan war era--especially enlisted men and women who may not have college degrees--have an unemployment rate significantly higher than the national average. In fact--a statistic that when I heard it really stunned me--between the fiscal year 2001 and 2012, the Department of Defense spent $9.6 billion on unemployment insurance payments--$9.6 billion in payments to men and women who had exited the military and then couldn't find a job. Obviously, these are men and women who served valiantly during the longest period of war in the history of this country. As our Armed Forces continue to draw down in Afghanistan after nearly 13 years of combat operations--and those combat operations are scheduled to cease this year--we have to do everything we can to ensure that these servicemembers can find a way to quickly transition from military to civilian life and find good jobs in the process. We know--and the Presiding Officer knows very well in his personal capacity--that servicemembers gain incredibly valuable skills while serving in the military. We make a significant investment as a society in training each and every member of our Armed Forces in a military occupation or specialty, many of which of have parallel fields in the civilian workforce. I have a child in the military now. Watching the degree of training he undergoes--training that will be very valuable for civilian work when he chooses to make that transition--and seeing the kind of training his colleagues undergo as well convinces me of these great skills that adhere in our military. But instead of making it easier for these servicemembers to get credit for their skills that would help them as they transition to civilian life, they are often continuing to face roadblocks. That inspired me to introduce my first bill as a Senator last year, the Troop Talent Act of 2013. The Troop Talent Act required that information on civilian credentialing opportunities be made available to servicemembers during their Active-Duty training and that information on military training and experience be provided to civilian credentialing agencies to help them understand how the skills for success in military life transfer directly to the skills for success in civilian life. If you are learning to operate heavy equipment in the military, get the commercial driver's license right when you are learning it. If you are learning to be a battlefield medic in the military, get physician assistant or nursing credits right when you are getting that. If you are at the ordnance school at Fort Lee in Virginia learning to be an ordnance officer, get the American Welding Society's certificate after you take your welding class, put it in the personnel file, and when you get ready to move to civilian life, you will have credentials that will be understood by a civilian workforce. I am proud that key parts of the bill were signed into law as part of the national defense authorization bill we passed in December, and with this information servicemembers will be more prepared to transfer into civilian life. They will have a better sense of what skills servicemembers possess as they enter civilian life. So the passage of this Troop Talent Act was for me a first step, but there are many more steps we have to take to tackle this problem of veterans' unemployment. In speaking with military leadership, servicemembers and veterans, I have learned there are some additional barriers to the employment of our veterans that deal with how tuition assistance monies can be used by those in active service. One is the cost of fees associated with getting credentials while on Active Duty. Those costs of credentials are not covered by the current military tuition assistance program. Some military members transfer out of the service and they decide to pursue a degree at a college or university, but others are ready to immediately enter the workforce with the skills they obtained through military training. Again, to use the example I started with earlier, if you are a logistics ordnance officer training in Fort Lee in Virginia, you take metalworking courses, you take welding courses, and those are the kinds of skills in very significant demand in the American manufacturing sector right now. Those individuals often have an ability--they certainly have the skills--to get good jobs when they leave. But they often lack something important. They lack the credential the civilian workforce understands--in this case an American Welding Society credential, for example. Currently, the military tuition assistance program provides Active- Duty servicemembers financial assistance up to $4,500 in aggregate per fiscal year for postsecondary courses or degree programs. While you are in service, you can take degree programs, and up to $4,500 a year, those degree programs and courses will be supported by the military tuition assistance program. But despite the success of this program, certification and license fees are not allowed to be paid with tuition assistance benefits. So in other words, if you are in the military and you want to take a college course, you can get paid. If you are in the military and you want to pass a welding certificate exam to be a welder, the tuition assistance program will not pay for that. This is a challenge because these credentialing exams can cost significantly out-of-pocket, often $300 to $500, and many of our enlisted men and women don't have that. It is really inequitable we would allow Active-Duty military to draw down up to $4,500 for college courses but not draw down one penny to get a credential for a technical skill they maintain. This is part of a larger societal issue. I think we value college and community college in a way we do not or have not traditionally valued career and technical education programs. So many of our programs--Pell grants and Stafford loans, GI bill benefits--often can be used more easily for community college or 4-year colleges than they can be used for even the highest quality career and technical programs. That is why today I am introducing the Credentialing Improvement for Troop Talent, or CREDIT Act. The legislation will go into that military tuition assistance program and expand the authority of the program so that it can cover credentialing expenses for those military men and women who want to move into career and technical fields. It will give servicemembers the means to pay for credentials while they are still on Active-Duty and before they transition into civilian workforce. In addition, the legislation will ensure the credentials our servicemembers earn are of the highest quality and that they are recognized by national and international standards, and not offered by shady or sort of fly-by-night organizations that simply want to pocket money that our military men and women are entitled to in order to help them get an education for themselves. We in Virginia have seen firsthand how the skills and talents of the men and women who serve our country can benefit our workforce and contribute to our economy. We make a huge investment in our servicemembers, and it is a disservice not only to them but also to our Nation not to take advantage of the skills we bestow on these men and women once they transition to civilian life. We have to, all of us, Mr. President, stay focused on this. It is unacceptable for us as a Nation to look in the mirror and say: Our servicemen and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have an unemployment rate higher than the national average, but I guess there is nothing we can do about that. No, we can do a lot about it. We can make sure they get skills while in the military that a civilian workforce will understand, and that those skills can also carry with them credentials that will enable them to get a quicker traction when they move into the civilian workforce. It is unacceptable we are paying $800 million a year in the Federal budget to pay for unemployment benefits for people who exit the military and then can't find jobs when they do. We need steps such as the CREDIT Act and others to bring down that veterans' unemployment rate, to enable people to get the kinds of jobs that will help them have a happy and successful life postservice, and that will enable society to take advantage of the great skills and talents they have.