Tim Kaine

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 31, 2014, at 3 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Management Matters: Creating a 21st Century Government--Part II, Outside Views.''

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today, along with Senator Rubio, I am submitting a bipartisan resolution to coincide with the third anniversary of the Syria crisis. We are witnessing one of history's greatest humanitarian catastrophes unfolding before our eyes. The numbers are staggering. Nearly 3 million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries. Syrians are about to pass Afghans as the world's biggest refugee population. The UN released a report this week stating Syria has become the world's most dangerous place for children. This is truly heartbreaking. More than 5.5 million children are in need of desperate humanitarian assistance and three million are out of school. 40,000 babies have been born as refugees. Conditions inside are even Syria worse. There are nearly 7 million internally displaced persons and over 9 million in need of humanitarian assistance. Nearly 250,000 remained besieged, mostly at the hands of the Assad regime, and are suffering from disease and starvation. The Syria Humanitarian Resolution of 2014 strongly condemns the unlawful use of violence against civilians by all parties to the conflict in Syria, particularly the ongoing violence and widespread human rights violations perpetrated against the people of Syria by the Government of Syria. The resolution urges all parties to the conflict to immediately halt indiscriminate attacks on civilians and to allow for immediate, unfettered access to humanitarian aid throughout the Syrian Arab Republic, respecting the safety, security, independence, and impartiality of humanitarian workers and ensuring freedom of movement to deliver aid. We call on the international community to assist the people of Syria, especially internally displaced persons and refugees, in meeting basic needs, including access to food, health care, shelter, and clean drinking water. Finally we call for the full implementation of UN Security Council 2139 and call on the President to submit to the appropriate committees of Congress within 90 days a strategy for United States engagement in addressing the Syrian humanitarian crisis, to include assistance and development, and protection of human rights inside Syria and in the region. The solution to the Syrian conflict will be complicated. But the people of Syria should not continue to suffer in the interim. I refuse to accept that there is nothing more we can do to end the suffering. Humanitarian relief and access are fundamental principles all parties should adhere to. History will harshly judge those who do not.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I am pleased today the Senate will pass legislation I support, the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act. This bipartisan legislation honors the memory of Gabriella Miller, a young girl from Leesburg, VA who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor at age 9. In the face of her own diagnosis, Gabriella worked to help other children with pediatric diseases. She raised money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, spoke at local and national awareness events and authored a special writing in a children's book about cancer. Gabriella and her family started the Smashing Walnuts Foundation, dedicated to finding a cure for childhood brain cancer. The organization was named for the walnut-sized tumor in her brain. Gabriella passed away last year, but her dedication to raising awareness and funding for pediatric disease research is part of her legacy. The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act will require the director of the National Institutes of Health to allocate $126 million--$12.6 million each year for 10 years--of appropriated funds for pediatric research. The money would be allocated into needed research grants for pediatric autism, cancer and other diseases. The fight for funding pediatric research is far from over but this is a step in the right direction. As Gabriella said, ``You may have a bad day today, but there's always a bright shining star to look forward to tomorrow.'' It is my hope that this legislation will help fund research that leads to future treatments and cures. I would like to thank Senator Mark Warner and Senator Orrin Hatch for supporting this legislation and Congressman Cantor for championing the bill through the House of Representatives. This bipartisan effort is about making sure pediatric disease research is a high priority. I am proud we were able to pass legislation that honors Gabriella Miller, her family, and her inspiring work as an advocate for pediatric disease research.

Mr. KAINE

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

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. I thank my colleagues for drawing attention to this critical issue and problem. I want to start with the solution. The solution to climate change is American innovation. The solution to climate change is American innovation. We have to get beyond the idea first that we need to choose between a clean environment and a strong economy. We all want cleaner air and water. We all want jobs. They don't have to contradict each other. When we frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment, we talk past one another and we are not realistic about our own history. This is, at the beginning, kind of a math problem. According to the EPA's annual inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. pumped about 6 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in 2005--6 billion tons. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that putting this much pollution into the air is bad for the planet, bad for our kids, and bad for our grandkids. Most scientists tell us we need to reduce emissions about 17 percent from that peak by 2020 and over 80 percent by about 2050 in order to contain climate change to manageable levels. So the question is this. How do we establish the appropriate incentives to get that number lower to produce energy more cleanly, at prices we can afford, in quantities that support modern life. We have to reduce pollution. We need to create jobs. Instead of arguing which is more important, let's figure out how we can use American innovation to do both. My colleague from Vermont has talked a lot about some of the evidence. It is important to pay attention to patterns. In Virginia, we have huge areas of risk of the negative impacts of climate change, especially sea-level rise, all effects that can be traced to carbon pollution. The Hampton Roads area of Virginia is the second-most populous part of our State, 1.6 million people, and it is the second-most vulnerable community on the east coast after New Orleans, the eastern half of the United States, to sea-level rise. Our second-largest area, which is the home of the largest concentration of naval power in the world, and critical to our defense, is deeply vulnerable to climate change. In fact, I have friends who live in Hampton Roads in a historic neighborhood where homes have been occupied for 150 years. In the last 15 years, their home has become completely unable to be occupied. They cannot sell it. There is no way the bank will take it back, and there is no way anyone will issue insurance to them. In addition to being vulnerable because of our coast, our largest industry in Virginia is agriculture and forestry. If we want to talk about an industry that is affected by climate, that is our industry, $70-plus billion a year of economic activity in our State--our largest industry affected by climate. Tourism is big in Virginia industry--outdoor tourism. That is $20- plus billion a year. We are directly affected by climate, and we see extreme weather patterns. It is not only a Katrina, a Sandy or an Ike. It is the pattern of one after the next, droughts one after the next, fire damage one after the next. To use a recent example, we are having to deal with this in these halls. We passed a flood insurance bill to delay sharp premium increases for flood insurance policies that are subsidized by the National Flood Insurance Program. For those who weren't around when we had that debate, these increases in premiums were not because of new beach homes that millionaires are building on the flood plain out on the beach. No, these were policies for homes whose owners had lived in them for decades. They were never in flood plains before, but they are now in flood plains because of sea-level rise. My Portsmouth friends are people who fit into that category, with a home that never had these challenges--that is now a home that they cannot sell because of the sea-level rise in that area. The debate in the Chamber focused on what it would cost to delay premiums, how many people would be affected and impacted by the solvency of this national program. The larger point is this: Premiums are higher because flood risk is higher. When we see flood risk getting higher in every coastal area of the country, we have to pay attention to what the pattern tells us. If we don't, we are foolish. Now, we have naysayers. There are two kinds of naysayers. There are science deniers and leadership deniers, and I want to talk for a minute about both. The first are a group of people who, despite the overwhelming scientific consensus, say: Oh no, there is no scientific evidence that humans affect climate change or that there is even any change in the climate going on at all, despite this overwhelming scientific consensus. The Senator from Vermont mentioned some quotes from Members in this body who deny science exists. To science deniers, I am happy to say that Virginians are pro- science. We are pro-science. The quintessential Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, was the preeminent scientist of his day. You cannot be a proud Virginian and be anti-science. We accept the science in Virginia. In fact, the polling overwhelmingly, among the Virginia public--and we are not the bluest State in the country; we are a coal-producing State, which I will get to in a minute--even in coal-producing Virginia, the polling shows overwhelmingly that the Virginia public accepts that humans are affecting climate, causing bad things to our economy, and we have to do something about it. Now, there is a second argument. It is not science denial; it is leadership denial. These folks may not deny the climate science, but they deny that the United States can or should be a leader in taking steps. They say: Look, even if we reduce U.S. emissions to zero, it wouldn't offset world emissions unless China or India did something, so let's just not do anything. It is just not the American way, folks, for us not to lead on something as important as this. It is true that we need every country to reduce emissions in the long run, but that is not an argument for the United States to do nothing; that is an argument for the United States to step up and be leaders. Part of leadership is sending the right signals into the market at the right time. That is one of the reasons I think it would be very good if the President rejected the proposal to expand use of tar sands oil in the Keystone Pipeline program. We ought to send the right message right now. That is one of the most powerful things we could do in our country and beyond to show we are going to be leaders. It is very difficult to lead and impossible to get people to follow if you are not willing to take a step as the most powerful and innovative economy in the world. We are the largest economy in the world, and we have been since 1890. We are the global economic leader. We have a burden of leadership. And if we lead, we will succeed. It is not too hard to reduce emissions. We can reduce them. In fact, we are already starting. The Senator from Vermont mentioned this. I mentioned that in 2005 the United States was putting 6 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. That was our base year. We have now actually dipped down to 5.6 billion tons. We have reduced it since 2005 thanks to greater energy efficiency, natural gas, uptick in renewables, and better fuel standards in our vehicles. So we are already on a positive path. We are actually on the way to meeting our goal of reducing emissions 17 percent by the year 2020. We are on the right track; we just have to take more steps forward. So what is the strategy we need? I hear the President sometimes and others--and I may even use these words on occasion--talk about an ``all of the above'' energy strategy, and I have decided I really don't like that phrase. When I hear somebody say ``all of the above,'' it is like when I ask one of my teenagers something and he says: ``Whatever.'' I don't like ``whatever'' as an answer because it kind of sounds indifferent and anything goes and who cares and what difference does it make. ``All of the above'' kind of has that attitude a little bit. Now, sure, we should use all of our energy resources--I get that--in a comprehensive strategy, but what we really need is a comprehensive strategy that reduces CO2 emissions--that reduces CO2 emissions. Such a strategy to reduce emissions does mean everything: wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and advanced biofuels. I think it also means natural gas as bridge fuel to reduce our carbon footprint; nuclear, if we can reduce costs and resolve disposal issues; and, yes, coal, so long as we always work to make it burn cleaner. This is my punch line of what we have to do: We have to do everything cleaner tomorrow than we are doing it today--everything cleaner tomorrow than we are doing it today. We will have fossil fuels with us for some time, and we won't bring emissions to zero anytime soon. But just because we can't immediately go from 6 billion to zero tons of CO2, we can't rest in our effort to reduce our CO2 every day a little bit more. On fossil fuels, we have to take any progress we can that replaces dirty with less dirty even if it doesn't get us the whole way. Over time, the portion of our total energy footprint that is carbon based will get smaller as we develop more noncarbon alternatives, and it will also get cleaner as we reduce carbon-based energy emissions with better technology. This is why I am against dirty fossil fuels, such as tar sands, which make us dirtier tomorrow than today. I want to be cleaner tomorrow than today. Tar sands oil is about 15 to 20 percent dirtier than conventional oil. Let's not be dirtier tomorrow than today. We have the trendline moving in the right direction. We are reducing CO2 emissions. Let's be cleaner tomorrow than today. Why would we embrace tar sands oil and backslide to be dirtier tomorrow? The bottom line is that we have to create energy cleaner tomorrow than today. Remember, it is a math problem--6 billion tons a