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, since taking office, one of my highest priorities has been finding solutions to the unemployment rate among American veterans. We proudly in Virginia proclaim a tighter connection with the American military than any other State--and I know 99 or 98 other Senators would argue with me about that, but 1 in 9 Virginians is a veteran. Virginia has 27 military installations, including the largest naval base in the world in Norfolk, and all marine officers are trained at Quantico. Virginia's map is a map of Virginia's military history: Yorktown, where the Revolutionary War ended; Appomattox, where the Civil War ended, and other Civil War battlefields; and the Pentagon, where one of the two attacks on 9/11 occurred. Our servicemembers in Virginia and nationally make a tremendous sacrifice for our country, and we have to have a commitment to honor these sacrifices and demonstrate to service men and women the same degree of commitment as they have demonstrated to our country. That is what makes the unemployment rate among our veterans so troubling. Veterans who are exiting military service in the Iraq and Afghan war era--especially enlisted men and women who may not have college degrees--have an unemployment rate significantly higher than the national average. In fact--a statistic that when I heard it really stunned me--between the fiscal year 2001 and 2012, the Department of Defense spent $9.6 billion on unemployment insurance payments--$9.6 billion in payments to men and women who had exited the military and then couldn't find a job. Obviously, these are men and women who served valiantly during the longest period of war in the history of this country. As our Armed Forces continue to draw down in Afghanistan after nearly 13 years of combat operations--and those combat operations are scheduled to cease this year--we have to do everything we can to ensure that these servicemembers can find a way to quickly transition from military to civilian life and find good jobs in the process. We know--and the Presiding Officer knows very well in his personal capacity--that servicemembers gain incredibly valuable skills while serving in the military. We make a significant investment as a society in training each and every member of our Armed Forces in a military occupation or specialty, many of which of have parallel fields in the civilian workforce. I have a child in the military now. Watching the degree of training he undergoes--training that will be very valuable for civilian work when he chooses to make that transition--and seeing the kind of training his colleagues undergo as well convinces me of these great skills that adhere in our military. But instead of making it easier for these servicemembers to get credit for their skills that would help them as they transition to civilian life, they are often continuing to face roadblocks. That inspired me to introduce my first bill as a Senator last year, the Troop Talent Act of 2013. The Troop Talent Act required that information on civilian credentialing opportunities be made available to servicemembers during their Active-Duty training and that information on military training and experience be provided to civilian credentialing agencies to help them understand how the skills for success in military life transfer directly to the skills for success in civilian life. If you are learning to operate heavy equipment in the military, get the commercial driver's license right when you are learning it. If you are learning to be a battlefield medic in the military, get physician assistant or nursing credits right when you are getting that. If you are at the ordnance school at Fort Lee in Virginia learning to be an ordnance officer, get the American Welding Society's certificate after you take your welding class, put it in the personnel file, and when you get ready to move to civilian life, you will have credentials that will be understood by a civilian workforce. I am proud that key parts of the bill were signed into law as part of the national defense authorization bill we passed in December, and with this information servicemembers will be more prepared to transfer into civilian life. They will have a better sense of what skills servicemembers possess as they enter civilian life. So the passage of this Troop Talent Act was for me a first step, but there are many more steps we have to take to tackle this problem of veterans' unemployment. In speaking with military leadership, servicemembers and veterans, I have learned there are some additional barriers to the employment of our veterans that deal with how tuition assistance monies can be used by those in active service. One is the cost of fees associated with getting credentials while on Active Duty. Those costs of credentials are not covered by the current military tuition assistance program. Some military members transfer out of the service and they decide to pursue a degree at a college or university, but others are ready to immediately enter the workforce with the skills they obtained through military training. Again, to use the example I started with earlier, if you are a logistics ordnance officer training in Fort Lee in Virginia, you take metalworking courses, you take welding courses, and those are the kinds of skills in very significant demand in the American manufacturing sector right now. Those individuals often have an ability--they certainly have the skills--to get good jobs when they leave. But they often lack something important. They lack the credential the civilian workforce understands--in this case an American Welding Society credential, for example. Currently, the military tuition assistance program provides Active- Duty servicemembers financial assistance up to $4,500 in aggregate per fiscal year for postsecondary courses or degree programs. While you are in service, you can take degree programs, and up to $4,500 a year, those degree programs and courses will be supported by the military tuition assistance program. But despite the success of this program, certification and license fees are not allowed to be paid with tuition assistance benefits. So in other words, if you are in the military and you want to take a college course, you can get paid. If you are in the military and you want to pass a welding certificate exam to be a welder, the tuition assistance program will not pay for that. This is a challenge because these credentialing exams can cost significantly out-of-pocket, often $300 to $500, and many of our enlisted men and women don't have that. It is really inequitable we would allow Active-Duty military to draw down up to $4,500 for college courses but not draw down one penny to get a credential for a technical skill they maintain. This is part of a larger societal issue. I think we value college and community college in a way we do not or have not traditionally valued career and technical education programs. So many of our programs--Pell grants and Stafford loans, GI bill benefits--often can be used more easily for community college or 4-year colleges than they can be used for even the highest quality career and technical programs. That is why today I am introducing the Credentialing Improvement for Troop Talent, or CREDIT Act. The legislation will go into that military tuition assistance program and expand the authority of the program so that it can cover credentialing expenses for those military men and women who want to move into career and technical fields. It will give servicemembers the means to pay for credentials while they are still on Active-Duty and before they transition into civilian workforce. In addition, the legislation will ensure the credentials our servicemembers earn are of the highest quality and that they are recognized by national and international standards, and not offered by shady or sort of fly-by-night organizations that simply want to pocket money that our military men and women are entitled to in order to help them get an education for themselves. We in Virginia have seen firsthand how the skills and talents of the men and women who serve our country can benefit our workforce and contribute to our economy. We make a huge investment in our servicemembers, and it is a disservice not only to them but also to our Nation not to take advantage of the skills we bestow on these men and women once they transition to civilian life. We have to, all of us, Mr. President, stay focused on this. It is unacceptable for us as a Nation to look in the mirror and say: Our servicemen and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have an unemployment rate higher than the national average, but I guess there is nothing we can do about that. No, we can do a lot about it. We can make sure they get skills while in the military that a civilian workforce will understand, and that those skills can also carry with them credentials that will enable them to get a quicker traction when they move into the civilian workforce. It is unacceptable we are paying $800 million a year in the Federal budget to pay for unemployment benefits for people who exit the military and then can't find jobs when they do. We need steps such as the CREDIT Act and others to bring down that veterans' unemployment rate, to enable people to get the kinds of jobs that will help them have a happy and successful life postservice, and that will enable society to take advantage of the great skills and talents they have.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I want to pay tribute to a distinguished Virginian, Leland Devon Melvin, who retired as Associate Administrator for Education of NASA on February 28, 2014 after 24 years of service to our Nation. Leland's career began on a different path, on the football field at the University of Richmond. Leland was a phenomenal wide receiver for the Spiders from 1982-1985 and still leads Richmond's career lists with 198 receptions for 2,669 yards. He scored the fourth-most touchdowns in Richmond history, 16, and was inducted into the university's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996-1997. Leland was drafted to play in the NFL by the Detroit Lions in 1986. He also trained with the Dallas Cowboys and the Toronto Argonauts. Hindered by injuries, Leland was unable to continue pursuing athletics and switched gears by earning his master of science degree in materials science engineering from the University of Virginia. Leland started his career at NASA in 1989 as an aerospace research engineer at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton. He entered NASA's astronaut corps in 1998 and served on board the space shuttle Atlantis on two missions to the International Space Station in 2008 and 2009. Leland is one of only 14 African Americans to travel to space. Leland will finish his tenure at NASA as Associate Administrator for Education, a position he was appointed to in 2010. In this role, Leland has led NASA's efforts to teach young Americans the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, with a particular passion for underserved communities. Leland also serves on the White House National Science and Technology Council's Committee on STEM, which coordinates and oversees the STEM education activities and programs within the Federal government. On the global level, Leland serves as our Nation's representative to the International Space Education Board, which develops and coordinates worldwide efforts to educate students on space, science and technology. I commend Leland for his commitment to science and education, as well as public service. At a time when STEM education is becoming a priority for the United States, Leland's work has been beneficial to developing the skilled workforce necessary to drive our Nation's world-class innovations. Moreover, as an athlete who found a second passion at NASA, Leland serves as an iconic example of the opportunities young people can seize in science and technology. Leland's hard work, achievements and inspiring life story will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact on our Nation. On behalf of the Senate and the people of Virginia, I thank Leland for his invaluable service to NASA and the Nation. Although he may be leaving NASA, he will continue to educate and inspire long after his work is done. I wish him the best of luck in the months and years ahead.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing, with Senator Cornyn, the Servicemembers' Compensation Empowerment Act of 2014. This bipartisan legislation will direct the Department of Defense's (DoD) Military Retirement and Modernization Commission to formally survey military personnel on pay and benefits, and to take relative preferences into account as the Commission prepares its recommendations. Virginia is more connected to the military than any other State. As I have traveled throughout the Commonwealth, I have had the opportunity to meet and discuss military benefits with servicemembers, veterans, and their families. The overriding concern on the part of our military and their families is sequestration. It has forced the military to allow the budget to drive strategy, rather than strategy to drive our budget. As a member of both the Senate Armed Services and Budget Committees, I firmly believe that all budget proposals should be considered carefully in light of the need for deficit redaction, the need to maintain a strong military, and the responsibility we have to support our servicemembers with resources to complete their mission. The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission was established by the fiscal year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, to conduct a review of military compensation and retirement systems and to make recommendations to enable the quality of life of our military and their families and achieve fiscal sustainability for the future. As of now, no official study has been conducted by the Commission to determine the relative value of compensation and benefit programs to the military personnel who depend on them. Under my legislation, the Commission would be required to survey randomly selected members of the military concerning basic pay, housing allowances, bonuses and special pay, dependent healthcare and retirement pay and report its results to Congress. Servicemembers deserve to have their voices heard as changes to the pay and benefits packages they depend on most are considered. By formally surveying military personnel on the benefits they value most, we can ensure the Military Retirement and Modernization Commission and members of Congress have the best possible understanding of how cost- saving proposals would impact our servicemembers and their families, allowing them to make decisions with evidence-based analysis. This bill gives servicemembers a voice in the process, and will assure that reforms will take a scientific study into account. We must balance the competing needs to control rising costs with ensuring we meet the needs of military personnel and their families.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing, with Senator Cornyn, the Servicemembers' Compensation Empowerment Act of 2014. This bipartisan legislation will direct the Department of Defense's (DoD) Military Retirement and Modernization Commission to formally survey military personnel on pay and benefits, and to take relative preferences into account as the Commission prepares its recommendations. Virginia is more connected to the military than any other State. As I have traveled throughout the Commonwealth, I have had the opportunity to meet and discuss military benefits with servicemembers, veterans, and their families. The overriding concern on the part of our military and their families is sequestration. It has forced the military to allow the budget to drive strategy, rather than strategy to drive our budget. As a member of both the Senate Armed Services and Budget Committees, I firmly believe that all budget proposals should be considered carefully in light of the need for deficit redaction, the need to maintain a strong military, and the responsibility we have to support our servicemembers with resources to complete their mission. The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission was established by the fiscal year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, to conduct a review of military compensation and retirement systems and to make recommendations to enable the quality of life of our military and their families and achieve fiscal sustainability for the future. As of now, no official study has been conducted by the Commission to determine the relative value of compensation and benefit programs to the military personnel who depend on them. Under my legislation, the Commission would be required to survey randomly selected members of the military concerning basic pay, housing allowances, bonuses and special pay, dependent healthcare and retirement pay and report its results to Congress. Servicemembers deserve to have their voices heard as changes to the pay and benefits packages they depend on most are considered. By formally surveying military personnel on the benefits they value most, we can ensure the Military Retirement and Modernization Commission and members of Congress have the best possible understanding of how cost- saving proposals would impact our servicemembers and their families, allowing them to make decisions with evidence-based analysis. This bill gives servicemembers a voice in the process, and will assure that reforms will take a scientific study into account. We must balance the competing needs to control rising costs with ensuring we meet the needs of military personnel and their families.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all remaining debate time be yielded back.