year. We have 6 more years to reduce it 17 percent, 36 years to reduce it by more than 80 percent. So we have our goal. We have our goal. We have to give innovators the tools they need to meet it. Since innovators will solve this problem, here is the really fundamental challenge. This is the fundamental challenge. Will Americans be the innovators? See, innovation will solve this problem. Will Americans be the innovators or will we bury our heads in the tar sands and let other nations' innovators be the ones who grab leadership in this new energy economy. I don't want to bury my head in the tar sands. I want us to be the leader. Will we create the new technologies and sell them to other nations or will we be late to the game and have to buy all the technologies from other nations? The good news is, as I said, we are already on our way to the 2020 goal, so we don't have to make it all dire. Let's celebrate a little success and then figure out how to accelerate our success. The transportation sector, the fuel economy standards for cars, changing to natural gas in power production--all these things have helped us move toward lesser emissions. Wind is the fastest growing source of new electricity capacity in the world and in the United States, even above natural gas, which is growing rapidly. In a few years Virginia will be contributing, with some of the first offshore wind turbines near Virginia Beach. I would like to talk now for a second about a specific Virginia issue because I am not sure how many folks who are in this all-nighter speaking on this come from States that have coal and have produced coal, and Virginia does. I want to talk about coal for a second. EPA is expected to issue standards later this year on reducing pollution from coal-fired powerplants, and, in fact, there is already talk on the other side of introducing a bill to repeal the regulation before the regulation has even come out. I am not exactly sure that is kosher, but I suspect we will be having that debate later. There is a natural anxiety in a coal-producing region such as southwest Virginia. That is where my wife's family is from. It is five counties in southwest Virginia. They are hard-hit counties. Coal is a big part of their economy, and traditionally it has been. We mine as much coal today in Virginia as we did 50 years ago with one-tenth of the workers because it is a heavily mechanized industry, but there are jobs at stake. And it is not just jobs; coal has been traditionally low priced, and so the issue that is important--and even States that don't have any coal often use a lot of coal to produce power, and the low price has been helpful to consumers who rely on cheap and abundant electricity made possible by coal. Coal has been hit hard in some recent years, but I disagree fundamentally with the cynical argument that is made by some--mostly in the coal industry--who blame coal's woes on a regulatory ``war on coal.'' When I talk to folks in the industry, they are always talking about there is a Federal ``war on coal.'' I am going to tell you what is hurting coal. What is hurting coal is innovation and natural gas. Innovation in the natural gas industry has brought natural gas prices down, and utilities are deciding to use natural gas rather than coal. That is what is hurting coal these days, and we ought to take a lesson from that. Innovation is driving environmental cleanliness. Innovation is driving lower cost. The solution is not to stop innovation. The solution is not to shake your fist and blame regulation. The solution is to innovate. Coal currently accounts for 37 percent of U.S. electricity generation and about the same percentage in Virginia. Today we don't have 37 percent of anything else that can step right in and replace coal, which means we need coal and we are going to be using it for a while. Since we need to reduce emissions--do it cleaner tomorrow than today--and we are going to need coal for a while, the challenge is to convert coal to electricity more efficiently and with less pollution than we do today. We have to innovate to make coal cleaner for that portion of the pie chart. I learned this as Governor working to permit a state-of-the-art coal plant in Wise County, VA. It opened in 2012. It is designed in a way that dramatically reduces sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, mercury emissions, and water use. It was also a plant that was only permitted when the company that wanted it agreed to take a dirty coal plant--one that preexisted the Clean Air Act and was grandfathered in for all of its pollution--and to convert that to natural gas. That was innovative. The fuel mix of this plant needed to run the burners accommodates biomass and waste coal as well. If we can use innovative practices to reduce these emissions, we can do the same with carbon emissions. But coal cannot stand still, let others innovate, and then complain if it is not competitive. Coal has to be as innovative as everything else, and we have to figure out ways to assist. That is why I support Federal investments in advanced fossil energy research and development. Last fall the Energy Department made available $8 billion in advanced fossil energy loan guarantee authority for low carbon fossil technologies. I advocated for appropriations for fossil energy R&D, and there is a strong boost for those programs in the omnibus budget bill. There is a great Center for Coal & Energy Research at Virginia Tech that is doing some of this research that can help us take that portion of the pie chart, make it cleaner, and over time make it smaller as we expand noncarbon energy. We have to make sure the upcoming standards the EPA will put out are ambitious and appropriate incentives to get cleaner and disincentives to get dirtier and at the same time avoid catastrophic disruptions in reliability or affordability. I am going to come back and conclude where I started. Remember, when I started I said I am going to give a solution. The solution to climate change is American innovation, and I want to finish there. Reducing CO2 emissions is a hard problem, maybe harder than any pollution problem we face because most pollutants tend to come from a particular economic sector, but CO2 comes from transportation and buildings and manufacturing and power production-- all sectors. So the solution won't be simple. But we do not have to accept the false choice of an environment against the economy. Instead, we just need to innovate to find the solution. That is the innovation challenge we have. I make it a habit--apparently unlike some of my colleagues here--to never bet against American innovation. We are the Nation that said we would put a man on the Moon in a decade with computers that had less in them than your cell phones do, and we did it. We are the Nation that harnessed the power of the atom. We are the Nation that unwrapped the riddle of DNA and are now using that knowledge to cure disease. Nobody should ever bet against American innovation. In fact, we have already shown it again and again, that innovation and regulation--smart regulation--can help us tackle pressing environmental problems. When we were kids and my wife was growing up in Richmond, where we now live, nobody--and I mean nobody--fished or swam in the James River in downtown Richmond. You would be taking your life into your hands if you swam or if you ate fish you caught in that river because of ketone pollution, other industrial pollution, and poor treatment of municipal solid waste. But the Nation passed the Clean Water Act and we got serious about cleaning up our rivers. Naysayers said: It will damage the economy. It will bring our economy to its knees. But come and see what the Clean Water Act has meant to my hometown. You can swim or fish in the James River today, and you can eat the fish you catch. You can see herons and bald eagles there that were never there before. You can see residents and tourists who flock to the James River because they enjoy it. It took a law, it took some tough regulations, it took American ingenuity in finding new ways to clean up industrial and municipal waste, but we did it, and our environment and economy are better off as a result. When we needed to reduce nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions because of acid rain, industry said that any new law would be a burdensome job killer, just as they are saying today. But President George H.W. Bush worked with Congress to pass a cap-and-trade law to bring down these emissions. After the new law, somebody invented the catalytic converter. After the new law, somebody invented the sulfur scrubber. Not only weren't they burdensome job killers, they improved air quality, and they created jobs for American companies that manufacture catalytic converters and sulfur scrubbers, and our economy and environment are better off as a result. Not long ago we heard requiring automakers to make cars which got better gas mileage would be devastating to the American auto industry. But President Obama struck a deal with the industry, and guess what. The quest to build more fuel-efficient vehicles helped revitalize an American auto industry which was on its back. Plants operating with skeleton crews just sweeping the floors at night now have multiple shifts making better vehicles which save drivers more money every day. The skeptics were loud, but we moved ahead with smart regulation and American innovation, and our environment and economy are better off as a result. It is the skeptics and the deniers who fight against these strategies who are actually naive, because again and again they always claim that taking steps to help the environment will hurt the economy, and again and again they have been proven wrong. Protecting the environment is good for the economy and good for the planet. So I say to the skeptics of whatever variety, climate denier or leadership denier, don't underestimate American innovation. We can solve the problem of climate change for the good of the economy and the good of the planet. The story of American innovation is a story of solving the hard problems, and I know we can solve this one. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Basant Sanghera, a Brookings fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session of the Senate.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise this morning to speak about the widening dimensions of the slaughter in Syria. A country of 23 million people, a proud country, is being transformed before our eyes into skeletons, refugees, and ghosts. Three million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries. That number will likely exceed 4 million by the end of the year. Nearly 7 million Syrians are refugees within their own country, driven from their homes by the atrocities of the Assad regime. More than 130,000 innocent people have lost their lives during the 3-year civil war. We are witnessing one of the greatest humanitarian crises since World War II, and it can be stopped. Last summer my Committee on Armed Services colleague Senator Angus King of Maine and I visited Turkey and Jordan to explore the dimension of the refugee crisis in both of those nations. We visited refugee camps and talked to government leaders and NGOs about the damaged lives and the stressed communities that result from this unprecedented displacement of Syrians. Last week the Senator from Maine and I visited Lebanon to see the scale of the Syrian crisis in that country. In a country of only slightly more than 4 million people, there are already over 1 million Syrian refugees who have fled into Lebanon over the last 3 years, one in four. Think of the scale of that refugee crisis. If we were to receive in the United States war refugees at that scale, it would be 75 to 80 million people, nearly one in four. In Lebanon last week we met with government leaders, NGOs, and the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees. What we learned is staggering. The Lebanese people have been unbelievably resilient and welcoming, almost beyond the point of belief. The water and health infrastructure of that Nation is strained to the breaking point. The Lebanese economy, already fragile, is teetering. Schools in Lebanon now operate on double shifts with Lebanese children in the morning and refugee children in the afternoon, accommodating tens of thousands of refugee children, with more coming every day. The decision by the Lebanese terrorist militia Hezbollah to go all in to support the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has led to a wave of extremist bombings against Hezbollah-connected sites and leaders within Lebanon in which many civilians are casualties. Senator King and I witnessed a bombing in downtown Beirut while we were there, seeing it miles away. Many in our group saw the explosion, saw the smoke rise. We felt certain that our meetings would be canceled that day, but one of the most grim aspects of our trip is a bombing, a suicide bombing that killed 5 people and injured nearly 100, caused no one to change their daily routine. That is what life is in Lebanon largely because of the Syrian civil war. The crisis extends beyond Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Refugees are streaming into nearby Iraq by the thousands--30,000 in 1 day in August--exacerbating the deterioration of that country's stability and drawing it deeper into sectarian conflict. This photo is on the Iraq border with Syria, and we see these refugees stretching into the distance in the hills beyond. This is what is happening with all of the neighboring countries to Syria. The United States is the largest provider of assistance to the refugees who have fled outside of Syria. We have provided $1.3 billion in aid thus far, $340 million in Lebanon alone, but getting relief into Syria is the next challenge. The conditions in Syria are even worse than the conditions I described in Lebanon. Nearly 7 million Syrians are displaced within their own country, more than 9 million Syrians need humanitarian aid, but they have not been able to receive basic humanitarian aid, food, and medicine due to the actions of the Bashar al-Assad regime and also due to the complicity of the regime's patron, Russia. The denial of humanitarian aid is a war crime, pure and simple. Thousands are dying of starvation. Cases of tuberculosis, polio, typhoid, and other diseases are expanding at an exponential rate. None of this is an accident. The Assad regime is using forced starvation and forced sieges as a weapon to destroy the Syrian people. Last month I met in the Senate with Syrians who had survived the chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Assad regime in August of 2013. They described in gruesome detail what they and their families, many young children, endured in August. But the most shocking moment of the interview came when a 22-year-old survivor, who had fled Syria through Lebanon, said if she