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today to speak on behalf of S. 1074, the Thomasina Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2013. This is a bill granting Federal recognition to six Indian tribes. The bill has recently been reported out of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and I want to thank Chairman Tester, the former chairwoman, Senator Cantwell, and all members of the Committee for this action. These six Indian tribes--the Chickahominy, Chickahominy Eastern Division, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Monacan, and Nansemond--are among the best known tribes in American history, but they have never received Federal recognition. Madam President, 566 tribes have received Federal recognition--the vast majority by congressional action--but these tribes have not been recognized. The story of these tribes and why they have never been recognized is why I take the floor. It is an amazing story but it is also a deeply tragic story. But the tragedy can be redeemed if Congress acts to correct a gross historical injustice that has deprived these tribes of their rightful place. This is about a full accounting of our past, but it is also about a fair and truthful recognition of living people who have maintained their own tribal identity, customs, and traditions against unbelievable odds for hundreds of years. The English settlers who arrived at Jamestown in 1607 established a settlement on an island, on land that was already under the control of the Powhatan Indians. The Powhatan Indians were a confederation of numerous Eastern Algonquian Indian tribes who had organized in the Chesapeake region. The interaction among these Powhatan Indians and these six tribes that were part of this Powhatan Confederacy and the English is known to virtually every American. The original settlement of England in the United States was on the verge of failure numerous times and had to be rescued by a commoner who was part of that group, John Smith. Only John Smith could keep this little settlement alive. Early after the arrival of the English, John Smith was captured by the Powhatan Indians and was on the verge of being executed by Chief Powhatan because they were unsure about what they thought of these English settlers. In this wonderful story, as he was about to be executed, Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan, saved his life. By saving his life, that act paved the way for the survival of this very struggling colony. That colony then grew into English-speaking America, as we know, with the arrival of later groups of English at Plymouth Rock and thereafter. That act by Pocahontas is known to virtually all Americans. Over the course of the next few decades, they went back and forth in the relationship between these tribes and the English colonists and then between these tribes and African slaves. The first Africans who came to the new world also came to Jamestown Island in 1619. But after Pocahontas' act, it was generally a peaceful relationship. There were some times of hostility, but in treaties in the 1640s and then again in a final treaty in 1677, the Treaty of the Middle Plantation, the Powhatan Confederacy and these six tribes basically said to their English colonist neighbors: We want to live in peace with you. Pocahontas got married to John Rolfe, an English tobacco planter. That was a seminal event in early Virginia colonial history. So by the 1680s, 75 years after the settlement of Jamestown Island, the Powhatan Confederation was no more. But these Virginia Indians continued to live and maintain their tribal identity, but they lived in complete peace with the settlers that were their neighbors. The Treaty of Middle Plantation was signed 100 hundred years before the Declaration of Independence. That peace that was made between the Indians and the settlers paved the way for modern Virginia and modern English-speaking America. It has been continuous since 1677--the peace of these tribes. The relations between Virginians and the tribes have been strong. They have endured significant adversity. Their numbers of population have dwindled from 25,000 down to about 3,000 or 4,000 enrolled tribal members today. They converted to the religion of the English settlers, Christianity. They fought as American patriots in every war this country has been in, from the Revolutionary War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They faced discrimination as Indians, often kept out of schools in Virginia because of the color of their skin, because they were not deemed to be ``Caucasian'' by State leaders at the time. But the relationship is a peaceful one, and these tribes still exist. Two tribes in Virginia have small reservations, and the other tribes own land in common. They have tribal churches, tribal cemeteries, and community centers where they still gather. There is a wonderful tradition if you are the Governor of Virginia. On the day before Thanksgiving Day every year, the Virginia tribes come to the Governor's mansion and they present to the Governor deer, turkey, fish, and gifts as a tribute to the peaceful relationship between these tribes and the Commonwealth of Virginia since 1677. It was a beautiful aspect of my time as Governor. It was something we looked forward to every year. The members of these tribes look forward to it as well. Tribal members who have moved all across the country and all across the world come home for a homecoming, and it begins at the Virginia Governor's mansion. Now I get to the injustice. The interactions between these Indians and the first English settlers is known to everybody--that story about Pocahontas and John Smith, and then Pocahontas' wedding to John Rolfe and her moving to England and dying there. You can go to Pocahontas' grave at Gravesend, which is where the Thames River dumps into the sea. She died coming back to Virginia. The English tend her grave with reverence at a small Episcopal church in that seaside community. This is the most archetypal story of the interaction between European settlers and the Indians who were our native inhabitants. But despite the importance of this interaction, despite the fact that the tribes have lived and maintained their existence intact since before the settlers arrived here, the tribes have never been recognized along with the 566 tribes who have. Why? Why have they never been recognized? Well, unbelievably, the first reason they have not been recognized is: They made peace too soon. They made peace with the English. If they had waited until 1780 and made peace with the Americans, that treaty, a treaty with the Americans, would have been the basis immediately for Federal recognition. But they became peaceful too soon with their European neighbors. Tribal recognition often begins with a treaty. But the treaties are treaties with the American government. All historians acknowledge that the treaties of 1646 and 1677 happened. There are copies of the treaties. The originals are still maintained. All acknowledge that these treaties and the Indians' decision to live in peace with their neighbors was a precondition for the modern Virginia. If there had not been peace, our history may well have been very different. I will tell you something else. These treaties are recognized by a government, the English government. When our tribes, which have never been recognized by the United States go to visit England, they are given a royal welcome and treated as the sovereign people they are by the government with which they made a treaty in 1646 and 1677. So that was the first ``mistake'' that was made: These tribes made peace too quickly. There is a second mistake that is in some ways even more difficult to acknowledge. Many of these tribes live in six counties in Virginia. Five of the county courthouses where all their birth, death, and marriage records were stored were burnt during the Civil War. But there were still some records that existed--some. But in a bizarre bit of our 20th century history, Virginia passed a law, the Racial Integrity Act, in the 1920s. Under a misguided and bizarre notion of ``racial purity,'' the eugenics movement, State officials determined that you were either white or you were colored. There was no such thing as an Indian. The leader of the State Bureau of Vital Statistics, a man named Walter Plecker--this is well documented-- sadly held the position of head of the Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1924 to 1967, 41 years. Remaining records such as they were in that 41-year period, he undertook what is known in Virginia as the ``paper genocide.'' He systematically went into every remaining record he could find and recharacterized anybody who had claimed a descent and a tribal connection as an Indian to ``colored.'' Records were destroyed or altered in a very significant way. Both of these reasons have made tribal recognition through the BIA process--the Bureau of Indian Affairs--very difficult. Of the 566 tribes that have been recognized, only about one-fifth have gone through the administrative process. That process usually requires heavy documentation. But the treaty was with the wrong government, and the birth, death, and marriage records were destroyed because of a racist State policy and the burning of courthouses during the Civil War. These six tribes should be rewarded, not punished, for making peace with their neighbors in the 1640s and 1670s, and they should not be held back because of a horribly misguided State policy that stripped them of the means to easily demonstrate by paper what all historians acknowledge to exist-- the continuous history of these tribes. We started, in Virginia, to correct this in the 1980s. In 1983, Virginia began a process of State recognition of all of these tribes. The six tribes have all been recognized by the State in the 1980s. All tribes that are part of this bill are now recognized by Virginia. A full effort to finally receive Federal recognition began in 1999, supported overwhelmingly by all Virginians, including the current entire Virginia congressional delegation, Democratic and Republican, House and Senate, and all 10 living Virginia Governors. Recognition bills have passed out of the House for these tribes twice. In the 112th Congress, a bill passed out of the House and then came to the Senate, and it passed out of the Senate committee, only to die because of inaction on the Senate floor. It is my deep hope that the 113th Congress will finally see the realization of this long-held dream. We should pass this bill because it is right. These tribes exist. They still live in Virginia and uphold their tribal traditions. They deserve to have their existence acknowledged just like the hundreds of other tribes in this country. But there is a final reason why recognition has a very immediate importance to these Virginia tribes. If you walked 3 blocks from here down the Mall, you arrive at the National Museum of the American Indian. It is part of the Smithsonian, America's National Museum. The Smithsonian is every bit as much a part of our American Government as Congress is. It is a marvelous museum. It tells the story of our Indian tribes and their amazing history of adversity and triumph. The Smithsonian curators recognize what Congress has failed to do. Go to the second floor. There is a permanent exhibit on the second floor of the museum. The title of the exhibit is, ``Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of Chesapeake.'' That permanent exhibit in the museum, with the plastic dioramas, highlights the Powhatan tribes that are the subject of this bill. Here is how the museum describes the permanent exhibit dedicated to these tribes: Thru photos, maps, ceremonial and everyday objects, this display provides an overview of the history of the Native Peoples of the Chesapeake region from the 1600's to the present day. So we do recognize these tribes--in a museum. We acknowledge that they are not just a part of history, but in the words of the museum display description, that the people continue to maintain their tribal identity to the present day. But while we recognize the tribes in the museum three blocks from the Capitol, we will not, we have not, and we do not yet recognize these tribes in law. Finally, the failure to recognize these tribes in law has an unusual and very tragic consequence. It also deals with the Smithsonian. There is another department in the Smithsonian that is far out of the prying eyes of tourists on the mall. It is the warehouse of the Smithsonian where they hold remains of archaeological exhibits. They hold all kinds of remains and all kinds of artifacts from archaeological exhibits from all over the United States and all over the world. One set of remains that the Smithsonian is holding is the bones of about 1,400 Virginia Indians that were disturbed and unburied during the course of archaeological expeditions in Virginia. The tribes that we are talking about today, the bones of their ancestors are held in a warehouse by the Smithsonian. For years, these tribes have gone respectfully to the Smithsonian, and they have asked them: Please return to us the bones of our ancestors. We want to bury the bones of our ancestors in accord with our tribal customs. We want to rebury the bones of our ancestors in accord with the customs of Christianity, which we embraced under the tutelage of the English settlers. But the Smithsonian will not return these bones to the tribes. It seems like such a reasonable request. It seems so reasonable, but the Smithsonian will not return the bones of these tribes for one reason: They are not federally recognized. The law governing the antiquities and objects held by the Smithsonian leads the Smithsonian to conclude that they can't give these bones back for reburial unless the tribes are federally recognized. Our great national museum recognizes the tribes in a great display behind plastic glass and talks about these tribes, but at the same time we recognize them for one purpose, we will not hand the bones back to these folks in a manner they deserve. To conclude, it is long past time that these tribes receive the tribal recognition that hundreds of other tribes have received. It is long past time that these tribes be accorded the same respect in America--for which they fought since the Revolutionary War--that they receive in England when they go visit. It is long past time that the bones of these Powhatan ancestors be returned to Virginia so that they can be buried by their families in the only land they ever knew as home. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to talk a little bit today about the Affordable Care Act and its benefit to America's women. I want to thank Senators Murphy, Boxer, and Whitehouse who have organized a few of us to come to the floor today. They will be on the floor later this afternoon. But with so much discussion in the news about the recent completion of the March enrollment period--over 7 million people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act through the exchanges--I feel it is a good time to look at some of the benefits of the ACA, but also where there is more work to do. I know the Presiding Officer has been very focused on ``where there is more work to do.'' I applaud the Presiding Officer for that. I will talk about some of those issues as well. But first, let me start with a couple of Virginia stories because we hear stories from our constituents about the Affordable Care Act. There is a 27-year-old woman in Charlottesville who was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Before the ACA, her previous insurance plan refused to cover her surgery because cancer was a preexisting condition. She is now enrolled in a health plan under the ACA, and her doctor and hospital where she is planning the surgery were confirmed to be in the provider network. In Alexandria, VA, there is a woman by the name of Aqualyn Laury. She is 43 years old. She suffered a stroke and a heart attack at a young age and had been on a preexisting condition insurance plan that was extremely expensive for some time. With her coverage scheduled to end, Aqualyn recently enrolled in coverage through the health insurance marketplace. She found a plan through the marketplace with a reputable company with a premium of approximately $245 a month, with copays and deductibles that were easy to understand. Angelette Harrell from Norfolk was able to purchase a plan on the exchange. Now, she had a problem with ACA because she could not work the Web site. But she did not give up. She called the phone number. She was able to find a plan that is $85 a month with a tax credit. She works in a care facility for adults with autism. She says she could not afford a plan that would have been $280 a month without the tax credit. Because she is under 200 percent of the poverty level, she gets a credit, and she gets a plan for $85 a month. That makes her a more reliable employee. She said: ``It felt great. I finally got insured.'' She was able to enroll. I will tell a story about another great Virginia woman, my wife, and her experience with the Affordable Care Act. We had to buy insurance on the open market for the first time as a family in the summer of 2012. Like any good husband who wants to get something done right, I asked my wife to do it. My wife comparison shopped with a couple of insurance companies. Two insurance companies told my wife: We can give you insurance, but we can only give you insurance for four of your five family members because of preexisting conditions--one because of me and one because of one of my kids. We have to be about the healthiest family in the United States. The only hospitalizations our family of five have ever had are the three times for child birth for my wife. Yet insurance companies told her when she called in that we--boy, I tell you, do not tell my wife we can insure four of your five family members--an important safety tip. They told her that. She said: That is now against the law. The company said: No, it is not. This is what we do. Well, talk to your supervisor and call me back. It is against the law. The company had to call back in both instances within a few hours and say: You are right. It is against the law. Here is a quote for your entire family. The ACA is helping women and families in all circumstances, people who are working in low-income jobs and cannot afford insurance or people who are well off like me but need protection from the former practice of denying people for preexisting conditions. Here are some ways the ACA works for women in particular. The law eliminates the ability of insurers to charge higher rates due to gender. Do you know that the unfair practice of charging women more, a gender rating system, was resulting in women in this country paying $1 billion more in annual premiums than men prior to the passing of the ACA. That is now illegal. Nearly 30 million women are receiving free coverage for comprehensive women's preventive services, including diabetes, cancer screening, contraception, and family planning. That is an important benefit for women. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, both women and men are free from lifetime annual limits on insurance coverage in 10 essential health benefits, like hospital visits and prescription drugs. It is not only about health, the ACA is also helping the financial health of women and families. Insurance companies under the ACA are now subject to a national rate review provision if they want to increase premiums higher than 10 percent. In 2012 alone, those rate reviews saved 6.8 million Americans an estimated $1.2 billion in premiums just in 1 year. Insurance companies are also required to spend their premium dollars in a smart way. They have to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on patient care and quality improvement. That is at least 85 percent for large insurers. In 2013--just in calendar year 2013--8.5 million Americans received rebates averaging $100 per family because of this particular provision. An estimated 3.1 million young Americans are able to stay on family policies--that is also affecting my family in a positive way--up until age 26. Families with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty line are eligible for tax credits. So as an example, a family of four in Virginia making $50,000 can access a health plan with premiums as low as $48 a month--health care for your family for less than your cell phone bill, for less than your cable bill. This is remarkable. Plans are required to limit family's out-of-pocket health care costs to less than $12,700 a year. Like the Presiding Officer, I am a fixer; I am not a repealer. I think there are a lot of fixings that are still needed in the Affordable Care Act and, frankly, in our health care system generally, not just in the ACA. There is more that we can do to make the ACA work better for women and families. Medicaid expansion is an example, a critical step that my State, Virginia, has yet to take. Without Medicaid expansion, uninsured women will face a coverage gap. With Medicaid expansion, over 400,000 Virginians will receive health care coverage. The ACA was designed to provide subsidies and tax credits to individuals and families who are making between 138 and 400 percent of the poverty level. But without Medicaid expansion, it is these families--working people--who remain uninsured. We also have to work on some proposals to continue to improve affordability and choice for all consumers. The Presiding Officer has led an effort with others to put a number of positive reforms on the table. Let me mention a couple that I am very excited about: The Expanded Consumer Choice Act, S. 1729, would create a new tier of coverage, copper plans, and would give people shopping for health insurance more options to meet their family's needs. Everybody's financial and health situation is different. So more options are great because that gives people more ability to meet their particular needs. That is a very important piece of legislation. The Presiding Officer played a leadership role in it. I supported expanding the small business tax credit to incentivize more businesses to participate in the tax credit program, to make it easier to access and easier for the small businesses to use. One I am particularly focused on is that we need to close the family glitch loophole. That is not a technical term, the family glitch loophole. The Affordable Care Act says an employee is eligible for subsidized health coverage through the new exchanges if their employer does not offer ``affordable coverage'', which is defined as more than 9.5 percent of the employee's household income. But the way the law is written, the affordability definition only applies to the price for the employee, not for the family coverage that an employer may offer. So if an employer does not offer affordable family coverage, there is no eligibility for a subsidy for that particular very important coverage, since most people's families are covered through their employer plan. I think that is an important thing we should fix. So look. There are plenty of things to fix. There are plenty of things about our health care system outside of the Affordable Care Act that we ought to be focusing on and fixing. But repealing the Affordable Care Act, as some colleagues in this body and in the House continue to advocate, would mean turning back on all of these advances: Letting women be discriminated against because of gender, letting families be turned away because of preexisting conditions, saying to folks: Do not worry, you are not going to get a rebate; we can charge whatever premium we want. The last thing we need to do is repeal the ACA or to go into the homes of nearly 10 million Americans who have received coverage and yank that coverage back from them and put them back out into the wilderness of the individual market where they were not protected before. What we need to do is to be embrace the good and embrace the fixes to make it better. That is what I certainly intend to do working with my colleagues. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask that all time be yielded back.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to talk about a whole series of issues--including unemployment insurance and the minimum wage--that are designed to help Americans attain economic mobility and get a fair shot to move up in the way our economy is designed to work. This morning the Budget Committee had a hearing entitled ``Opportunity, Mobility, and Inequality in Today's Economy.'' We heard from three very strong witnesses, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. We talked about important topics central to understanding the long-held American dream: If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to support your family, provide an opportunity for your kids, and have a fair retirement. But for too many--as the Presiding Officer knows--opportunity and mobility are especially hard to find and income inequality is growing. I am an optimist. I know the solutions are here if we work to find them, and I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about some of the solutions. First, let's try to put a human face on the problem of inequality in our economy. Income inequality in the United States is at a record level. It is higher in the United States than virtually any other developed country. President Obama has called income equality the central challenge of our times. The Presiding Officer and I share a Roman Catholic background. Last week the President was talking to Pope Francis in the Vatican, and they talked about how this is not just an American challenge but a global challenge. According to the CBO, the average income of a household in the richest 1 percent in this country was nearly 180 percent higher in 2010 than it was in 1979 in real dollars. By comparison, the average income for a household in the middle 20 percent of the income distribution had only grown by about 25 percent--about one in seven--of what the households in the highest income levels had grown. Since 1979, the top 1 percent of our population's share of national income grew from 8.9 percent to 14.9 percent. So 1 percent has 15 percent of the national income by 2010, but at the same time the bottom 80 percent of our American population saw their share of national income significantly shrink. For me the issue is not just inequality because there will always be some inequality. Fate, luck, and health will produce some unequal outcomes. But what I think is great about this country is that while we can see inequality and tolerate some degree of it, what we will not tolerate is people being locked into unequal situations. We want to have a society where people may be born poor or may have an accident or a fate that will have them in a lower economic status but they can still raise their