had to pick, she would rather die a death because of chemical weapons than be hit by a barrel bomb or starved to death because death by chemical weapons would be quicker. In recent weeks nothing has epitomized the brutality of the regime more than the use of these barrel bombs. The bombs are crude weapons. They are simple oil drums that are filled with shrapnel and explosives. Helicopters often deliver the weapons, and helicopters often hover over neighborhoods for minutes to just scare everyone who knows what is coming. The barrel bombs drop. They explode shrapnel and level neighborhoods. This is an example of a neighborhood in Aleppo. At one point hundreds were killed when barrel bombs were dropped on Aleppo earlier this month. We see the size and scope of the devastation and see families and their children fleeing the area in the aftermath of a barrel bomb, and this is going on every day in Syria. Secretary Kerry has rightly called these barrel bomb attacks unacceptable and barbaric. The primary architect of these crimes is Bashar Assad, but he has a patron who funds and supports what he does and who has the ability to stop the atrocities. Russia is Assad's principal support, and since the start of the Syrian civil war Russia has shown it is complicit in these war crimes. But it is also capable of stopping them. In the United Nations Russia has used its veto power and threat of veto on the Security Council numerous times to block international action to help the Syrian people. Three of these vetoes were used to block basic humanitarian aid. What possible reason could any civilized nation have to deny war victims food and medical supplies? But Russia has shown it can be persuaded or shamed into taking action to promote the basic safety of the Syrian citizens. In August, with the threat of U.S. military action to punish the Assad regime for use of chemical weapons against its own civilians, Russia realized it could no longer be the sole global apologist for this atrocity. So it persuaded Syria to admit to the crime, acknowledge the existence of a stockpile, and commit to the complete destruction of these inhumane weapons. While that process has been slow, the weaponry has not been used since Russia realized the world would not tolerate such a clear violation of international law. Similarly, after repeatedly blocking U.N. action to deliver humanitarian aid in Syria, Russia decided, in the midst of the Sochi Olympics, it could no longer stand in the way of basic humanitarian aid. The eyes of the world were on it and it knew it could no longer be seen as the sole obstacle blocking people from receiving food and medicine. So it finally agreed to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2139 calling for the provision of humanitarian aid inside Syria. When Russia could no longer comfortably block progress, when the eyes of the world were on it in the middle of the Olympics last week, it finally joined with the rest of the world in calling on Syria to allow aid to its people. In the aftermath of that resolution, the real test lies ahead, because those were words on paper and now we must see whether the aid will be delivered. This is the situation in Syria today. This is a recent photo from a suburb of Damascus that has been under siege by the Assad regime without access to food and basic medical care. Witness this photo. Look at the destruction; look at the rubble; look at the throng of hungry people stretching to oblivion in the distance. See the hunger in their faces and bodies, and look at the questions in their eyes. It is incumbent upon the Syrian regime to allow unhindered access of humanitarian aid to all Syrians. Opposition groups have that same obligation. In conclusion, let me say a final word about Russian responsibility to respond to these poor Syrian people. When the Russian Government and its people see this picture, it should remind them of their own history. During the siege of Leningrad during World War II, the Nazis deliberately used these same techniques and tactics--forced starvation and siege--as a tactic of war to cause horrible deprivation to the Russian population of that city. Russians should look in the eyes of these victims of intentional starvation and grapple with their responsibility to them. Russia can cause the Assad regime, just as it did in August, to open access so these people can have food and medicine. Russia has finally agreed to words on paper at the U.N., but the world will watch the actions of this nation. One final thought. When Senator King and I were traveling last week in the Middle East, we went to other countries as well. In one country, where we are engaged in a back-and-forth over the provision of U.S. military assistance, where we are raising what we think are legitimate questions about some democracy reforms this nation needs to undertake if we are to be better and better partners, a leader of that nation said to me: If the United States won't provide assistance, then we will find a way to make Russia our partner. Well, to anyone who thinks making Russia your partner is a good thing, you ought to look at this photo too, because this is what has become of Syria choosing Russia as its principal partner. Is this the kind of partner you want? We must keep the spotlight on these atrocities; we must keep the spotlight on Assad's responsibility; we must keep the spotlight on Russia's complicity to bring an end to these atrocities and work with other nations to find a resolution to the Syrian civil war. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. I ask unanimous consent to use the remainder of the Democrats' time.

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains for the Democrats during morning business?

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am submitting a resolution with Senator Portman designating February as Career and Technical Education month. The key to America's continued success lies in improving our Nation's educational system. In a National Association of Manufacturers report, 80 percent of respondents indicate a moderate to severe shortage of qualified skilled production employees, including frontline workers, like machinists, operators, craft workers, distributors, and technicians. If we are to win the race for talent, we need a long-term plan that produces the best workforce in the world. Career and technical education is a proven solution for creating jobs, retraining workers with the skills they need to fill open positions in the job market, and ensuring students of all ages and all walks of life are career and college ready. Career and technical education will also help close the skills gap to meet the needs of high-growth, skill intensive industries. Approximately 30 percent of jobs by 2018 will require some college or a two-year associate degree, a need which can be met by improved access to career and technical education programs. Senator Portman and I have also created the Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus, a bipartisan effort committed to strengthening access and improving career and technical education. Through these efforts, we will support students and grow our nation's workforce by ensuring our youth have access to high-quality, rigorous career and technical education that will prepare them for college and for their future careers.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Arizona for pointing out to all in the Chamber my tardiness, and I should not have been tardy because I do not like to follow the Senator from Arizona. I would rather begin before him. But I want to thank him for his work with me, together, on this important issue and amplify on a few of the comments he has made. Today, together, as cosponsors we are introducing the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution and replace it. I could not have a better cosponsor than Senator McCain and appreciate all the work he and his staff have done over the last months with us. I gave a floor speech about this issue in this Chamber in July of 2013, almost to the day, 40 years after the Senate passed the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Many of you remember the context of that passage. When it was passed in the summer of 1973, it was in the midst of the end of the Vietnam war. President Nixon had expanded the Vietnam war into Cambodia and Laos without explicit congressional approval, and the Congress reacted very negatively and passed this act to try to curtail executive powers in terms of the initiation of military hostilities. It was a very controversial bill. When it was passed, President Nixon vetoed it. Congress overrode the veto at the end of 1973. But as Senator McCain indicated, no President has conceded the constitutionality of the 1973 act, and most constitutional scholars who have written about the question have found at least a few of what they believe would be fatal infirmities in that 1973 resolution. It was a hyperpartisan time, maybe not unlike some aspects of the present, and in trying to find that right balance in this critical question of when the Nation goes to war or initiates military action, Congress and the President did not reach an accord. I came to the Senate with a number of passions and things I hoped to do. But I think I came with only one obsession, and this is that obsession. Virginia is a State that is most connected to the military of any State in the country. Our map is a map of American military history--from Yorktown, where the Revolutionary War ended, to Appomattox, where the Civil War ended, to the Pentagon, where 9/11 happened. That is who we are. One in nine Virginians is a veteran. If you add our Active Duty, our Guard and Reserve, our military families, our DOD civilians, our DOD contractors, you are basically talking about one in three Virginians. These issues of war and peace matter so deeply to us, as they do all Americans. The particular passion I had in coming to this body around war powers was because of kind of a disturbing thought, which is, if the President and Congress do not work together and find consensus in matters around war, we might be asking our men and women to fight and potentially give their lives without a clear political consensus and agreement behind the mission. I do not think there is anything more important that the Senate and the Congress can do than to be on board on decisions about whether we initiate military action, because if we do not, we are asking young men and women to fight and potentially give their lives, with us not having done the hard work of creating the political consensus to support them. That is why I have worked hard to bring this to the attention of this body with Senator McCain. The Constitution actually sets up a fairly clear framework. The President is the Commander in Chief, not 535 commanders-in-chief, as Senator McCain indicated. But Congress is the body that has the power both to declare war and then to fund military action. In dividing the responsibilities in this way, the Framers were pretty clear. James Madison, who worked on the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson and said: The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature. Despite that original constitutional understanding, our history has not matched the notion that Congress would always be the initiator of military action. Congress has only declared war five times in the history of the United States, while Presidents have initiated military action prior to any congressional approval more than 120 times. In some of these instances where the President has initiated war, Congress has come back and either subsequently ratified Presidential action--sometimes by a formal approval or sometimes by informal approval such as budgetary allocation--but in other instances, including recently, Presidents have acted and committed American military forces to military action without any congressional approval. The Senator from Arizona mentioned the most recent one. President Obama committed military force to NATO, action against Libya in 2011, without any congressional approval, and he was formally censured by the House of Representatives for doing so. The current context that requires a reanalysis of this thorny question, after 40 years of the War Powers Resolution, was well stated by the Senator from Arizona. Wars are different. They start differently. They are not necessarily nation state against nation state. They could be limited in time or, as of now, we are still pursuing a military force that was authorized on September 18, 2001, 12 or 13 years later. Wars are of different duration, different scope, different geography. Nation states are no longer the only entities that are engaged in war. These new developments that are challenging--what do we do about drones in countries far afield from where battles were originally waged--raise the issue of the need to go back into this War Powers Resolution and update it for the current times. As the Senator from Arizona mentioned, this has been a question that Members of Congress have grappled with and thought about, as have diplomats and scholars and administration officials and Members of Congress for some time. In 2007, the Miller Center for the study of the presidency at the University of Virginia convened a National War Powers Commission under the chairmanships of two esteemable and bipartisan leaders--former Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and James Baker. The remaining members of the Commission were a complete A list of thinkers in this area--Slade Gorton, Abner Mikva, Ed Meese, Lee Hamilton. The Commission's historian was no less than Doris Kearns Goodwin, who looked at the entire scope of this problem in American history and what the role of Congress and the President should be. The Commission issued a unanimous report, proposing an act to replace the War Powers Act of 1973, briefed Congress and incoming President Obama on the particular act in 2007 and 2008, but at that time, the time was not yet ripe for consideration of this bill. But now that we are 40 years into an unworkable War Powers Resolution and now, as the Senator indicated, we have had a string of Presidents-- both Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents--who have maintained that the act is unconstitutional and now that we have had a 40-year history of Congress often exceeding to the claim of unconstitutionality by not following the War Powers Resolution itself, we do think it is time to revisit. Let me just state two fundamental, substantive issues that this bill presents in the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014. First, there is a set of definitions. What is war? The bill defines significant military action as any action where involvement of U.S. troops would be expected to be in combat for at least a week or longer. Under those circumstances, the provisions of the act would be triggered. There are some exceptions in the act. The act would not cover defined covert action operations. But once a combat operation was expected to last for more than 7 days, the act would be triggered. The act basically sets up two important substantive improvements on the War Powers Resolution. First, a permanent consultation committee is established in Congress, with the majority and minority leaders of both Houses and the chairs and ranking members of the four key committees in both Houses that deal with war issues--Intel, Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Appropriations. That permanent consultation committee is a venue for discussion between the executive and legislative branches--permanent and continuous--over matters in the world that may require the use of American military force. Because the question comes up often: What did the President do to consult with Congress? Is it enough to call a few leaders or call a few committee chairs? This act would normalize and regularize what consultation with Congress means by establishing a permanent consultation committee and requiring ongoing dialogue between the Executive and that committee. The second requirement of this bill is that once military action is commenced that would take more than 7 days, there is a requirement for a vote in both Houses of Congress. The consultation committee itself would put a resolution on the table in both Houses to approve or disapprove of military action. It would be a privileged motion with expedited requirements for debate, amendment, and vote, and that would ensure that we do not reach a situation where action is being taken at the instance of one branch with the other branch not in agreement, because to do that would put our men and women who are fighting and in harm's way at the risk of sacrificing their lives when we in the political leadership have not done the job of reaching a consensus behind the mission. To conclude, I will acknowledge what the Senator from Arizona said. This is a very thorny and difficult question that has created challenges and differences of interpretation since the Constitution was written in 1787. Despite the fact that the Framers who wrote the Constitution actually had a pretty clear idea about how it should operate, it has never operated that way. Forty years of a failed War Powers Resolution in today's dangerous world suggests that it is time now to get back in and to do some careful deliberation to update and normalize the appropriate level of consultation between a President and the legislature. The recent events as cited by the Senator--whatever you think about the merits or the equities, whether it is Libya, whether it is Syria, whether it is the discussions we are having now with respect to Iran or any other of a number of potential spots around the world that could lead to conflict--suggest that while decisions about war and initiation of military action will never be easy, they get harder if we do not have an agreed-upon process for coming to understand each other's points of view and then acting in the best interest of the Nation to forge a consensus. With that, I appreciate the opportunity to stand with my colleague, after a number of months of discussion, to introduce this bill, and I look forward to the opportunity to carry this dialogue forward with my colleagues in this body. Thank you very much.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Arizona for pointing out to all in the Chamber my tardiness, and I should not have been tardy because I do not like to follow the Senator from Arizona. I would rather begin before him. But I want to thank him for his work with me, together, on this important issue and amplify on a few of the comments he has made. Today, together, as cosponsors we are introducing the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution and replace it. I could not have a better cosponsor than Senator McCain and appreciate all the work he and his staff have done over the last months with us. I gave a floor speech about this issue in this Chamber in July of 2013, almost to the day, 40 years after the Senate passed the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Many of you remember the context of that passage. When it was passed in the summer of 1973, it was in the midst of the end of the Vietnam war. President Nixon had expanded the Vietnam war into Cambodia and Laos without explicit congressional approval, and the Congress reacted very negatively and passed this act to try to curtail executive powers in terms of the initiation of military hostilities. It was a very controversial bill. When it was passed, President Nixon vetoed it. Congress overrode the veto at the end of 1973. But as Senator McCain indicated, no President has conceded the constitutionality of the 1973 act, and most constitutional scholars who have written about the question have found at least a few of what they believe would be fatal infirmities in that 1973 resolution. It was a hyperpartisan time, maybe not unlike some aspects of the present, and in trying to find that right balance in this critical question of when the Nation goes to war or initiates military action, Congress and the President did not reach an accord. I came to the Senate with a number of passions and things I hoped to do. But I think I came with only one obsession, and this is that obsession. Virginia is a State that is most connected to the military of any State in the country. Our map is a map of American military history--from Yorktown, where the Revolutionary War ended, to Appomattox, where the Civil War ended, to the Pentagon, where 9/11 happened. That is who we are. One in nine Virginians is a veteran. If you add our Active Duty, our Guard and Reserve, our military families, our DOD civilians, our DOD contractors, you are basically talking about one in three Virginians. These issues of war and peace matter so deeply to us, as they do all Americans. The particular passion I had in coming to this body around war powers was because of kind of a disturbing thought, which is, if the President and Congress do not work together and find consensus in matters around war, we might be asking our men and women to fight and potentially give their lives without a clear political consensus and agreement behind the mission. I do not think there is anything more important that the Senate and the Congress can do than to be on board on decisions about whether we initiate military action, because if we do not, we are asking young men and women to fight and potentially give their lives, with us not having done the hard work of creating the political consensus to support them. That is why I have worked hard to bring this to the attention of this body with Senator McCain. The Constitution actually sets up a fairly clear framework. The President is the Commander in Chief, not 535 commanders-in-chief, as Senator McCain indicated. But Congress is the body that has the power both to declare war and then to fund military action. In dividing the responsibilities in this way, the Framers were pretty clear. James Madison, who worked on the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson and said: The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature. Despite that original constitutional understanding, our history has not matched the notion that Congress would always be the initiator of military action. Congress has only declared war five times in the history of the United States, while Presidents have initiated military action prior to any congressional approval more than 120 times. In some of these instances where the President has initiated war, Congress has come back and either subsequently ratified Presidential action--sometimes by a formal approval or sometimes by informal approval such as budgetary allocation--but in other instances, including recently, Presidents have acted and committed American military forces to military action without any congressional approval. The Senator from Arizona mentioned the most recent one. President Obama committed military force to NATO, action against Libya in 2011, without any congressional approval, and he was formally censured by the House of Representatives for doing so. The current context that requires a reanalysis of this thorny question, after 40 years of the War Powers Resolution, was well stated by the Senator from Arizona. Wars are different. They start differently. They are not necessarily nation state against nation state. They could be limited in time or, as of now, we are still pursuing a military force that was authorized on September 18, 2001, 12 or 13 years later. Wars are of different duration, different scope, different geography. Nation states are no longer the only entities that are engaged in war. These new developments that are challenging--what do we do about drones in countries far afield from where battles were originally waged--raise the issue of the need to go back into this War Powers Resolution and update it for the current times. As the Senator from Arizona mentioned, this has been a question that Members of Congress have grappled with and thought about, as have diplomats and scholars and administration officials and Members of Congress for some time. In 2007, the Miller Center for the study of the presidency at the University of Virginia convened a National War Powers Commission under the chairmanships of two esteemable and bipartisan leaders--former Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and James Baker. The remaining members of the Commission were a complete A list of thinkers in this area--Slade Gorton, Abner Mikva, Ed Meese, Lee Hamilton. The Commission's historian was no less than Doris Kearns Goodwin, who looked at the entire scope of this problem in American history and what the role of Congress and the President should be. The Commission issued a unanimous report, proposing an act to replace the War Powers Act of 1973, briefed Congress and incoming President Obama on the particular act in 2007 and 2008, but at that time, the time was not yet ripe for consideration of this bill. But now that we are 40 years into an unworkable War Powers Resolution and now, as the Senator indicated, we have had a string of Presidents-- both Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents--who have maintained that the act is unconstitutional and now that we have had a 40-year history of Congress often exceeding to the claim of unconstitutionality by not following the War Powers Resolution itself, we do think it is time to revisit. Let me just state two fundamental, substantive issues that this bill presents in the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014. First, there is a set of definitions. What is war? The bill defines significant military action as any action where involvement of U.S. troops would be expected to be in combat for at least a week or longer. Under those circumstances, the provisions of the act would be triggered. There are some exceptions in the act. The act would not cover defined covert action operations. But once a combat operation was expected to last for more than 7 days, the act would be triggered. The act basically sets up two important substantive improvements on the War Powers Resolution. First, a permanent consultation committee is established in Congress, with the majority and minority leaders of both Houses and the chairs and ranking members of the four key committees in both Houses that deal with war issues--Intel, Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Appropriations. That permanent consultation committee is a venue for discussion between the executive and legislative branches--permanent and continuous--over matters in the world that may require the use of American military force. Because the question comes up often: What did the President do to consult with Congress? Is it enough to call a few leaders or call a few committee chairs? This act would normalize and regularize what consultation with Congress means by establishing a permanent consultation committee and requiring ongoing dialogue between the Executive and that committee. The second requirement of this bill is that once military action is commenced that would take more than 7 days, there is a requirement for a vote in both Houses of Congress. The consultation committee itself would put a resolution on the table in both Houses to approve or disapprove of military action. It would be a privileged motion with expedited requirements for debate, amendment, and vote, and that would ensure that we do not reach a situation where action is being taken at the instance of one branch with the other branch not in agreement, because to do that would put our men and women who are fighting and in harm's way at the risk of sacrificing their lives when we in the political leadership have not done the job of reaching a consensus behind the mission. To conclude, I will acknowledge what the Senator from Arizona said. This is a very thorny and difficult question that has created challenges and differences of interpretation since the Constitution was written in 1787. Despite the fact that the Framers who wrote the Constitution actually had a pretty clear idea about how it should operate, it has never operated that way. Forty years of a failed War Powers Resolution in today's dangerous world suggests that it is time now to get back in and to do some careful deliberation to update and normalize the appropriate level of consultation between a President and the legislature. The recent events as cited by the Senator--whatever you think about the merits or the equities, whether it is Libya, whether it is Syria, whether it is the discussions we are having now with respect to Iran or any other of a number of potential spots around the world that could lead to conflict--suggest that while decisions about war and initiation of military action will never be easy, they get harder if we do not have an agreed-upon process for coming to understand each other's points of view and then acting in the best interest of the Nation to forge a consensus. With that, I appreciate the opportunity to stand with my colleague, after a number of months of discussion, to introduce this bill, and I look forward to the opportunity to carry this dialogue forward with my colleagues in this body. Thank you very much.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. I also rise today to talk about the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 and to echo many of the reasons for supporting that budget that were just spoken about by my colleague from Arizona. This is the first Budget Conference Committee in a divided Congress since 1986, and compromise leaves every side with something they like and something they don't like, but it is what Americans expect us to do. I applaud Senator Murray, our Senate budget chair, for her leadership since our very first Budget Committee meeting in January 2013. I applaud Congressman Ryan, the chair of the conference committee, for his work with his House colleagues. I was proud to be a part of the Budget Committee in this conference. Americans want us to find a budget compromise to restore some certainty in a way that will help families, help businesses, and help our economy. The day that I was sworn in as a Senator, before I took the oath of office, I was interviewed by a radio station in Virginia. They asked me what were the two things I wanted to do most immediately as a Senator. Only last week I was reminded what I said. I said: I want the Senate to find a budget that will be a budget for all of Congress, and I want to end sequester. I have done a lot of budgets as a Governor and a mayor. It was challenging for me to understand how in February we were here without a Federal budget but on the verge of embracing nonstrategic across-the- board sequester cuts in a way that would hurt so many priorities Virginians care about. I gave my first speech on the Senate floor in February to urge my colleagues to avoid sequester. In the months since, I have visited Virginia shipyards, research universities, and early childhood education centers and have seen the effect sequester has on Virginians, on Americans, and on our economy. I am acutely aware of the budget impasse and continuing challenges that are imposed upon this economy by gimmicks such as sequester, and the absence of a budget for 4 years compounds those things. We have seen the harm sequester has done to so many of the priorities we care about. No manager would embrace indiscriminate across-the-board cuts because not everything the Federal Government does is worth everything else. If we are going to be making cuts, they should be strategic. There are areas in which we shouldn't be making cuts at all. We should be putting more money into the budget to do what is strategic and what is necessary. So what we have done with this budget deal is we have taken a step back to regular budgetary order to give certainty to the economy and to give certainty to our planners who work for the Federal Government. And while we are not replacing all of sequester--and how much I wish we were--we will do a lot to reverse some of its worse effects. The budget deal is good in a number of ways. It replaces $63 billion in sequestration cuts scheduled to go into effect in the next fiscal years--2014 and 2015--and replaces those nonstrategic cuts with a targeted mix of responsible spending reductions and new fees and revenue. It increases the top-line discretionary spending level for fiscal year 2014 to $1.012 trillion and $1.014 trillion in 2015. It provides budget certainty for 2 years. This is something many of us in State governments, who have State government experience, have long embraced--the virtue of 2-year budgets, which are common at the State level because they provide more certainty. Under the agreement defense cuts of an additional $20 billion that were scheduled to take effect in January will not go into effect, and we will find ways to restore funding and avert sequester cuts to nondefense accounts as well. The bill will let Chairwoman Mikulski and appropriators write full appropriations bills to reverse the cycle of widespread continuing resolutions. Many folks in the Federal Government tell me that as damaging as sequester is, a continuing resolution--that locks in line items at the level of last year or the year before that, instead of allowing flexibility to deal with these situations--is just as dangerous. So our appropriators can now write full-year appropriations bills for fiscal year 2014 and 2015. With budgetary certainty, our Department of Defense will be able to plan and strategize for the future, as will our domestic agencies. We will fund critical readiness issues. We will allow the Navy in Virginia to continue to work on ship building and repair, which is so critical and, above all, we can show the American public that Congress can work together in a bipartisan way, which is what we are all trying to do and what the American public asks us to do. We do know, as Senator McCain and all have mentioned, like any compromise this budget compromise is not perfect. I would put on the top of my list as the most grievous challenge with the budget compromise not something that is in it but something that is not in it--the extension of unemployment insurance benefits to the long-term unemployed. In this economy, all of the economic data suggests the extension of those benefits is not only good for the individuals, they are good for the economy itself. The suggestion is the expiration of these benefits could cost the country 200,000 to 300,000 jobs. That is a weakness in this proposal. An additional weakness is the way we have dealt with the cost-of- living increase for military retirees pre-age 62 who are not disabled. I don't agree with that compromise provision. It requires a reduction in the cost-of-living increase for certain military pensions. The Senate budget that all those currently in this Chamber worked so hard on to pass in March did not contain that provision. It was not the way we felt we should be dealing with the budget. Obviously, we liked the Senate budget, and we found a way to replace sequester without making this change to military pensions. But it was added during the conference in order to find compromise with the House to move forward. Compromise is necessary because absent compromise the very folks who will be affected by this particular change will also be affected, because we have seen sequester and shutdown and furloughs affect military employees. We have seen it affect military operations, and so the alternative of brinkmanship and shutdown is no better for our retirees than this provision. We have heard from Secretary Hagel and Chairman Dempsey that they are supportive of the overall framework of the deal and it will help them address military readiness challenges. I am pleased Senator Levin, the chairman of Armed Services Committee--a committee on which I serve--has signaled his intention to review the COLA provisions in the Armed Services Committee next year, since it will not be scheduled to take effect until 2015. I am also disappointed that new Federal employees will be targeted for increased pension contributions. We have now increased those contributions in a somewhat tiered level for new employees twice in the last 3 years. But again, while that compromise is challenging for those newly hired Federal employees, the alternative is more challenging, because we can't keep going through the uncertainty of shutdowns or furloughs. It wouldn't be fair to those employees for us to do that. So again, we have replaced a portion of the nonstrategic cuts, and that is the way we should go going forward. I will continue to work to get rid of the rest of sequestration and replace it with similarly targeted strategies. For those reasons I urge my colleagues to support this deal. While I wouldn't agree with all items in it, that is like any compromise I have ever engaged in in my life. All of us who are part of a group--from the Senate of the United States to families--know that if you are part of a group, it is not always your way or the highway. You have to give and expect others to give as well, and that was an important aspect of this compromise. I will say in conclusion that another aspect of this deal I like very much is that it has unified the Virginia congressional delegation. There are 13 of us, 11 in the House and 2 Senators. There are 8 Republicans and 5 Democrats. We get along well and work together well, but there aren't many issues like this--big policy issues--where all of us agree. In the House last week, all 11 Members of Congress of both parties voted for this budget compromise. Senator Warner, as a budget conferee, together with all of us in the Chamber right now, are supporting this budget compromise. I am glad my colleagues from Virginia have pulled together, and I think it is a tribute to the fact we have all seen the impacts that the budget uncertainty and sequester have caused. I am glad we seem to be on the verge of providing that sense of certainty that will be good for the public and good for the economy. With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I recognize and pay tribute to Charlie E. Williams, Jr., who will retire as director of the Defense Contract Management Agency--DCMA--on November 25, 2013, after more than 30 years of service to our Nation. Director Williams began his public service career in 1982 through the Air Force Logistics Command at Kelly Air Force Base in Texas. Over the following years, his career included a series of appointments with ever-increasing responsibility. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Contracting, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, a U.S. member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Airborne Early Warning and Control Program Board of Directors, the team lead of Program Executive Officer and Designated Acquisition Commander programs, and finally, Director of DCMA. Director Williams was stationed at Fort Lee, VA for his final mission. As Director of DCMA he oversees the delivery of all products and services, from water to weapons systems, to our troops around the world. He leads nearly 11,000 personnel, both civilian and military, who execute contracts worldwide, covering more than 19,900 contractors and more than $223 billion in obligations. Recently, Director Williams and DCMA oversaw more than 300 critical theater support contracts valued at more than $20 billion, delivering logistics, security, transportation, maintenance and critical life-support services to 230,000 International Security Assistance Force personnel at over 180 forward operating bases. Under Director Williams' leadership, DCMA professionals provided mentorship and guidance to more than 60,000 deployed contractor personnel throughout Afghanistan, executing more than 5,000 missions, despite significant danger. Their efforts ensured service of more than 240 million meals to coalition force personnel, production of more than 10 billion gallons of water, and delivery of 48 million bags of laundry and 900 million gallons of fuel. I commend Director Williams' commitment to duty and cause, as well as his passion for public service. In every role in which he served, he contributed to the success of the mission, demonstrated high standards of conduct, and served with honesty, loyalty, and integrity. His long career of service will leave a lasting impact on our Nation. Director Williams is a devoted husband to his wife, Tujuanna, and dedicated father to his two daughters, Chloe and Charity. I extend my gratitude and that of the entire Nation to Director Williams for his service to our country. The Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States are fortunate to have had Director Williams among our ranks. I wish him the best of luck in the months and years ahead.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Sergio Aguirre and Erik Brine, who are two fellows detailed from the Department of Defense to my office, be granted floor privileges for the pendency of S. 1197, the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2014.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, Ken Burns, paraphrasing Wallace Stegner, called the national parks ``America's best idea.'' This is true not just for the intrinsic value of these lands, but also for the economic impact on rural communities across the country. Countless small business owners rely on outdoor recreational visitors for their livelihood. Unfortunately, last month's government shutdown caused the visitors to stop. For 16 days this year, at the peak of the fall color season restaurants and hotels were empty. Roadside stands had no passers-by. Canoes and kayaks, hiking maps, and bait-and-tackle sat unsold on store shelves. One of my favorite places in Virginia, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, saw not one but two major events cancelled: the reopening ceremony of the historic Assateague Lighthouse and the Chincoteague wild pony roundup. These events usually draw thousands of visitors. The pony roundup, in particular, also serves as a fundraiser for the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. Unlike park rangers, the local businesses that rely on visitors got no backpay. That is why I am introducing this legislation to suspend entrance fees at national parks and wildlife refuges for a period of 16 days, equal to the duration of the shutdown. The fee suspension leads up to National Park Week in April 2014. This will encourage more visitors to turn out to the parks and give area establishments time to publicize the free days and to drum up more business. The bill is deficit- neutral, and considering the breadth of the national park presence across the nation, I hope it will garner bipartisan support. We must negotiate a workable path forward on the federal budget so that the American people are never again caught up in the middle of battles in Washington. No act of Congress can reimburse the hard- working business men and women around the nation who got hit by the shutdown, but I believe this bill will nudge a few more vacationers out of town to take in the natural beauty of our country and support the local economies while they're at it. Given the attention that national parks got during the shutdown, I also believe the American people deserve a larger conversation about the importance of maintaining our natural resources for future generations. I hope this bill will spur that discussion.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, Ken Burns, paraphrasing Wallace Stegner, called the national parks ``America's best idea.'' This is true not just for the intrinsic value of these lands, but also for the economic impact on rural communities across the country. Countless small business owners rely on outdoor recreational visitors for their livelihood. Unfortunately, last month's government shutdown caused the visitors to stop. For 16 days this year, at the peak of the fall color season restaurants and hotels were empty. Roadside stands had no passers-by. Canoes and kayaks, hiking maps, and bait-and-tackle sat unsold on store shelves. One of my favorite places in Virginia, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, saw not one but two major events cancelled: the reopening ceremony of the historic Assateague Lighthouse and the Chincoteague wild pony roundup. These events usually draw thousands of visitors. The pony roundup, in particular, also serves as a fundraiser for the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. Unlike park rangers, the local businesses that rely on visitors got no backpay. That is why I am introducing this legislation to suspend entrance fees at national parks and wildlife refuges for a period of 16 days, equal to the duration of the shutdown. The fee suspension leads up to National Park Week in April 2014. This will encourage more visitors to turn out to the parks and give area establishments time to publicize the free days and to drum up more business. The bill is deficit- neutral, and considering the breadth of the national park presence across the nation, I hope it will garner bipartisan support. We must negotiate a workable path forward on the federal budget so that the American people are never again caught up in the middle of battles in Washington. No act of Congress can reimburse the hard- working business men and women around the nation who got hit by the shutdown, but I believe this bill will nudge a few more vacationers out of town to take in the natural beauty of our country and support the local economies while they're at it. Given the attention that national parks got during the shutdown, I also believe the American people deserve a larger conversation about the importance of maintaining our natural resources for future generations. I hope this bill will spur that discussion.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the NDAA which is currently on the floor. I wish to address a couple of issues. One I am passionate about is the veterans unemployment rate and how it is dealt with in the NDAA, another is shipbuilding, another is the critical issue of sexual assault and misconduct and, finally, sequester. Before I begin, let me talk about how important this bill is. This is a bill the Senate has passed every year for over 50 years. We pass it every year, even if we can't pass a budget, even if we can't do other things, because it is so critical to show those who serve in the military that we are behind them. I have heard some indications, even within the last 24 hours, that because of so many amendments that might be possible on this bill, would that call into question whether we would be able to keep our streak going. If we have to be here Christmas Day, we need to be on the floor Christmas Day to make sure we pass this bill before the end of the year. It is that important. It is the most important bill that comes before this body, and we need to do everything we can to guarantee the certainty to those who serve. In Virginia, we are so connected to Active-Duty service and to our veterans. My wife and I are a Blue Star Family. This is very important and we have to make sure we pass this bill. Let me start with a personnel issue that matters a lot to me, which is the veterans unemployment rate. Right now it is unacceptable that veterans, especially enlisted, who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have an unemployment rate that is higher than the national average. A report that was issued last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the unemployment rate for veterans who have served since 9/ 11 remains around 10 percent, which is higher than nonveterans of the same age. Ten percent represents 246,000 individual veterans of that era who want to work but don't have it. That is why I introduced as my first legislation in April the Troop Talent Act of 2013. A companion bill in the House was introduced by Representative Tammy Duckworth. The bills have been incorporated into the NDAAs in both Armed Services Committees. They are now on the floor and virtually identical. The bill represents a strategy to deal with our veterans unemployment rate by making sure Active-Duty military receive civilian credentials for the skills they obtain in the military at the moment they obtain them. The bill has a number of provisions. My colleagues on the Armed Services Committee were good enough to include them in the underlying bill. This bill will help us deal with the veterans unemployment rate, and that is one of the reasons I so much wanted to get to it and am so strongly supportive. Second is shipbuilding. The Presiding Officer and I both have a real interest in this topic, as all Americans do. It is an area of great importance to the State. In Virginia we manufacture the largest items on the planet Earth, which is the nuclear aircraft carrier, at the Huntington Ingalls Shipyard in Newport News. As the Defense Department reorients, resources its strategy toward Asia, we have to find the Navy bearing more and more of the operational burden of our military in that policy shift, and we have to continue to provide the Navy with adequate resources and funding through this provision to support that shift and to support shipbuilding. Unfortunately, sequestration--and I will finish with sequestration in a minute--poses grave dangers. So we need to do what we can to maintain this priority for shipbuilding. Right now the sequester has reduced our normal level of three carrier strikers and three amphibious ready groups, which weakens our readiness to deal with challenges in a very challenging world. We have to maintain the priorities mandated and the NDAA does that and that is one of the reasons I support it. Regarding the issue of sexual misconduct, 2014 is going to be remembered as a potentially historic year for a good reason in the military. I wish to make sure history is good and is not clouded by our continued inability to grab onto and reduce the issue of sexual misconduct. Earlier this year, I know Members of this body were very happy when Secretary Hagel and the military leadership embraced the proposition that women should be able to serve in the military without being barred by gender from any military specialty, that military specialties could have rigorous physical or training criteria, but that both men and women should be able to compete to serve in any military specialty, even combat-related specialties. We will be remembered--2014 will be remembered--for that. But that memory will fade by comparison if what we are really remembered for is we missed an opportunity, an important opportunity, to tackle the important issue of sexual assault. I congratulate Senators Gillibrand and McCaskill for all the great work they have done to bring this to the attention of the body and to look the military in the eye and say: This has to stop. They have said it would stop over and over for 20 years, and it has not. This has to be the moment when it stops, and these Senators, working together with us on the Armed Services Committee, have put together a sizeable package of reforms that I am confident will help this time be different. I also thank the brave victims who testified. I went to every hearing in the Senate on the sexual assault issue. Senator Gillibrand had a Personnel Subcommittee hearing. I was there for that entire hearing. Senator Levin had a hearing in Armed Services. I was there for nearly that entire full-day hearing. Committee markups in the Subcommittee on Personnel and the full committee--I have been to all the meetings. I have heard these victims testify. How brave they are as survivors to come forward and testify. I also thank survivors in Virginia who have come and shared their stories with me personally so I could grapple with what is the right mix. These survivors have done a wonderful job in making sure we address this issue. I tackled the issue of sexual assault in a way when I was Governor. We were treating victims of sexual assault in the civil justice system poorly in Virginia. We were not unique in that, but there was no excuse for it. So I impaneled a group of advocates and survivors to look at Virginia law and tell us what we needed to change if we were going to try to deal with this scourge. One of the problems with sexual assault is-- together with domestic violence--it is often a very underreported crime. If somebody breaks into my apartment, I do not hesitate to call the police and say: There has been a break-in. If somebody bashes my car windshield in, I do not hesitate to call in and say: Look, a crime has been committed. But crimes of sexual assault and crimes of domestic violence--and there tends to be on overlap, not completely but there is an overlap-- are crimes where there is underreporting, in both civilian and military, and on college campuses. So one of the most important aspects in any reform is to create an environment where people feel they can come forward with a complaint, when they have one. The statistics are well known. They have just been cited on the floor. By a statistical sampling, it has been estimated there have been 26,000 instances of unwanted sexual conduct, of sexual assaults in the military, and only 3,000 have been reported. We have to make sure these reforms we are about to embrace help us deal with this reporting issue so people feel a sense of comfort. What we realized in tackling these issues in Virginia is that for people to feel comfortable with reporting sexual assaults, they have to have time. You cannot make them make the decision about reporting in an instant. There is often a psychological component about deciding what to do. There needs to be privacy and discretion and confidence, and there also needs to be advice and resources. People need to know: what are the avenues they have. What are the legal procedures, how do they look, and what are their rights if they decide to pursue a complaint. I support the ongoing bill that is on the floor, and I will support some other proposals that are out. The McCaskill-Ayotte proposal I will support. I support the reform for a number of reasons. It affects the training and evaluation of military personnel. It affects the way sexual assault allegations are investigated, the way they are prosecuted, and the way they are punished. It protects witnesses. An amendment Senator Warner and I got into the bill--and we will be adding to it on the floor--protects whistleblowers who blow the whistle on an unfortunate or sexually harassing climate. But the most important part of this bill is what the bill does for anyone who has been victimized by a crime of sexual assault--to create a climate where they can come forward and lodge a complaint. In the military right now there are a number of avenues whereby somebody who has been victimized by a crime of sexual assault can lodge a complaint. Unique in this form of crime, there is a restricted report, where someone can come forward and report confidentially. That is very, very important. But this bill adds to it what I think is the core of driving up reporting, which is salutary. It adds to it, also, something that would be unique in the military. It would exist for no other crime category, no other offense category. If someone complains of a sexual assault, they will be assigned a special victims' counsel, whose job it is to have their back, to hear the painful story, to share the various reporting mechanisms, counseling resources that are available, how the crime might be prosecuted. At every step along the way, as that victim is becoming a survivor and dealing with the challenge, that special victims' counsel will be there to help them make decisions and give them the backup and support they need. This is based on a pilot project in the Air Force, a pilot project in the Air Force that is working. What we are finding, based on this pilot project in the Air Force, is even when people file complaints in a restricted, confidential way--they come in and say: I want to file a complaint, but I don't want to go against the perpetrator because I don't want people to know; I just want help--after they get a special victims' advocate and learn about the proceedings and learn about the protections, and they build up a bond with somebody who has their back, they are very likely to say: You know what, now I have the confidence to actually file my complaint publicly and take on the perpetrator--who needs to be taken on, who needs to be drummed out of the military if they committed a sexual assault. So I believe the core of getting this right is about giving victims an avenue where they can have the time, they can have the advice, they can have the privacy and discretion to understand what their options are and then make a decision and go forward. I think if we pass this bill with that special victims' counsel this will be the single best thing we will be able to do to tackle the crime of sexual assault. Let me conclude by saying a word about sequestration. A word that none of us knew before the beginning of 2013 has been spoken so many times on the floor of this body. No one intended for sequestration to happen when the votes were cast in the summer of 2011. Everyone was told across the board: Nonstrategic cuts to health care, domestic accounts, and to defense would be harmful to us. We have seen the harm that sequestration is doing to our Nation's military at a time when our military is getting more and more dangerous. Indiscriminate across-the-board cuts are not only hurting all kinds of military priorities, they are also sending the signal to young men and women who are thinking about military careers or who are in the military and deciding how long they want their careers to be--they are sending them a signal that Congress does not value what they do. We need to show the men and women of the military we value what they do. We need to show them by getting an NDAA bill done this year. We need to show them by ending sequestration. Will there be savings we can find in our defense spending? Of course. We ought to be looking at every item of government to determine whether we can do better and save money. But this across-the-board sequester that is grounding air combat wings, that is grounding carrier units, that is making us less able to confront a more challenging world, is not behavior befitting of the greatness of this Nation. I am a budget conferee right now, working on a budget deal. We are under a Senate- and House-imposed deadline to try to find that deal by December 13 so the appropriators can work on a budget. We will work diligently on that. I have an optimistic sense about finding a budget deal that enables us to replace this foolish sequester with a more strategic approach that will not hurt our military. Mr. President, I thank you for the time and I now yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Servicemember Education Reform and Vocational Act of 2013, SERVE. I am pleased Senator Chambliss joins me in introducing this bill. This bipartisan legislation will improve the quality of education for our veterans and military members. To date, over one million veterans have taken advantage of the Post- 9/11 GI Bill and $30 billion has been invested. Yet graduation rates remain a concern and the unemployment rate among veterans, especially young veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, remains higher than the national average. As the United States begins to draw down its forces after more than a decade at war, it is more important than ever to demonstrate our commitment to the brave men and women who have served and sacrificed to protect our Nation. An important part of this commitment is ensuring our Nation's veterans are prepared for their transition from military service to civilian life. In Virginia, one in every nine individuals is a veteran, and we have 27 installations across the State, making Virginia as connected to the military as any State in the country. As I have travelled throughout Virginia and have had the opportunity to meet with servicemembers, veterans, and their families, I have listened to their concerns and ideas. These conversations have reinforced my commitment to fight persistent barriers to veterans' employment, and ensure that veterans have access to quality education programs that yield results. For these reasons, it is our responsibility to ensure that the Nation's investment in veteran education and training yields successful results and gives these men and women the tools they need to succeed in the workforce. I am a strong believer that education is the best investment that any country can make to ensure the success of its citizens. This is why my first bill, the TROOP Talent Act, focused on assisting our servicemembers and veterans in their efforts to gain civilian credentials and transition into the workforce. The bill I am introducing today, the SERVE Act, is companion legislation that will raise the bar on minimum standards that educational institutions must meet to ensure servicemembers are getting a quality education. The bill will require institutions to disclose information such as graduation rates, withdrawal policies, and program costs to students and ensure programs fully deliver what they advertise. The bill will require institutions to provide access to academic and/ or career counseling for military and veteran students in hopes of not only improving their chances of graduating, but also helping prepare them for future careers. The bill will facilitate the use of VA and DoD educational benefits for employment training programs by creating a 5-State pilot program. States will be charged with developing best practices needed to ensure that quality employment training, apprenticeship, and on-the-job training programs are available and accessible for beneficiaries of the post-9/11 GI Bill program. The bill will require an annual report to relevant Senate and House Committees with disaggregated information on which schools and programs veteran and military students are putting their educational benefits toward. Today's veterans have been referred to as ``the next Greatest Generation.'' They answered the call to serve our Nation. They have put it all on the line and invested heavily and personally in the future of our country. Let us do everything we can to capitalize on their experience and character and prepare them for the challenges they and our Nation will face in the future. The SERVE Act will ensure that the educational benefits our veterans and military members earned are being spent on quality education.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Servicemember Education Reform and Vocational Act of 2013, SERVE. I am pleased Senator Chambliss joins me in introducing this bill. This bipartisan legislation will improve the quality of education for our veterans and military members. To date, over one million veterans have taken advantage of the Post- 9/11 GI Bill and $30 billion has been invested. Yet graduation rates remain a concern and the unemployment rate among veterans, especially young veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, remains higher than the national average. As the United States begins to draw down its forces after more than a decade at war, it is more important than ever to demonstrate our commitment to the brave men and women who have served and sacrificed to protect our Nation. An important part of this commitment is ensuring our Nation's veterans are prepared for their transition from military service to civilian life. In Virginia, one in every nine individuals is a veteran, and we have 27 installations across the State, making Virginia as connected to the military as any State in the country. As I have travelled throughout Virginia and have had the opportunity to meet with servicemembers, veterans, and their families, I have listened to their concerns and ideas. These conversations have reinforced my commitment to fight persistent barriers to veterans' employment, and ensure that veterans have access to quality education programs that yield results. For these reasons, it is our responsibility to ensure that the Nation's investment in veteran education and training yields successful results and gives these men and women the tools they need to succeed in the workforce. I am a strong believer that education is the best investment that any country can make to ensure the success of its citizens. This is why my first bill, the TROOP Talent Act, focused on assisting our servicemembers and veterans in their efforts to gain civilian credentials and transition into the workforce. The bill I am introducing today, the SERVE Act, is companion legislation that will raise the bar on minimum standards that educational institutions must meet to ensure servicemembers are getting a quality education. The bill will require institutions to disclose information such as graduation rates, withdrawal policies, and program costs to students and ensure programs fully deliver what they advertise. The bill will require institutions to provide access to academic and/ or career counseling for military and veteran students in hopes of not only improving their chances of graduating, but also helping prepare them for future careers. The bill will facilitate the use of VA and DoD educational benefits for employment training programs by creating a 5-State pilot program. States will be charged with developing best practices needed to ensure that quality employment training, apprenticeship, and on-the-job training programs are available and accessible for beneficiaries of the post-9/11 GI Bill program. The bill will require an annual report to relevant Senate and House Committees with disaggregated information on which schools and programs veteran and military students are putting their educational benefits toward. Today's veterans have been referred to as ``the next Greatest Generation.'' They answered the call to serve our Nation. They have put it all on the line and invested heavily and personally in the future of our country. Let us do everything we can to capitalize on their experience and character and prepare them for the challenges they and our Nation will face in the future. The SERVE Act will ensure that the educational benefits our veterans and military members earned are being spent on quality education.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I thank my colleagues, the Senators from Minnesota and Hawaii, for joining me on the floor. This is a matter I feel very strongly about, and I do wish to offer a few words to basically just raise the question of whether there is a double standard for appointment of women to this particular court, the DC Circuit. Before I tackle that question, I will say one thing knowing that I am speaking to a law professor. I am concerned more broadly about what I consider sort of a pattern of nullification. If there is a law we don't like and we can't get it overturned, there seems to be efforts to defund it or even shut down government--or, in this case, what I would call the decapitation strategy: If you don't like the National Labor Relations Board, just don't appoint people to run the business or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms or, in this case, the DC Circuit. The DC Circuit has an allotted number of judicial positions. This isn't something the President chooses. Congress sets it on the advice of the judicial conference. The judicial conference has not suggested the number should be shrunk. There are 11 judges and 3 are currently vacant. The strategy of blocking appointments is sort of a nullification of law, which I think is troubling. But let me get to the question of what I consider to be a double standard that is blocking some wonderful candidates from going onto this court. My legal practice for 17 years was in the civil rights area. In the civil rights area, there is a legal notion called the pretext. When something bad happens--you don't get an apartment, you don't get a job, you don't get your bank loan or your homeowners insurance policy--and if a reason is asserted for that, but the reason just falls apart, it is completely illogical, it is not borne by the facts, that is called a pretext. I worry in this instance there are a couple of pretexts going on because the instances that have been cited by my colleagues--the filibustering of Caitlin Halligan, the filibustering of Patty Millett, and now the filibustering of Nina Pillard--rely on two pretexts. Why are these candidates--Caitlin Halligan, who practiced before the U.S. Supreme Court, was the Solicitor General for the State of New York and did such a good job, why block her? Why block Patty Millett, who worked in the Solicitor General's Office under both administrations, supported by Solicitor Generals of both administrations? Why block Nina Pillard? Nina Pillard was the appellate attorney before the U.S. Supreme Court to argue for the need to admit women students to the Virginia Military Institute in my State, which they have done and it is working very well. One of Nina Pillard's supporters was the superintendent of VMI who was being sued. The promise of America will never be fulfilled as long as justice is denied to even one among us. Josiah Bunting has come forward and said Nina Pillard would be a great circuit justice. So what is the reason being asserted to block these three women? The reason asserted is there is not enough of a workload on this court. I think it is clear the asserted lack of workload is a pretext. It is nonexistent. It is a phantom argument which gets brought up whenever we want to but then abandoned whenever we want to. My evidence for that is pretty clear. There are two circuit courts--the Eighth and the Tenth Circuit--which have lower caseloads per judge than the DC Circuit, but we have been approving nominees for that circuit this year without raising any question about workload. So we will put folks on the Eighth and Tenth Circuits, even though they have a lower workload and no one complains and the other side doesn't raise that. I asked Members: Why are you raising that here when you weren't raising it on other courts, and they said it is because the DC Circuit is the second highest court in the land. It is a more important court. The phrase used by someone to me: It has more juice. Members on the DC Circuit might be on the Supreme Court. So workload isn't the issue on the other courts. It is just an issue of this court apparently because the court is so important. Let's now drill down on what has happened just this year. The Presiding Officer and I are freshmen. We came in on January 3, 2013. We came in with the pending nomination of Caitlin Halligan for the court-- supremely qualified, bipartisan support in the legal profession for her. She was filibustered, and one of the principle asserted reasons was there is not enough workload on the court. So she couldn't even get an up-or-down vote. Within 2 months we had another nominee--a superbly qualified nominee whom I introduced before the Judiciary Committee, Sri Srinivasan, and we approved him in the Senate 97 to 0. He is a male. No one raised one question or mentioned the workload on the DC Circuit Court. We had just turned down Caitlin Halligan--because you don't get an up-or-down vote because there is not enough workload--but within 2 months, a 97-to-0 vote we confirmed. I want to make clear, Judge Srinivasan is very qualified to be on this court. But the workload rationale just disappeared. But it didn't go away because as soon as Patty Millett is nominated-- as was indicated, not only a superb appellate attorney who has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than all but a handful of women in the history of this country, who has argued cases before the DC Circuit, where we hope she will sit, and other circuits as well. As soon as Patty Millet was nominated, the workload issue pops back up: The court doesn't have enough workload. Now Nina Pillard is being told she is going to be blocked also because the court doesn't have enough workload. I assert that this workload issue is a complete pretext. It is not raised about other courts and it is not raised about other nominees. Even this year it hasn't been raised. But it has been raised with respect to three superbly qualified women: Caitlin Halligan, Patty Millett, and Nina Pillard. I have only been here 11 months. I don't know all the previous history. But as I watch, women candidates are being treated differently on this court. This second highest court in the land, this court which has juice from which people may go to the Supreme Court, the women candidates are being treated differently. They are being blocked by concerns about workload which are not being applied in an evenhanded way. The last thing I will say is another bit of evidence which I think is fair to put on the table in this question of whether there is a double standard for women. During the Presidency of President Obama, there has also been the nomination of two women to be on the U.S. Supreme Court. These were debates we followed. These two women--Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, enormously qualified, with bipartisan support from bar associations and others. Justice Sotomayor, when her vote was finally held here, more than 75 percent of the Senators in the minority party voted against her confirmation on the Supreme Court. Elena Kagan, when she was up for nomination, 88 percent of the members of the minority party voted against her confirmation to be on the Supreme Court. We could look at courts that aren't the two highest in the land and see there have been more appointments of women judges--and that is a good thing and I hope there are more still. But when you get to the DC Circuit and the Supreme Court, it seems there is a double standard. It seems this phantom workload issue gets raised when it suits one side and then immediately dropped a couple months later, only to be raised again to block women candidates. I think that is a very serious concern. Congress set the law that there are 11 judges on this court. The President is trying to comply with the mandate of Congress in putting well-qualified women before this body. We should debate their qualifications. If folks have concerns about those, let's have that debate. But we shouldn't block them from being considered and assert reasons that don't stand the light of day. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 6, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Health Insurance Exchanges: An Update from the Administration.''

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 6, 2013, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the Bureau of Prisons & Cost-Effective Strategies for Reducing Recidivism.''

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on November 6, 2013, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Judicial Nominations.''

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today to speak in the midst of our budget conference about a topic that has consumed a lot of time here in this Chamber in the last number of months; that is, the effect of sequestration on the national economy and in particular the effect that sequestration is having on defense. This was the subject of my first speech, my maiden speech as a Senator on the 27th of February, talking about the particular effect of defense sequestration, cuts on Virginia and the Nation as a whole. I return to it today not just to be repetitive but because we now finally are at the table in a budget conference, and, as the Presiding Officer knows, I think this conference gives us an excellent opportunity to find a better path forward for the Nation. Sequestration, which went into effect in early March, has caused major damage to our economy and the capacities of our Defense Department. Our Defense Department is the most capable fighting force the world has ever seen. It is vital to our security, and Virginians and citizens of Wisconsin and every other State understand that. Sequester was designed to be so painful that it would force Democrats and Republicans to find an alternative. We know that did not happen, so the pain that was never intended to come into effect has been in effect. We have seen the impact it has had on our economy since early March. Fortunately, while we did not compromise in order to avert sequester, there is still time to compromise. Now when we are doing the hard work of a budget conference for the first time in 5 years, when we are doing the hard work of a budget conference in a divided Congress for the first time since 1986, it is now time to address these damaging cuts. Let me talk for a second about the effect these cuts have first on Virginia but then on our national defense and preparedness. Our Nation's Defense Department has been strung along prior to sequestration for a number of years, 3 years, with continuing resolutions. That is jargon that we understand here. For regular folks, it is as if you are into the next year in your household and you are told: We cannot make a decision so we will spend this year exactly what we spent last year. Well, wait a minute. We had a child in college last year who is not in college. Well, still you have got to put money into tuition. Well, what about a new need we have this year that we did not have last year? Well, you cannot do it. You are limited to only what you did last year. That is what continuing resolutions for 3 years in a row have done to Defense, with the exception of some anomalies that are passed. It is required for Defense to spend on the same line items and not, for example, invest more in important priorities. The one I always think of is cyber security. If you do continuing resolutions and you just spend what you spent a few years ago, we know we have a bigger need for cyber security than we had a few years ago. There are attacks every day. No one thinks the need to be diligent about cyber security is constant. No, we ought to be spending more. Instead, the continuing resolution requires our Defense and other departments to spend at yesterday's line items--or 3-year-ago line items. That does not make much sense. In hearing after hearing in our Budget Committee, in the Armed Services Committee and others, our Nation's uniformed and civilian military leaders have emphasized the damage sequestration is having on our military. In every meeting with generals, admirals, Pentagon officials, I am struck by their calls to us as Democrats and Republicans, as Senate and House Members, to end this foolish policy. The next hearing we will have tomorrow is in the Armed Services Committee, when we will be hearing again about the effect sequestration is having on military readiness. In Virginia, to pick one State, my home State has been hit very hard, in fact harder than any other State due to the large Federal workforce and many military bases. When you add to the sequestration and CR the effect of the shutdown we saw in September and October--the first 2 weeks of October--Virginians really feel it. Today, a total of 177,982 Virginians are employed because of Federal funding either directly with DOD or one of the service branches or through military contracts. For example, the talented men and women at the Newport News shipyard are private contractors, but they manufacture the largest items that are manufactured on planet Earth, nuclear aircraft carriers. They do it to keep American men and women safe. This summer over 70,000 DOD civilians in Virginia were furloughed. Construction training and maintenance on military bases was delayed, which affected private contractors. If sequester continues, as some are saying--some are fatalistic about it: Well, we cannot do anything about it--if sequester continues into 2014, 34 planned ship maintenance availabilities will be canceled in the new year. Each of these maintenance projects is massive and employs so many people. As many as 19 of these are on the east coast--34 is the national figure, 19 of these are on the east coast, including Virginia. This will hurt the ship repair industry in Hampton Roads, and could lead to a loss of about 8,000 jobs nationally in the ship repair industry. Not only have these cuts flowing from sequestration affected my State's economy, but probably more to the point for all of us in this body, we ought to be concerned because they are affecting our national security and they are degrading the capability of our military to deal with challenges. I wish I could say that since I was sworn in as a Senator with the Presiding Officer on January 3 the world has become a lot safer and more peaceful and less complicated. But to the contrary. In the 10 months we have been here, sadly, we have seen more instances of danger, more things to be concerned about, more problems we have to deal with. We are not in a static situation. We are shrinking our budget at the same time as the degree of challenges we have around the world is growing more dangerous. Just this year, the sequestration cuts that went into effect in March have grounded one-third of our U.S. combat aircraft. Think about our Air Force and how important it is in today's defense and planning for warfare. One-third of our combat aircraft are grounded because of sequestration, hampering our ability to respond to global crises and maintain strategic advantages. If sequester goes forward, that one- third will grow. The Air Force will be forced to cut additionally, by as much as 15 percent. That would suggest that nearly 50 percent of America's combat aircraft will be grounded in 2014 due to the sequester. We have to ask ourselves: How can we not have an Air Force ready to respond to crises at a moment's notice? Moving to the Navy. Our naval capabilities have also been significantly curtailed, reducing our normal levels of three carrier groups and three amphibious groups ready to respond to crisis within 1 week to only one of each. So, again, a two-thirds reduction in the availability of carrier forces or amphibious vehicle forces that can meet that 1-week response time in the event of an emergency. Again, we have got to have a Navy that is ready to respond when there are crises. Then moving to the Army. This year, because of the first year of the sequester--and it gets worse--the Army cancelled all--all--combat training center rotations for any nondeploying unit. So if a unit is being deployed, they are being trained, but then other units that do not have a regular assigned deployment stay trained as well to meet an emergency need. If we know we are going to be deploying a unit to Afghanistan to replace another unit that is coming back, then we will train that unit. But you do some training for the units you are not planning to deploy, just so they are ready if the need exists. But we have cancelled all of the training for nondeploying units. General Odierno has said that 85 percent of America's brigade combat teams cannot meet the current training requirements that are set in our defense strategy. We have asked what that means. When folks come before us, we ask what does it mean, you are not getting the training? Does it mean you will not go if there is a compelling security need or national emergency? They say: No, of course we will go. If the Commander in Chief or Congress were to say we have to go, we will go. But what training means is we will go, but we will suffer more casualties. What training does is give us the edge to succeed. The absence of training means--it is almost immoral to think about it--that we have a training standard, but if you put people in harm's way who have not been able to meet that training standard, you almost guarantee that the casualties will be more significant. That is not something any of us can comfortably look in the mirror and tolerate. So it is not hard to see that what was promised about sequester is, in fact, true. Sequestration is not strategic. It was never designed to be strategic. It was not designed to be the careful cutting of costs that you might do, that you should do, that every organization should do. It is not only not strategic, it is not sustainable in the outyears. The House Armed Services Committee--Republican House, Republican majority--many Republicans have admitted ``that sequestration of discretionary accounts was never intended to be policy.'' Our colleagues in the House, in a bipartisan way, have called for a lifting of sequestration, in terms of its effects on defense. Our Armed Services Committee in the Senate, the SASC, also in the NDAA that we are about to debate on the Senate floor, reached the same conclusion. We were sitting in a markup of the NDAA bill. I noticed at the time as a SASC member there was nothing in the bill about sequestration. All of our hearings, virtually, had touched on sequestration. So I put an amendment on the table, kind of on the fly: Let's just say sequestration is bad and we should get rid of it. We debated it right there as we were marking up the bill. I recall that the vote on the amendment was 23 to 3. Overwhelmingly in a voice vote, the Armed Services Committee, Democrats and Republicans, were willing to embrace the proposition that sequestration was bad. Actually the language was, not only is it bad for the DOD accounts, it is also bad for the other accounts as well. That is why I am calling, in connection with our meeting as budget conferees, for a sensible bipartisan approach to limit the negative impacts of sequestration. General Dempsey was talking to a group of Senators yesterday on the readiness subcommittee. He said: What we need to deal with in sequestration is money, time, and flexibility. The cuts are too steep; they are too frontloaded in terms of the timing; and there is too little flexibility for our military command to be able to use the dollars to do the right thing to keep us safe. We have to find a way to get out of the sequestration dead end and restore some of the cuts and provide both the timing and flexibility to make the management of them easier. If we reverse sequestration in this budget conference, that will create, by economists' estimates, 900,000 jobs at a time when our economy needs to get stronger and our unemployment rates to be dropped. It will add a whole percentage point to our gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So now as the budget conference committee is meeting--our next meeting is next week--I felt our opening meeting was a positive one. It was mostly positive because as we went around the table, House Members and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, there was an absence of what I would call the ``nonnegotiable'' language. I listened carefully. Being new, I do not necessarily know all of the details. But I know when I hear lines in the sand being drawn: We will not do this; we will not do that. When you hear that, you know the negotiations are going to be very difficult. I applaud the 29 conferees for having that opening meeting and not putting a lot of ``not negotiable'' language out on the table. When we meet next week, I hope that attitude continues because we need colleagues from both sides of the aisle, in both the House and Senate, to work toward a positive solution in this conference that will do a number of things: Help us grow the economy; help us deal with the debt in a responsible way, not an irresponsible way, but lift the effects of sequestration so that we can be confident we will be safe as a nation. I pointed out during the budget conference that while the House budget under the leadership of Chairman Ryan and the Senate budget under the leadership of Chairwoman Murray are different in a lot of ways, in other ways you can step back from them and say: The differences are not so mammoth that they cannot be resolved. They are the kinds of differences that legislative bodies around the country, State legislators often resolve. The top line difference between the House and Senate budgets for the 2014 year is about 2.5 percent of the Federal budget. You could argue that both of the top line numbers had a little bit of wiggle room in them in negotiation. So the actual difference, I would argue, between the two budgets, top line for 2014, is probably about 1.5 percent. Given the challenges in the world, given the challenges in our economy, given the American public's desire to see us work together to find a compromise, and the upside we can achieve, if we do, I cannot believe that 1.5-percent difference in the top line is an insuperable obstacle for us. We have hard decisions to make. We need to make them with the interests of our own constituents but the entire country in mind, in particular, in this world where every day we hear of a new potential challenge that can threaten our security if we do not deal with it in a smart way. We need to get past the continuing resolutions and the gimmickry and the shutdowns and sequestration, return to orderly budgeting, and do the hard work of finding compromise. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.