ceiling and achieve all they can. But in the case of social mobility, the United States is now one of the poorest performing of the developed countries. Today a child born into the bottom quintile in the American economic life only has a 7.5-percent chance of ever being in the top quintile. In a country such as Denmark in Europe--and we think of Europe as a more stratified society--that number is nearly double what the number is in the United States. It is not just inequality, it is mobility. We are not giving people a fair shot, to use the words of the great American singer Curtis Mayfield, ``to move on up'' to their destination and that place where their dreams can take them if they work hard enough. What we need to do is embrace strategies that let people move on up and have a fair shot to achieve. We don't only need to embrace strategies for success, we have to eliminate structures and eliminate barriers that lock people out of economic opportunities that they should be able to achieve similar to anyone else. One solution is the minimum wage bill that we will start to talk about soon. It is about working Americans who are earning minimum wage or just above minimum wage and how this will affect them. I think I can safely say the vast majority of Virginians would agree with this proposition: No one who works full time--8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year--should live in poverty. But today someone making the minimum wage earns about $15,000 a year, which is $3,000 below the poverty level for a family of three. If you are a single mom with a couple of kids--and so many people are raising children on their own--and work full time at the minimum wage, you are below the poverty level. The minimum wage today is at a historic low. The minimum wage has lost 33 percent of its buying power since its peak in 1968. If the minimum wage in 1968 had just kept pace with inflation, it would be $10.71 per hour today and not in the $7 range. Workers who regularly receive tips are treated even worse. They get paid a subminimum wage--what is called a tipped minimum wage--of $2.13 an hour. As long as you make $30 in tips a month, your company can pay you $2.13 an hour. Overwhelmingly these workers work in restaurants but not exclusively, and similar to other minimum wage workers they are predominately women. Twenty-eight million Americans will receive an increase in pay if we raise the minimum wage under the bill that is currently before the Senate. It has been reported out of the HELP Committee, and we will take it up soon. More than half of those who will receive a raise are women. The vast majority are adult workers. Over 14 million American children have a parent who will receive a raise if we increase the minimum wage. The Minimum Wage Fairness Act will boost the minimum wage to about $21,000, lifting families above the poverty line. In total--get this-- the bill we will hopefully debate and vote on soon is estimated to lift nearly 7 million Americans out of poverty and above the poverty level. What could we do, as we debate, that would have more effect on people's lives than lifting 7 million people above the poverty level, which we would do if we pass the bill. Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour will increase GDP by nearly $22 billion as workers spend their raises in local businesses and communities. In Virginia about 744,000 of my fellow citizens will receive a raise. For this reason, business owners whom I talk to--not all but a huge number and especially small business owners--know that the minimum wage increase makes good business sense. Yesterday I visited a supermarket just across the Potomac in Alexandria. It is called MOM's Organic Market. They have 11 locations in the DC metropolitan area and Philadelphia. They are contemplating opening another store in New York City. I met with the owner Scott Nash, and I talked to his employees. I asked the employees: How long have you worked here? The answer I got back was 7 years, 8 years, 10 years. They made it their practice to pay their employees a $10 minimum wage now, and they are going to increase it. They fully support the bill currently pending before the Senate to increase the minimum wage. Scott Nash is not alone. We are celebrating a very important centennial this year. It is a centennial of one of the smartest things an American employer ever did. I will read a quote. After the success of the moving assembly line, Henry Ford had another transformative idea. In January of 1914, he startled the world by announcing that the Ford Motor Company would pay $5 a day to its workers. The pay increase would be accompanied with a shorter workday-- from 9 to 8 hours. While this rate did not automatically apply to every worker, it more than doubled the average autoworker's wage. While Henry's primary objective was to reduce worker attrition, newspapers from all over the world reported the story as an extraordinary gesture of good will. Here is the important part: Henry Ford had reasoned that since it was now possible to build inexpensive cars in volume, more of them could be sold if employees could afford to buy them. The $5 day helped better the lot of all American workers and contributed to the emergence of the American middle class. In the process, Henry Ford had changed manufacturing forever. This quote is not from some Democratic talking point. This quote is from the Web site of the Ford Motor Company--a press release they issued in January to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Henry Ford's novel decision. There was an employer who knew the American economy was based on consumer demand and if workers could be paid more, they would buy more, it would help his company, and it would help America. The Senate can take action in this way, and the Senate can take action in other ways to give people a fair shot to move on up in American society. In fact, we have already acted on a couple of bills I hope the House will pick up. We acted on immigration reform, which strengthens border security, creates a pathway to legal status and citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, and helps businesses and families. This eliminates a barrier that keeps people from moving up, and the CBO estimates it will significantly improve the American economy. Immigration reform is about a fair shot. Immigration reform is about moving up. We also acted on ENDA, legislation to end discrimination in the workplace against folks based on sexual orientation. A person can't move on up and achieve their economic dreams if folks can fire someone at will if they don't like the kind of person someone is or who they love. So ENDA, which awaits action in the House, is also a bill about making sure people have a fair shot and can move on up. We can act this week. We are now on the bill to provide unemployment insurance to those who are still struggling in the economy. Soon we will consider paycheck fairness for women. A person can't achieve all they can if they are going to be paid significantly less than their colleagues just because of gender. In coming weeks we will also consider jobs skills and education legislation, which are real keys to economic opportunity for so many. What we need to do is pretty simple. What the Presiding Officer did and what so many others in this Chamber did when we were Governors was to try to give individuals the tools to create their own opportunity, to create their own mobility, as well as to take the steps we could when there were barriers or structures in the way to move those out of the way so people had a fair shot to succeed. With that, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to voice my support for the people of Afghanistan who this week on Saturday will be in the midst of a Presidential election pursuing the first Democratic transfer of power in that nation's history. April 5 will be a momentous day, a Presidential election where millions of Afghans will head to the polls to determine their destiny by a peaceful means. As we know much is going on in the world in Ukraine, Syria, and Iran. It is easy to miss this milestone, but it is a milestone I think should have some significance to us as Americans. Americans should be proud of the role we have played in bringing the Afghan people to this point, given the significant sacrifice members of our country have made. There have been nearly 2,300 servicemembers who have given their lives in Afghanistan--2,299. The United States has spent $600 billion in Afghanistan since September of 2011. While we cannot gloss over the challenges that remain in Afghanistan today and tomorrow, we should remember the progress that has been achieved in 13 years since the Taliban fell in October of 2001, progress that has been made possible because of the sacrifices of American service men and women, our diplomats, the American people, and the grit and determination of the Afghan people. On April 5 Afghans will defy those who seek to intimidate them through violence and terrorism because it is a fundamental choice: Does Afghanistan want to move forward or go backward to horrific days. The ink-stained finger of an Afghan voter will send a far more powerful message than any terrorist gun or bomb. I think Afghan men and women will be thinking of their children as they vote on Saturday, the promise of the next generation as they head to the ballot box. An Afghan girl born in October of 2001 when the Taliban fell is now 13 years old. She has no doubt faced hardship and will continue to, but she now has before her unprecedented opportunities. Sometimes we get into a little bit of a mode where we say things haven't gone well in Afghanistan or the investment of blood, treasure, and energy by the United States hasn't made a difference. I wish to put on the record 13 very real indicators of a transformation in an Afghan's life in the last 13 years. No. 1, two-thirds of Afghans today have and are able to use cell phones compared to 5 percent before 2001. Before 2001 Taliban- controlled radio was the only news source in Afghanistan. Today Afghans can choose from 75 television stations and 170 radio stations. The Afghan national gross domestic product has grown nearly tenfold since 2001. One in three Afghans has access to electricity. Kabul enjoys a power supply 24 hours a day. In 2001 in Afghanistan there were only 30 miles of paved roads, which had a direct impact on their economy. Today nearly 10,000 miles of paved roads--nearly 300 times the amount in 2001. Over 50 percent of the population now has safe drinking water, nearly double from 2004. The number of teachers in Afghanistan was only 20,000 in 2001. Today it is 175,000, 30 percent of whom are women. Three million Afghan girls are enrolled in schools compared to only 5,000 in 2001, a nearly 600- fold increase. Overall school enrollment in Afghanistan has increased to more than 8 million. There are 168 female judges across Afghanistan and 68 women members of the National Assembly. Eighty-five percent of Afghans now live in districts with health care providers. Infant mortality has been reduced to 327 per 100,000 live births, which would still be high for the United States, but in 2002 that number was 1,600. So it has been reduced to one-quarter or one-fifth. The number that is the most powerful is this: Afghan women now have access to more health care than before. Female life expectancy has increased since 2001 from 44 years to 64 years--from 44 years to 64 years. So just think about what 20 extra years of life is like for a woman and then multiply that by every woman and girl in Afghanistan. Male life expectancy has improved as well because of improvements in infant mortality. This is a significant change, a real transformation in Afghan life. We cannot discount remaining challenges to combat corruption and strengthen civil society and to further advance women's rights. The recent attacks by the Taliban on the electoral process at an NGO guesthouse in Kabul at the Serena Hotel and over the weekend at the Afghan election commission remind us that security is a problem. Our condolences go out to the victims. The attacks show a cowardly desperation. The ballot box represents the largest threat to the Taliban and any terrorist affiliate and they are resorting to indiscriminate attacks because they know a ballot box and electoral democracy will be their demise. By killing Afghans on the threshold of an election, the Taliban is only sowing the seeds of their own demise. They recognize the tide of history is against them. A word about the Afghan National Security Forces who are working together with the United States and other partners going forward, especially on these elections this week: More than 350,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen are the security lead now throughout the country. They bear the brunt of the casualties of these attacks. More than 13,000 Afghan security force members have been killed in the line of duty, but they are determined, with the support of our country and the training we have provided them and that others have provided them-- they are determined to protect their homeland and they have proven capable of securing their homeland. Our servicemembers and diplomats have for years trained and assisted, and that training is paying off as is shown every day. We also have numerous examples of Afghan interpreters who have assisted our servicemembers in that training, and we cannot forget them. The Afghan forces will not face the challenges of this week, the electoral challenge, or the challenges beyond alone. The future of Afghanistan is not a military challenge alone. It rests upon security throughout civil society, and these elections are a pivotal moment but not the only pivotal moment. The commitment of the United States to Afghanistan continues. In 2011 we signed a strategic partnership agreement. We designated Afghanistan as a major non-NATO ally of our country. There is a text that is complete of a bilateral security agreement outlining our willingness to train, advise, and assist in this mission beyond 2014. I am confident it will be signed once the new government takes place. One of the reasons I am confident is that all of the candidates for the President of Afghanistan are engaged in a civil debate, and they are being asked what they think about the role of the United States, and they are all committed to the United States playing this new role as they transition their democracy with this peaceful transfer of power. Finally, a word about what is at stake because it is not just about the statistic, it is also and most importantly about individual lives. Just 3 months ago in January, Colonel Jamila Bayaz, a 55-year-old mother of five, became the first woman to be appointed a police chief in Afghanistan. At her promotion ceremony she said she would not have achieved her position but for the efforts of the United States and the international community. In a letter that same month to President Obama, over three dozen civil society Afghan leaders stated as follows: Over the coming years, Afghanistan will be completing its political and security transitions as the foundation for the future that we seek. It is our sincere hope that the people of the United States, who were with us during difficult years, will remain with us as we complete the challenging transition period and become more self-reliant. Hengama Anwari is the woman who is the current head of the Afghan human rights commission. Last week she stated: ``10 years is only a drop in the ocean in the process of changing a society.'' But Ms. Anwari is still hopeful about the future of her country and is relentless in her effort to advance women's rights. When George Washington stepped down as President during America's first Democratic transition, it was a pivotal moment for our young Republic. This transition, the first peaceful transition in Afghanistan's history, is equally pivotal. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Afghans, but this is an Afghan moment. Every candidate, every soldier, every election monitor, every citizen must do their part to ensure the success of this transition. Finally, as the Afghans transition, so do we--so do we. The congressional action that authorized our military presence in Afghanistan was passed in this body on September 14, 2001, nearly 13 years ago. With our combat mission in Afghanistan coming to an end with this election and a peaceful transition, with the transition of American military participation to a train, assist, and advise role, this 13-year effort is now transitioning to something new that will be the subject of that bilateral security agreement. We haven't been able to have a welcome home party for all of our American service men and women who served in Afghanistan because the operation was ongoing. It is my hope this transition in Afghanistan, which will also transition our role, will enable us to have one of those pivotal expressions of American pride. We have all seen the pictures of V-E Day and V-J Day, when the American Republic celebrated the end of a period of sacrifice of our service men and women. This is a period of sacrifice that has been going on longer than any war in the history of this country. It is my hope that while we will continue to work together with the Afghans, we may reach a moment where we can celebrate, we can acknowledge this transition, and say welcome home and thank you to all the American service men and women who along with their families have given so much in the last 13 years. With that, I yield the floor. Recognition of the Minority Leader

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded.