James Lankford

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, this is a long-term issue. This is not something new. I am amazed at the number of times I run into people in Oklahoma who say: Why can't we seem to get the budget done now? What has happened? I have said: Let's back up for just a second. Since 1974 we have done a budget and done it correctly four times total. The Congressional Budget Act was created right after Watergate, in 1974, to try to create this more transparent process. What they created was a process so incredibly difficult to work with that it has worked four times since 1974. We have only had 2 years since 1974 when we haven't had a single CR. That is a continuing resolution. This body just passed another continuing resolution, meaning the appropriations process won't be done on time again this year. That was settled today. The issues we face with budgeting are not new. It has been 20 years since we had no CR at all. This constant issue of putting the big budget issues off and trying to figure out how we are going to navigate through the Senate procedures and get the budget done has to stop. At some point we have to have a determination to say that we can't just keep saying: Next year this will improve; next year this will improve. We are not going to get a better product until we get a better process. We have a very bad process right now, and we need to admit it is a bad process. What I am proud of is that there are multiple Members of this body-- from the leadership of the Budget Committee through the freshmen who are brandnew Senators--who are all focused on the same thing. Let's solve how we do budgeting and actually get to a better product by improving the process. What do we have? We have almost $20 trillion in debt, and everyone argues about what we are going to do on a few things to try to do management, but no one is really talking about how we actually get us back to balance and paying off the debt. It is a common conversation I have with people in Oklahoma. This is a conversation where people say: Can we ever get this resolved? Is it too late? On the whole, Americans believe nothing will get better in Washington, DC, dealing with the budget, and their question is this: When and how does it get better? I wish I could give them a lot of hope on that. What I typically tell people is this: Let's just do a ``for instance.'' Right now, let's take the balanced budget piece that we had and that we put out earlier this year. It actually took 10 years and chipped away at the deficit. In 10 years we chipped away at it and got back to a balance where we had no deficit that year. It was balanced. Then let's say the next year we actually had a $50 billion surplus. It would be a pretty good surplus. So we chip away and in 10 years get to balance. The next year we have a $50 billion surplus. Do you know how long it would take us to pay off our debt if we had a $50 billion surplus? If we had a $50 billion surplus every year for 460 years in a row, we would pay off our debt--460 years in a row of $50 billion surpluses and we can get on top of this. Everyone says that is unreasonable. I would say it is certainly unreasonable if we don't change the way we do our process. It just continues to get worse. There are some basic things we can do. We can do budgeting every 2 years. People may say: Well, how does that solve anything? Well, that is predictability and planning. It creates greater oversight. Right now we do this every single year. In the speed of what has to be done, how it has to be done, there is very little oversight on our spending. We could actually put all the areas we have in spending--all accountable, every year. Right now there is about 25 percent to 30 percent of our budget with the appropriations process that we actually focus on every year. The rest of it is on autopilot, and it is never touched. Until we get everything in front of everybody every year to be able to look at it for oversight, we are not going to solve the big issues. We have to deal with what are called budget gimmicks. I have been at war with a budget gimmick called CHIMPS. It is my favorite of the gimmicks. There are a lot of them out there. It stands for ``changes in mandatory programs,'' or CHIMPS. The changes in mandatory programs is a budget gimmick out there that says we were planning to spend this much--when we really weren't, but on paper it said we were--and then instead we said: No, we are not going to spend that much this year so we will spend it on something else. But guess what. The next year they come back to the exact same dollars again and say: No, we are planning this year to do it, but we are really not, and so we will to spend it on something else. It just adds debt every year. We will have billions of dollars of CHIMPS built into our budget and claim that the deficit is even lower than it is. It is not. It is just this budget gimmick, and in real dollars it makes it even bigger. We have to deal with those budget gimmicks in there and be able to take that away so that when the appropriations process is done you get real numbers. The hardest thing to get in DC is the real number. So you have to deal with all these gimmicks out there to remove those. You get a longer time period to be able to plan and create some certainty, but one of the key things we have to have is an actual deadline. This town doesn't function on anything other than deadlines and pressure points. When it is time that it actually has to be resolved, we get it resolved. But if we don't have to resolve it right now, this town just says: Tomorrow. We will get it done next week. We will get it done next session. The focus is how do we actually create those pressure points? How about a simple idea that says that if we don't get the budget done on time--the appropriations bills done on time--then it goes to an automatic CR so we don't have a government shutdown, because government shutdowns just waste money on the whole? It automatically kicks in to last year's budget amount. But here is what changes. All of the Members of Congress, our budget, our staff for how we function, our operating expenses, all of our committees, and the Executive Office of the White House--that is the three groups. From both the House and the Senate and the White House, all of our budgets drop immediately. Let's say 4 percent, 5 percent, 6 percent the first day and then it does that for 30 days. Then, if you still don't have the appropriations process, it cuts again another big percentage. It puts the pressure where the pressure needs to be. It is not the fault of the agencies or the American people that the job wasn't done. It lies squarely in the House, the Senate, the White House, and our negotiations for not getting it done on time. It is a simple mechanism to say: If the task has not been done, put the pressure where the pressure needs to be--the cuts in the House, the Senate, and on the White House. Push all of us to the table and get it resolved. The goal is to do appropriations in a transparent process so the American people can see how their money is being spent and to be able to do it wisely and to be able to create a process where you can actually solve the problem. Currently, we don't have a process that solves the problem. This magically doesn't balance the budget. It still takes hard decisions, but it at least creates a format where we could solve the problem. Right now, we don't even have that. In step one, like an AA group, let's at least admit there is a problem. There is a problem. In step two, let's get to work on fixing it and actually resolve the process. Then let's actually get to work balancing this and paying off our debt. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk about this issue.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I am glad to be a part of this colloquy and to talk about what is happening during this conversation. It is not just Tinker. There are multiple major bases in Oklahoma. It is extremely important that we continue to maintain a strong national defense. In fact, by a margin of 54 percent to 31 percent, Americans believe President Obama's flawed Iran deal has made the United States less safe. This is a major issue for all Americans. People want to know that they are kept safe, that their government is actually engaged. It is the primary responsibility of the Federal Government to deal with national defense. Regardless of party, people want to live in safe neighborhoods. Regardless of party, people want their families to grow up in a world that is as safe as it can possibly be. In case anyone has missed the obvious, there are a lot of very bad people around the world who hate our freedom, who hate our values, and who hate American leadership. When America is strong, our deterrent stays strong and it stays clear. The last thing we want is thugs, dictators, and terrorists around the world challenging us, assuming that we are weak. That leads to the loss of American life, and it leads to instability around the world. This administration and the decisions they have made have made us weaker as a nation and have demonstrated to us as a nation that we are not as strong as we once were. That leads to that great instability, and one of those areas where it leads to great instability is when this Congress stumbles in its support for our military. Six times in 18 months our Democratic colleagues have filibustered the Defense appropriations bill, which should be the easiest of all the appropriations bills to walk through. I serve on the Committee on Appropriations. I was there when all the debate was happening in the committee. We passed it unanimously out of committee. Yet when it comes to the floor, it gets filibustered. You see, the basic rules of the Senate are--as this body knows extremely well--that we have to have three-fifths of the body to open debate on a bill. It passes by a simple majority, but we have to have 60 people of the 100 here to agree to start it. As long as the other side decides they do not want to debate an issue, we are literally stuck and can't even open debate on something as basic and that should be as nonpartisan as Defense appropriations. So what are we facing right now while all this is happening? Well, we face a very unstable world that has become more unstable, as I mentioned before, because of some of the attitudes and actions of the administration. The President's failure to enforce his own redline in Syria has led to instability throughout the Middle East, as no one knows where the lines are for anyone. Making a statement like ``they won't use chemical weapons,'' when every year since 2013 the Syrian Government has used chlorine gas on its own people, had our administration responding with: Well, that is not crossing the redline because chlorine was exempted from this deal. They couldn't use other chemical weapons, but they could gas their own people with chlorine. That makes absolutely no sense to anyone. The Syrians have continued to use chlorine gas on their people year after year, mocking the President's redline and diminishing American leadership around the world. In Russia, they continue to be on the move, with their own cyber attacks into Ukraine and into the Crimea. There is their leadership in Syria and the latest cease-fire, in fact, which Secretary Kerry and President Obama just negotiated with Russia and which favored Russia's position and is retaining Assad's leadership, giving Russia time to rearm. In fact, sitting down with Russia now and having to agree with Russia on places where we would have attacks puts Russia clearly in the lead of what is happening in Syria. It is fascinating for me to think that just 4 years ago the President of the United States mocked Mitt Romney as he talked about Russia as a major threat. President Obama flippantly laughed and said to Mitt Romney: Hey, the 1980s are calling you. We don't have a Cold War with the Soviets anymore. Well, somehow I don't think anyone would say that now, as everyone sees Russia on the move. North Korea continues to test missiles and nuclear weapons. China continues its aggression through territorial expansion in the South China Sea. Cyber terrorism continues to increase from areas all around the world. ISIS is expanding its reach around the world in what it calls its provinces. The administration continues to say that the territory of ISIS is decreasing. But it is also quietly saying that their expansion around the world is increasing. This is an unstable time in an unstable season, and it is a moment when we should all engage on some of the most basic things, like national defense. This body should be able to sit down and have an actual open debate on national defense and how that would actually happen. Do I need to remind us about what Iran has done in just the past year? It is helping to organize a coup in Yemen, destabilizing Bahrain as much as they possibly can, engaging in propping up Assad in Syria, and partnering with Russia to launch attacks with Russian bombers leaving from Iran to go in and do attacks. All of this they continue to do as they expand. As this government struggles with funding our government, the President of the United States sent $1.7 billion in cash to the Iranian Government. It is the ultimate irony--the ultimate irony--that at a time when the President and our Democratic colleagues don't want to fund the U.S. military, they sent three planeloads full of cash to the Iranian military so they could operate theirs. This is why we stand here as freshmen and say this may be the normal Senate process, but it makes no sense to the American people. How can planes full of cash be sent to the Iranian military and they are not spending here? Let me just give you some perspective. As the President looks out from his front window at the White House, he sees the Washington Monument directly in front of him, and $1.7 billion in $1 bills would be the equivalent of 1,097 Washington Monuments stacked up--1,097 Washington Monuments stacked up is $1.7 billion. That is what we just shipped to Iran. Why do we think this is important? Because we believe national security is important and protecting America is important. A flippant conversation years ago where Secretary Clinton said that Assad's time is almost done--that was 5 years ago--the President's redline, the failure to be able to fund our military on time demonstrates that we need to be more serious about national security. This is the issue the American people want us to deal with, and this is the one we need to deal with. With that, I appreciate the leadership of Senator Daines in this area, and I thank him for allowing me to join in this conversation on the Senate floor on something that is extremely important to all of us.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, 2 days ago, five police officers were shot and killed and others were very seriously wounded in the middle of a rally trying to bring people together, trying to allow Americans to be able to have what many call our ``conversation on race.'' As several have mentioned on this floor before about my friend the junior Senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott--Senator Scott commented on race all this week, as have several others on this floor who have talked about it. I hear many people in my own State and in the conversations I have had around my State speak about issues of race, and I keep hearing this ongoing statement: We need to have a greater conversation about race. Somewhat, I think, we as a nation are confused about how this actually gets resolved in some ways. So I wanted to make a quick comment and a challenge to my fellow Senators and others who may be around. The challenge is very straightforward and simple. We talk about a conversation on race as if it is something that can happen nationally at a rally, at a protest, in the media, among leaders. It is not really how America solves issues and problems. We solve it around dinner tables. That has always been the place that we have resolved issues as a nation. It is our families who sit down together and get a chance to talk it out. Over the past week, I have had this reoccurring conversation with people--just a simple question: Have you ever had a family of another race sit down with your family for dinner at your home? Have you ever invited another family of another race to your home for dinner? That doesn't seem like a challenging question, but I have been amazed at the number of people I have posed that question to who have looked at me, who have hesitated, and said: Of course, I have. Then I said: When? They had to hesitate and think and said: No, I don't think, really, that has ever happened. I have people I work with, people I interact with, play sports with, go to school with, and live in my neighborhood, but I don't think I have ever had a family of a different race than mine over for dinner. Here is my simple challenge to us. If we are going to have a conversation about race, maybe the conversation should start with each of our families at our dinner tables. It is what Senator Scott mentioned earlier. I have laid out a challenge, just a simple statement, what I call Solution Sundays. If you are going to be part of this solution in America, maybe on a Sunday for lunch or for dinner, invite another family over of another race just to sit and have conversation. Everybody can put their feet under the same table and develop a friendship and a relationship. Every person can do that. Every person can be a part of the solution. Every person in our country can start to move that conversation a little farther. It is part of who we are. We don't solve things based on a vote in America, we solve things around our dinner table. I would challenge every American to invite someone from another race to their home, just sit and have Sunday lunch together and watch and begin to see what happens in our Nation. Iran Mr. President, today is also an anniversary day. Today is happy birthday to the JCPOA, what is commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. Happy birthday, you are 1-year old today. In many ways we have seen some progress in some areas. Iran does have fewer centrifuges now than what they had a year ago. Iran has allowed the inspectors to come into some locations. That is a positive thing. Iran has allowed engagement in some of their purchasing of some of their nuclear materials. That is a positive thing, and I am grateful for the progress. I hope that progress continues, but at this point it is just a hope. Quite frankly, today, for me, recognizing the 1-year birthday of the Iran nuclear deal is a reminder to the administration that America and the Congress have not forgotten that this is a deal that has to be implemented with great strength, because the issues that we face in relationship with Iran are a multitude. Let me just highlight a few things just to be able to talk through some of the issues that I have seen and things that are still coming, things that have happened in the past year and things that are still to come. For instance, in the past year the international community has released around $100 billion to Iran. So $100 billion has flown back to them. What has happened in that time period? Well, they have recapitalized their banks. They have recapitalized in several areas they have needed in their economy, but they have also increased their military defense spending by 90 percent in the past year. That flood of money has accelerated the Iranian military buildup. We have actually contributed to that as Americans. About a month or so after and shortly connected to the Iran nuclear deal being announced and going through the process, Iran released several folks who were considered hostages by the Americans--Americans jailed in Iran. They released those individuals and shortly thereafter the administration released $1.7 billion to Iran from the Judgment Fund, saying this was part of the return from some of the money that was required from Iran from 1979 in the fall of the Shah--$1.7 billion. Interestingly enough, months later, Iran, in its movement, increased its military spending exactly $1.7 billion, and the Iranians announced those two were connected. American tax dollars directly funded $1.7 billion of Iranian military buildup. I wish I could even stop there. Just months ago, the administration announced that we were going to start purchasing heavy water from Iran. You see, we don't produce our own heavy water. Heavy water is used in development of nuclear materials for a nuclear weapon, but it is also used in research. The United States doesn't produce our own heavy water. We purchase it from Canada mostly. But instead, this time we purchased nuclear water for over $8 million from Iran. So we didn't purchase from our ally, but we purchased from Iran. I wish I could tell you that is all it is, but this is what Secretary Moniz announced with this statement upon the purchase of that heavy water from Iran: The idea is: OK, we tested it, it's perfectly good heavy water. It meets spec. We'll buy a little of this. He said: That will be a statement to the world: ``You want to buy heavy water from Iran, you can buy heavy water from Iran. It's been done. Even the United States did it.'' In the past year we have moved from sanctions on Iran to being Iran's salesman, to helping them sell heavy water to the world, telling them: Don't buy from our allies in Canada anymore. We tested the Iranian water, and we like it. You should buy that. That is a pretty big shift in the last year, to move from ``we have sanctions on you as a terrorist nation'' to ``we are your salesmen.'' People of the world should start buying their heavy nuclear water from Iran. That is all just in the past year. I wish I could stop, but many people have noticed, if they are watching the media at all, that Iran has launched multiple test missiles in the past several months. On October 10, they launched a missile with an 800-mile range. On November 21, they launched another long-range missile. On March 8 and March 9, they launched other missiles as test missiles. All of these are in violation of the missile test treaty ban that has been in place for years on Iran. What has been done so far to be able to sanction back down sanctions? Nada. They are recapitalizing their military. They are testing new missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear armaments. They are continuing to pursue nuclear materials in opposition to the direct agreement. Just days ago, Germany released a long report from their domestic intelligence agency, which is their equivalent of our FBI. They released a statement saying the findings by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution--that is their FBI--in a 317-page report said they had found that Iran had a clandestine effort to seek illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies at what is even, by international standards, a quantitatively and actively high level. German Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored the findings in a statement to Parliament saying: Iran violated the U.N. Security Council's anti-missile development regulations, seeking nuclear materials in a quantitatively high level from German companies in a clandestine way. Angela Merkel is saying they are continuing to press on the missile side of things. They are continuing to advance. At the same time, out in plain sight, Iran has purchased the S-300 missile defense system from Russia. They continue to have a tremendous number of religious- and human-rights-documented prisoners in Iran. There are an estimated 821 individuals right now. By the way, some of those also are Americans who are currently imprisoned in Iran right now--some of them just for the practice of a minority faith. Just weeks ago, I asked DNI Clapper, the President's Director of National Intelligence: What has changed in Iran's being the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world in the last year? His response to me was this: Nothing. They are still advancing against Bahrain to have a coup. They are still funding the civil war and coup that is happening in Yemen. They are still funding Hezbollah. They are still propping up Assad. In fact, I have increased their funding levels there. All of those things still continue to advance, just with more money and with more supplies now than what they had in the past. It is the 1-year birthday of the Iran nuclear deal. Iran is a rising power in the region and continues to advance toward nuclear technology. So what are we going to do about it? One is that we need to continue to remind everyone who is out there that this is a very serious threat. Iran with a nuclear weapon is completely unacceptable in this world. The largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world should not have nuclear weapons. The world community should at least agree on that. I have pushed on several areas. I authored a deal dealing with its resolution, in fact, detailing when the administration should do snapbacks. The administration has been very vague about when they will actually snap back sanctions. So we took their deal, which they had, went through it in great detail, put it in technical language, and put it in a resolution to clearly state: Here are the boundaries of this resolution so it has no fuzzy gray areas. Through an appropriations amendment, we have also demanded that we get greater detail of the $1.7 billion in transfer money from the Judgment Fund that was transferred to Iran. Currently, we have almost no detail on that other than that we know Iran used it for its military development because they announced that and put that out. Third, I have worked with Senator Fischer from Nebraska creating a Judgment Fund transparency piece so that we will never again transfer American dollars to any state sponsor of terrorism around the world. Couldn't we have that as minimum criteria--that we will not spend the hard-earned tax dollars of Americans to help supply the military requirements of a larger state sponsor of terrorism? I cosponsored a bill with Senator Rubio which prohibits giving Ex-Im financing to any company in Iran or to Iran in general to make sure that Iran is not coming, again, to the American taxpayer to be able to get some sort of subsidies to be able to do that. And as I have mentioned before, we will continue to remind the administration that no one is forgetting because we do not have the option of losing track of a nuclear Iran. Happy birthday to the Iran nuclear deal. I hope that in the years ahead, we can say that we have a non-nuclear power Iran, but I will tell you that based on what has happened in the past year, I remain incredibly skeptical of that. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, this has been a week really dealing with a lot of national security issues, both security here in our country and security around the world. It is a moment when we turn around and look at what is happening internationally. We think about ISIS and terrorism being confined to Syria and Iraq, and we face it here. We lose track that there are countries around the world dealing with this threat as well. What do we do about this, and where does it go from here? Let me recount the past couple of days. On Wednesday, two suicide bombers carried out an attack in Yemen. On Tuesday, an Indonesian suicide bomber, believed to be a supporter of the Islamic State, attacked a city there, killing himself and wounding a police officer and other security personnel. On Monday, there were three separate attacks in Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, there was a massive bomb explosion carried out in Baghdad that killed over 250 people--one bomb. Later that same day, there was another one, also in Iraq, that killed five people. On Friday of last week, in Bangladesh, our Nation watched in horror as gunmen stormed a restaurant in the diplomatic zone and killed 20. They took those long-term hostages, pledging their allegiance to ISIS. We forgot what else happened on Friday. Those things happened around the world, but on Friday of last week, many people may not know that the FBI picked up a man named Mohamed Jalloh in Virginia. He was plotting to carry out a Fort Hood-style attack. He is a Virginia National Guardsman who purchased weapons. He had self-radicalized after watching Anwar al-Awlaki's videos. He pledged to ISIS and planned to carry out a large-scale attack in Virginia. The FBI learned about it and intercepted him before he could actually carry out his attack. This is a week about national security. There is a lot going on around the world, and we face a lot of threats. This week has also concluded the security issue of the United States dealing with drug policy. Behind the scenes, in the Senate, there is a long-term argument that is happening right now about whether we are going to have a drug war or a political war. We have a bill that deals with opioids. We are trying to help local law enforcement engage in this opioid conference, but our Democratic colleagues have held that bill up and won't allow it to move through the conference process. While we should be dealing with the fast-moving opioid crisis, we are actually dealing with the gridlock in the Senate. This is a bill that already overwhelmingly passed in a bipartisan method when it came through originally. It has only been strengthened since that time, and it now goes to conference. We want to be able to finish the conference report so we can continue to fight the drug war here in the United States, but instead we can't fight the drug war because of the political war going on behind the scenes. It is a national security issue. This is a national security issue. This week we dealt with immigration policy and what should be the simplest, most baseline area of immigration: Should individuals that have been convicted of a felony--even a violent felony--be deported out of the United States if they are here illegally? The argument from the other side of the aisle is this: We should not force communities to deport individuals who have been convicted of violent felonies. This week a year ago, specifically July 1, 2015, a young lady named Kate Steinle was walking down a pier in San Francisco with her dad. A gentleman walked up to her with a gun and shot and killed her on the pier. There was no connection or altercation. He just walked up and shot her. This man, who was in the country illegally, had already been convicted of seven felonies and had been deported five times. The San Francisco Police Department was forced to release him and did not give him to the Federal authorities because San Francisco is a sanctuary city. They believe that even if you have been convicted of violent felonies before--if you are in the United States illegally--you should not be turned over to Federal authorities. This body had a debate on that. This body's debate was this: Do we agree that there should be places in the United States where violent, multicount felons should be kept and protected in communities here even though they are here illegally? Republicans overwhelmingly voted that sanctuary cities should lose some of our Federal support. There should be an incentive to say that if someone in your community is a violent felon--these are rapists, individuals who have been convicted of domestic violence, individuals who have been convicted of DUI. Not every person in the country who is here illegally is a violent felon, but for those who are, can't we find the common ground to say that those individuals should be convicted and deported? This body apparently doesn't believe that. What should have been the most baseline argument about our domestic and national security can't get through this body because we can't agree on the simplest things. It is not all immigration policy. This is just: Should you deport people convicted of a violent felony? Should there be communities in the country where violent felons are protected and kept in the United States even if they are here illegally? If we can't agree on that simple policy, how in the world are we going to agree on any immigration policy? It has been a week about national security but also the threat of ISIS and the movement of terrorism around the world. We have gridlock here--dealing with basic immigration policy and national security, basic drug policy, and dealing with an opioid conference. It has also been a week dealing with national security in a very unusual way. It can be spun politically, but it is really a national security issue. The Director of the FBI completed an investigation over a holiday weekend and interviewed former Secretary of State Clinton on the Saturday of the Fourth of July weekend. He then came out after the day of the Fourth of July and said there is a lot of evidence of breaking the rules, there is a lot of evidence of being sloppy and careless, there is a lot of evidence of what he called extremely careless handling of sensitive, highly classified information, but would not recommend a prosecution. Now, why do I bring this up in a national security conversation? Because it does connect to our national security. It is not just a political issue. The first calls that I received after that statement came out from Director Comey were from people who have classified clearances. They work in the intelligence community, they work in the U.S. military, they work on our military installations, they are contractors, and they have gone through the extensive process of getting clearance. Those individuals started contacting me with one statement; that is, if I had done what the Secretary of State did--which is to take classified information out of the government computer, move it to my home computer, store it at home--I would have been fired and I would have lost my security clearance. In fact, I had an individual contact me who worked at one of my military installations and who recounted to me a story from just last year. Someone who worked at that particular installation had brought their phone into work and had plugged it into the government computer so they could listen to music. That person was roundly fired because it put secure information at risk. This is a national security issue. It is the issue of what is the standard for how we are going to protect our Nation's secrets and whether there is a standard anymore. In a day when we face threats from around the world, in a day when we face threats from all over different regions and from Americans even here who are being self-radicalized, we should at least have the standard that classified information means classified information, and any individual, regardless of their last name, would be held to account. No one in America is above the law--at least that is what we used to say. The challenge we face now as a nation, with all of the threats, with all of the issues that we face, is, will we just argue about political things here and will political people get special favors, or will we take seriously the national security threats we face from terrorism abroad, from terrorists who are planning attacks here in the United States, from the opioid and heroin crisis we face, the immigration crisis we face? Will we take these things seriously? I would call this body out to say we cannot continue to just do politics here and not work toward resolutions on things that matter to the American people in the most basic things we face. This is a time we should continue to do the right thing. The American people need to not only see their government working, they need to know their government is actually doing something to protect the Nation--our borders, the drug wars, our national secrets, and our security dealing with radical Islamic terrorism from around the world. Let's confront these issues, not just debate them. Let's deal with them, and let's resolve them. Let's remind the American people that we can get things done to fulfill our basic constitutional responsibility and that we can carry out the law, regardless of a person's last name. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I would like to ask this body for just a moment to remember something that there are probably many people who have never heard of for the first time because, for whatever reason, a bit of America's past seemed to just disappear from memory as soon as it occurred. Let me take us back almost 100 years for a moment. The summer of 1919 was commonly referred to after the fact as the ``Red Summer.'' The Red Summer included race riots all over America, White-on-Black riots specifically. There were White individuals moving into Black neighborhoods and devastating those communities. That happened in Charleston, SC; Long View, TX; Bisbee, AZ; Norfolk, VA; Chicago; Washington, DC; Elaine, AR; Knoxville, TN; Omaha, NE; and many other places. Scattered around the country, one after another, month after month, those race riots moved. As World War I veterans--at that time, we called it the Great War--as those veterans returned home, many looking for jobs--and the anxiety that rose up from that--as many Black Americans who had bravely fought in World War I pursued jobs and were unable to get them or were hated by Whites because some of these Black individuals came home and took some of the jobs that they were ``entitled to,'' the tensions began to rise across the country. It burst out into riots. Oklahoma was mostly spared from that in 1919 and in 1920, but on May 30 of 1921, a young man named Dick Rowland who worked downtown, an African-American gentleman, was 19 years old. He was actually shining shoes in downtown Tulsa, which, if you have ever been to Tulsa and if you have missed it--if you have never been there, you need to go. It is an absolutely beautiful town. If you can ever see the pictures of what Tulsa looked like in the 1920s, you would be astounded. It was an oil boom town. Oil was discovered all around Tulsa, and people came from all over the country. Most of those individuals around Tulsa who put in oil wells suddenly became rich, and Tulsa became a wealthy community extremely rapidly. The architecture and history of it is beautiful. But, like every other town in Oklahoma in the 1920s, it was also segregated by law. The Northern District of Tulsa at that time was called the Greenwood District, just north of downtown. It was an incredibly prosperous community. In fact, African Americans from around the country moved to Tulsa because there were doctors and lawyers and businesses, grocery stores, department stores. It became a very wealthy community because some individuals lived in Greenwood and worked in Tulsa, which was a fast-growing, wealthy city. Also, there was great freedom within the Greenwood District. Oddly enough, the segregation that was required in Oklahoma at the time also caused Greenwood to grow because many African Americans could not buy groceries or could not go to certain restaurants or go into certain businesses or department stores in Tulsa. So when those businesses opened up in Greenwood and the population continued to grow, it became a fast-growing city as well. In fact, it was nicknamed the Black Wall Street of America. That community was extremely well educated, had many World War I veterans who had come home, many businesses and entrepreneurs. It became known as a place where Blacks could come from around the country and start businesses, grow businesses, and grow into prosperity. I would love to be able to show you all the homes and the places--what that looked like in the 1920s. It was a beautiful district. I will get back to my story about Dick Rowland. Working downtown in Tulsa--most buildings in downtown Tulsa would not allow a Black man to go to the bathroom there, but the Drexel Building would, so he would go to the Drexel Building to go to the restroom. He would go on the elevator because the restroom he was allowed to use was on an upper floor. That particular day, on May 30, 1921, he got into the elevator, and the elevator operator was a 17-year-old young lady, a White lady named Sarah Page. The elevator doors closed. As they got to the upper floor, they got off. At that point, Sarah Page screamed. To this day, we don't know why. We don't know if there was an altercation. We don't know if Dick Rowland bumped her and she screamed. We don't know if she was just scared, and we don't know why. But a friend heard her scream, came running, saw Dick Rowland stepping out of the elevator, and accusations started immediately. Within 24 hours, the police arrested Dick Rowland and took him to the courthouse and the jail in downtown Tulsa. By the time the afternoon paper had been released on May 31, 1921, the word was out that a young African-American male had raped a White female in the elevator at the Drexel Building, and a mob began to form outside of the courthouse. That mob gathered around. They say it started out with around 100 and then quickly grew to 200. The sheriff in Tulsa, understanding the threat there of this mob gathering around the building calling for Dick Rowland to be delivered to the mob, immediately turned off the elevator in the courthouse building and put up armed guards in every staircase around that building to not allow any of the people from the mob to get into the building, to try to get upstairs, and to be able to get Dick Rowland out. But the mob continued to grow outside that building. I understand that by the end of that day, it was now approaching over 1,000. Not far away from there at all, the men who lived in the Greenwood District heard that the mob was gathering. As I mentioned before, many of them were World War I veterans. They loaded up with their weapons and went to the courthouse to offer their assistance to the sheriff to be an additional armed guard there. The sheriff denied it, said they had the situation well in hand, and turned the men away. As the mob continued to grow and continued to press the sheriff, the men returned and said: You need our help here. We do not want a lynch mob in our city. We have all heard what had happened in other cities just a year ago. We don't want that happening here. The sheriff again turned them away and said: You are not needed here; we have the situation at hand. But as the men left that second time, some White men in the crowd confronted some of the African-American men as they left. There was a struggle as one of the White men tried to take away the guns from the African-American men and a shot was fired. The rest of it was chaos. Many of the African-American men headed back to the Greenwood District as quickly as they could as that mob turned into a riot. They pursued them back to the Greenwood District of Tulsa. It was not far away, literally just on the other side of the tracks from downtown Tulsa. They pursued them back into the Greenwood District and started a massive riot the evening of May 31. The police, trying to quell this massive riot that broke out, immediately deputized many White men who were gathered around downtown Tulsa, gave them weapons, and told them to go arrest as many Black people as they could to stop the riot. They ran into the Greenwood District and shootings began all over the Greenwood area. Many African-American men--the numbers are up over the thousands--were arrested, dragged into Tulsa, and were put in temporary detention facilities there and held, which left the Greenwood District completely unprotected. Looters and rioters moved through that part of Tulsa all throughout the night and into the next morning, literally looting every home, looting every business, doctor's office, grocery store, and department store--looting each one of them and burning them to the ground. By the time the National Guard arrived the next day to try to stop the riot, almost every building, home, and business--everything in a 1-mile square that was the Greenwood District before--was completely destroyed. It makes you wonder what happened then. It is estimated that over 300 people died that night in Tulsa. No one was ever charged with a crime. Dick Rowland, whom I mentioned before, was released from jail because no charges were ever pressed against him. Sarah Page never pressed charges against him. Insurance companies refused to pay the African-American businesses that were burned to the ground. They walked away. What happened next is even more surprising to me. I am not surprised that many African-American individuals who lived in the Greenwood District left. I don't blame them, but most everyone stayed. They literally rebuilt their homes by living in tents for a year. The American Red Cross moved in and helped build wood platforms where there used to be homes so that tents could be built in that spot and people could live there while they rebuilt their own home and rebuilt their own businesses. One by one they rebuilt. Mount Zion Baptist Church had just been finished a few months before that and had a $50,000 mortgage on it. No one walked away from that church. They rebuilt that church, and they repaid the $50,000 mortgage that was owed from before. Block by block, individuals started rebuilding Greenwood. By the 1940s, and given all the struggles that had happened, it never fully recovered to what it was before. What is also fascinating about it is that the State of Oklahoma quietly ignored what happened that day. Most folks growing up in Oklahoma have never even heard of the Tulsa race riot. In many ways, the Tulsa race riot is kind of like that uncle you know in your family who ended up in jail and at Christmas no one talks about. Everyone kind of knows they are out there, but you never discuss them. That was the Tulsa race riot for Oklahomans for a very long time, until just a couple of decades ago, when the conversation quietly started again about a very difficult part of our history. So 95 years ago this week, the worst race riot in American history broke out in Tulsa, OK. In 5 years the entire country will pause and look at Oklahoma and will ask a very good question: What has changed in 100 years? What have we learned in 100 years? I would say a few things. I would say we can remember. There is great honor to be able to say to people: We have not forgotten about what happened. We have not ignored it. We have not swept it under the rug and pretended it never happened. We remember. I think there is great honor in that. We can recognize there is more to be done and that we can't just say: You know what; that was then, and this is now. There is more to be done. Our own racial challenges and what has happened in the country just over the past few years remind us again that we don't have legal segregation any more, but we still have our own challenges as a nation. We still need to have a place in the Nation where every person of every background has every opportunity. It is right for us. We can respect the men and women who lived, worked, died, and rebuilt. We can pour respect on those individuals who are still working to rebuild. These are people such as Donna Jackson, who is leading a group that she calls the North Tulsa 100 who say that by the time we get to the 100th anniversary just 5 years from now, there will be 100 new businesses in the Greenwood area. The jewel of Black Wall Street was the number of businesses, entrepreneurs, and family businesses that were there. Donna Jackson and the group that is around her--business leaders, church leaders, individuals from the area, family members, and some of them even connected to the survivors of the riot itself--are all committed to what they can do to reestablish the business community again in Greenwood and North Tulsa and not looking just for Black businesses, but businesses--period. They wish to reengage a community that is still scarred years later and to be able to have some respect for those folks who run the cultural center at John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park and the individuals who are willing to talk about it in a way that is open, honest, and not accusatory. But my fourth ``r,'' after remember, recognize and respect, is reconciliation. What are we going to do as a nation to make sure that we are reconciled? This simple speech on this floor is not going to reconcile our Nation. We have for years said this is something we need to talk about. Quite frankly, we do need to talk about it, but we also need to do something about it. What can we do to make sure that our children do not grow up in a nation that forgets its past but also to make sure it is not repeated again and to make sure that all individuals are recognized and respected and that every person has the same opportunity. There is no simple answer, but I bring to this body a story that I think is important for us to talk about--the worst race riot in American history, in my State, and in all of our States. I bring to us a question. Five years from now, we as a nation will talk about this even more when it is the 100-year anniversary. Who are we as a nation? How far have we come, and what do we have left to do to make sure that we really are one Nation under God, indivisible? With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I wish to speak to the issue that was just brought up dealing with veterans funding and specifically the Choice Program. Three years ago, Congress put into place a response to what was happening in VA centers all over the country. We were all appalled with what was happening at VA centers all over the country. But for any of us who are in congressional offices, we were aware, were pushing on this issue, and had pushed on this issue for a while. But the media exposed what we all saw, and that was long-secret waiting lists for veterans so that the VA centers could keep their positive numbers up and look better--months of waiting for things that would take days across the street. As I dealt with the VA center in my own city, at times it would take 6 months to get a knee replacement surgery at the VA center, when at the great hospital directly across the street, they could get that same surgery within 2 days. As to hearing aids, it would take months and months to actually go through the process and to get them at our VA centers. As to cancer care, if you were diagnosed with cancer and had needs and treatment that was going to be required, they would literally send you across the country, sometimes more than 2,000 miles away, to actually get cancer treatment--away from your family. Congress responded to that by putting into place the Choice Act. It was an emergency. There were major problems that were happening around the country in multiple VA centers, and there had to be a response right then. Congress set aside emergency funding and an emergency response to make sure something came into existence that only loosely existed before. What was called community care was now clarified to say that this is Choice, and it was simple. If a veteran had to wait more than 30 days to get into an appointment or get treatment or if they lived more than 40 miles from a VA center, they would be given the option to go wherever they wanted to go. VA was required to start working relationships in every community across the country so that veterans would have the option to go wherever they wanted to go. I would acknowledge that program is in its infancy. It is 2 years old at this point. It has a ways to go to be perfected. There are still problems with it, and there is a constant push from Congress to provide accountability to make sure that program is done and done well. That should be the first step in giving veterans real choice. The first step of that is 30 days or 40 miles. The second step of that is any VA- eligible veteran would get a card and they could go to anyplace that accepts Medicare. If they accept Medicare anywhere in the country--any lab, any hospital, any doctor--they should also be able to receive veterans as well. So veterans can go wherever they choose to go regardless of the distance. I have veterans who drive past six great hospitals, drive 200 miles to get to a VA center, and their families have the burden of all of that travel. It should not be that way. Veterans should be able to go wherever they choose to go for care. So the Choice Program is not only a good program, it is the right direction to go and it is a positive first step. But here is the problem: The way this particular amendment has come up, it is not only not germane to this bill because it deals with something that started 3 years ago and we are dealing with a new bill right now, but it is also an issue of, we are doing the right thing the wrong way. My staff has heard me say this over and over again: There is a right thing to do and there is a right way to do it. Three years ago, we knew this was an issue. Three years ago, the planning should have been put in place to put this into the normal appropriations process. This process puts it into place, so we are adding $7.5 billion onto our children for a program that should be in the normal appropriations process that was started 3 years ago and that is not an emergency anymore. This is not an emergency. This is now normal funding of a program we want to keep going and expand. So there is a big issue here we do have to resolve. I want to see us do the Choice Program and do it right, but there is a right thing to do and a right way to do it. This program is already fully funded through the next year. It is not an emergency. It is in place, funded, and ready to go. It doesn't go away in the next year, all the way through the fiscal year. Let's put it in the normal process, let's do it the right way, and let's not add $7 billion to our children for an emergency that is actually a year away. No one is going to convince me that in a $4 trillion budget, there are not areas we could cut. Earlier this week I identified $86 billion in funds that are available to cover the $1 billion for Zika that this Congress decided to do in emergency funding anyway. We have the funds available. We can honor our veterans. We can do this and also honor our children. At the same time we are honoring our veterans, let's honor the next generation and make sure we are not adding debt to the next generation. With that, Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the McCain amendment No. 4039 is not germane to the Collins amendment No. 3896, as amended, or H.R. 2577.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I have listened attentively to the debate over the last 15 minutes about Zika, and it has been very entertaining to me. But it has also been interesting just to hear the numbers being thrown around. There is a series of numbers being thrown around as if it is an apples-to-apples comparison. So let me try to break down a few things with an apples-to-apples comparison about Zika and the funding. The President has asked for $1.9 billion for Zika. The Senate has now responded back to say: We will do the $500 million the President has already moved over from Ebola funding and add to it $1.1 billion to come up with about $1.6 billion--almost $1.7 billion--so about $200 million short, which is being declared as grossly inadequate. That is 0.2 short from what the President had asked for. There is also being thrown around the House proposal, saying the House proposal is grossly inadequate to be able to cover what is being discussed there because it is a little over $600 million. The President wants $1.9 billion, and the House is offering $600 million. But what is not being stated is that what the Senate has done and what the President has asked for is $1.9 billion over 2 years. The House has said a little over $600 million this year and added to the Ebola funding that was already there--meaning $1.1 billion this year and then in our normal appropriations process to take it up again next year. It may be the same amount. It has become very fascinating to me to hear some say: Well, they are cutting it in half, and it is insulting and it is all these things. I think to myself: It is the same numbers. They are just cutting the times to be able to break it down into different numbers. So all of these number games are very interesting, but they still don't drive at one essential thing. We do need to deal with Zika, but we also need to deal with Zika in a fiscally responsible way. The assumption that to deal with Zika means we have to throw the budget out and there is no way we can find $1 billion in a $4 trillion budget to cover Zika is laughable. So what I propose is something very simple. Right now, the Department of State, HHS, and USAID have $86 billion in unobligated balances-- right now. There is absolutely no reason $1 billion of that could not be moved to deal with Zika right now. It would be the exact same proposal that Senator Murray and Senator Blunt have proposed but actually doing it with unobligated balances. There is absolutely no reason that wouldn't occur. We know that $500 million had already been moved over from Ebola funding. That would be $1.6 billion moving over to help fight Zika. The real issue to fighting Zika is three simple things. CDC is actually tracking the movements so we can stay attentive to it. The second thing is dealing with the mosquito population, which is aggressive spraying. The third thing is working on a vaccine. All three of those things we can do, and all three of those things have already begun. The research has already begun on the vaccine. The mosquito spraying has already begun, and working through the tracking and the movement of the disease has already started. The implication that nothing can start until this body acts is not true. The administration, starting in January and February, came in and said: This is urgent. We need to be able to move funds, and we need to be able to have funds to do it. Ironically, in January and February, they came and held hearings on that, but in March of this year--2 months ago--this same administration took half a billion dollars out of the economic support fund that Congress had allotted to them last December, which was earmarked especially for--get this--infectious diseases. So in March of this year, the administration took half a billion dollars out of the infectious diseases account for international infectious diseases and moved that over and gave it to the U.N. for the Green Climate Fund. Now they come to us, high and mighty, and say we need $1 billion, when the one-half billion dollars we already allotted that can be used right now along with the one-half billion from Ebola, equaling $1 billion, was already allotted by Congress--was already there--and could be in operation right now. They chose to reallocate to a different priority. So it disturbs me to hear the administration saying, ``Why aren't you doing anything about this,'' when we did last year, and then they spent that money on green climate funds rather than spending it on Zika--what it was allotted for--infectious disease control. So here is my issue. We need to do both. We need to deal with Zika, and we need to do it in a fiscally responsible way, and we can. I understand the term ``emergency'' means one simple thing, spend more-- spend more and add more debt because it is an emergency. I don't think Americans believe that with a $4 trillion budget, we cannot cover $1 billion from previous accounts. In fact, if we want to be specific, the three accounts the Blunt-Murray amendment puts money into--they are putting $1.1 billion into a set of accounts. If we took those accounts alone, those accounts alone that they are adding $1 billion to already have $15 billion in unobligated balances in those accounts right now. We can be efficient in what we do and still treat things seriously, and I think we should. I think it is fiscally responsible to not just say the Zika virus is moving quickly so we need to add more debt to our children to respond to it. I think we can take care of our debt and take care of Zika. For anyone who would say it is unheard of to be able to move funds for an emergency like this, may I remind you in 2009, this same Obama administration facing the H1N1 virus moving around the world, asked for permission to move unobligated balances out of some of these same accounts to deal with the H1N1 virus. We are just saying, if it is OK for the H1N1 virus, why is it suddenly not allowable now dealing with Zika? This is not about Zika anymore; this is about breaking the budget caps. We need to be responsible in our spending and responsible in how we deal with Zika. Both things can be done. With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so that I may offer my amendment No. 3955 to the Blunt amendment No. 3900.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, there is one clarification I would like to be able to make. This amendment I have proposed--and would still stand by--allows us to be able to continue what is going on with mosquito eradication right now. That doesn't stop. I would hate for anyone in this body to promise every American that if we give DC enough money, we will make sure they are never going to be bitten by a mosquito. I am not sure that is a promise we would ever want to make because we can't keep that promise, but the amendment I propose gives the administration the latitude to be able to select which accounts this money would come from. We are talking about $86 billion of options on multiple accounts from the State Department, USAID for international aid, and also HHS. That is not for medical research and not for children getting immunizations. There is enough money in those accounts. I will repeat back the same thing I said before. This administration transferred one-half billion dollars just 2 months ago from the infectious diseases account, noting, apparently, that we didn't need money in the infectious diseases account and moved that money to the Green Climate Fund. So for the administration to say it is more important that the U.N. get green climate funds than dealing with the Zika virus is a different set of priorities than where we are in this Congress and a different set of priorities than we put into place in December of last year. This is an issue this administration already has the authority to deal with. It doesn't have to come from cancer research. It can come from allocating accounts. But there is no reason to add debt to our children to also deal with mosquito eradication in the United States. We can do both, and we should do both. I yield back. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I wish to spend a couple of moments to talk about the Zika virus and our response from Congress to it. There has been a lot of conversation about the Zika virus, both in the media and in a multiple of our committees for months, actually. This is not a new issue that has been brought up. This is an existing issue. The spread of the Zika virus is moving across our hemisphere. It is rapidly spreading in multiple countries to the south of us, and it is moving toward the United States. As most people know, the Zika virus is carried by a mosquito--a particular type of mosquito. Not all mosquitoes can transmit the Zika virus. This particular type of mosquito can carry the virus from one person when the Zika virus is in their blood. It gets in the mosquito. The mosquito bites someone else and transfers it. The interesting thing that most people don't realize is that the Zika virus for most individuals is not all that difficult or painful to be able to work through. In their own materials that they have now put out in their response to the Zika virus, the CDC tries to list the symptoms of Zika and what it really means for most individuals. For most individuals, it is something they will have for a few days. They said that for many individuals, they don't even know they have it. It is something similar to having a cold, where they may have some muscle pain and a headache. They may have a fever or a rash, but it goes away after a few days. They are then immune to it for the rest of their life. In fact, the CDC says that if you have it, the treatment they list for the Zika virus--obviously, they always suggest that you check in with your doctor. But the common treatment from CDC is to get plenty of rest, drink fluids, and take Tylenol. It is not something that most people should be afraid of unless you are pregnant, but the risk of birth defects is astronomical. Now, not everyone who is pregnant and gets the Zika virus also has birth defects, but for those that have, it can be very, very serious. This is to be taken seriously, but it is not a new issue as well. The Zika virus has been known to be around since the 1950s. It has moved through multiple different countries in multiple different regions. In the United States, though, we have yet to have a single case in the continental United States that originated in the United States. These are individuals who traveled to countries south of us in Central America or South America and picked up the virus there or in Puerto Rico or in some of the other areas in the Caribbean and then have come back to the United States. But it is yet to have a transfer, that we know of, from any individual within the United States to another person in the United States. Again, that doesn't belittle the issue, but I want to put it in the context of where we are. We are at the early stages of dealing with this as U.S. citizens. In Puerto Rico and other areas, it is very advanced and there are hundreds of cases there. Now the determination is this: What do we do? The CDC has already stepped up, trying to intervene and trying to find ways to be able to develop a vaccine for it, which they feel confident they can do. I met with the Director of the CDC not long ago. He feels very confident they will be able to have a vaccine within a couple of years. But then we have a couple of years that we are dealing with in the process just for the development of the vaccine and then the distribution of that vaccine. The main thing that can be done right now is actually putting down mosquito populations. It is getting into areas where there is rapid advancement of mosquitoes and actually putting pesticides in those areas to greatly diminish the population of mosquitoes. It is developing better testing for Zika. It is getting out the opportunity in different health departments around the country to say: How are we going to evaluate this and how do we know if someone just has a fever and a rash, if that is something else related to heat, or if that something related to Zika? The CDC is engaging in all of those things. In the middle of this, the White House has requested almost $2 billion in what they are calling an emergency request for Zika. I do believe there should be a response to Zika, and we should aggressively lean in. The last thing we should do is sit around and wait until the Zika virus spreads across the United States and affects many of these pregnant moms who are out there. Then we have birth defects because of our inactivity in the days ahead. But almost $2 billion in an emergency request is interesting to me because for a lot of it they haven't given us great detail on it of really what all of that will engage. But they have said they need this large amount of money. I have to tell you that I am a little bit skeptical when anyone comes and says: It is an emergency. I need $2 billion, and I will tell you what it is for later. We went through this with the Ebola funding, where there was a $5 billion request for Ebola funding. Two years later, they spent about $2.5 billion of that. Recently, the administration transferred half a billion dollars of that funding for Ebola into treatment and discovery for Zika. So they have already reprogrammed some of that money and have started to be able to move it over. I would ask just a couple of things of this body as we consider how we are going to handle Zika. One is to treat it seriously. Though for most people it is not a serious issue, if you are pregnant, it is serious. We should treat it seriously. The second thing is that we should do this appropriations in the normal appropriations process. I do not think we need to have additional debt spending. We can reprogram existing funds to be able to deal with this. We also need real detail of how this money is going to be spent so that we don't allocate dollars and then find out later how they were going to be spent. We have a responsibility as Congress to know how American tax dollars are being spent, and I think my skepticism is justified. Let me give you just a quick idea. Right now, if we are going to deal with actually funding this area--which I believe we should--then we should begin with allowing the Department of State, HHS, and USAID to have transfer authority within their existing accounts to be able to address this. These three agencies currently have $86 billion in what they call unobligated balances from previous years that they already have right now--$86 billion. With this much money lying around, there is absolutely no need to ask the American people to pay an additional $1 billion on top of the originally already obligated--overobligated-- and bloated budget. The transfer authority I would ask for would be accompanied by a comprehensive spending plan that requires the administration to detail exactly how it plans to use these funds and then report out any obligations to match up with the original spending plan. Before we write a blank check to the administration, I believe the American people should actually know how this is being spent. Now, there are some individuals who would say this is an emergency. We just need to add $1 billion more in debt and figure out how to pay for it later. I would disagree. We have transfer authority. This is not new. In fact, if you go back to 2009, President Obama requested transfer authority to HHS to deal with the H1N1 panic. Remember when the big panic was about swine flu and about H1N1 in 2009? As a nation, we stood up and addressed some of these issues. At that time the President made a very specific request for transfer authority to deal with this. That is not any different than what I am saying right now. I don't understand how this is different than how we were dealing with H1N1. Right now we have to have additional spending on top of everything else, but in 2009 it was entirely appropriate to be able to reprogram funds. Again, this is not new. As I have mentioned before about for the Ebola emergency supplementals, the President has already taken about $600 million from Ebola and transferred that over to Zika. It is interesting to note that in March President Obama reprogrammed $500 million from the Economic Support Fund, which is designated by Congress to combat infectious diseases. He took $500 million from the fund to combat infectious diseases and instead reprogrammed it over for the Green Climate Fund. So he took half a billion dollars from the infectious diseases account and used it instead for the Green Climate Fund--internationally. He has done this before. In fact, it was just days ago that the President took $8 million out of a different account and reprogrammed it to purchase almost $9 million of heavy water from Iran. This body, of all bodies, has the responsibility to be able to not only deal with the health emergencies that are happening around the world but also the fiscal issues that we have in our Nation. We can do both. There is no reason to do debt spending when the money is there right now to be reprogrammed. We do not have to break the budget caps, and we do not have to accelerate other areas of spending just to do what is our responsibility. We should do the responsible thing in dealing with Zika. We should also assume the responsibility we have to take care of the American taxpayer at the same time. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, the talk of the debt in our Nation has been diminishing. Unfortunately, debt itself has not also diminished. While the deficit has been reduced significantly over the last several years, the debt continues to grow. It is now crossing well over $19 trillion. It is my concern that we as a body continue to get distracted with other things and lose track of the looming debt issues we will still continue to face and we will be held to account for, and rightfully so. The American people expect us to come here and solve a lot of issues--solve not only crisis issues such as Zika and other issues around the country, but also what we are going to do with national defense and security. There is an expectation that we will be able to do multiple things, but over all of that, there is an expectation that we will balance the Nation's checkbook and find a way to be able to solve these issues. I don't think that is an unreasonable request. When we cross over $19 trillion, at what point do we as a body decide that this is enough and that we need to work together to solve the issues we face? The Congressional Budget Office continues to challenge us and to tell us that this is an unsustainable pace, and the Nation as whole continues to push back. I think we should pay attention to it. I thank Gene Dodaro and the good folks from the Government Accountability Office for putting out their latest report on what they define as opportunities to reduce fragmentation, overlap, duplication, and achieve other financial benefits. It is the report that GAO puts out every year that we often call a duplication report--here are the problems, here are the unresolved issues. Last year, I asked Gene Dodaro and GAO specifically to break it up and to make it very clear--not just to say where it is in government but whose responsibility it is, who can actually fix this. They broke it up this year into two different sections basically saying: This is the administration and the agencies. They already have the authority to fix this, and these are the issues they face. He also identified 63 areas that specifically only Congress can fix. It is a to-do list for us of things that we need to either vote on and discuss or we need to disagree with GAO and be able to push back on, but we shouldn't just ignore it and say we are going to do nothing on it. We have dealt with this every single year for the last several years. We all face the duplication. We all hear the stories about it. My challenge is, How do we actually bring this to the floor, vote on it, solve it, and move forward from here? It will leave some things actually addressed. Part of the issue we face every year with duplication is that duplication is buried into the governmental system, and it takes a GAO report to pull it out. I have proposed a bill for several years now. I did it in the House and brought it over to the Senate. It is called the Taxpayers Right-To- Know Act. The Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act already passed the House this year, and it has not yet cleared the Senate. The Taxpayers Right-To- Know Act is a very clear transparency piece. It says: Shouldn't we have a list of every program in the Federal Government, how much we spend on that program, how many staff are committed to it, what that program does, and, specifically, how it is evaluated? It is a very straightforward, transparent piece. Everyone in this body continues to talk about duplication and says we should do something about it. GAO then highlights it for us, but the challenge is that you can't easily identify it until you do a very deep search on it. I think we should be able to have a level of transparency so we can see where the duplication is by comparing one program to another. That way we can all address it and talk about it. Yesterday, at the Indian Affairs Committee hearing, we were doing a markup. The conversation in that markup was about several programs that seemed to be very good ideas to serve Indian Country. The problem is that many of them already exist in another agency, and they are not doing their job very well. The challenge is this: Can we get rid of it in another agency and not just start it in a second, third, or fourth agency? We can't continue to say: It is not working over there. So let's just do it somewhere else. Every time I bring up the issue, they say: We don't know what agency it exists in. The Taxpayer's Right-to-Know Act provides a very simple list that should be searchable and public and that everyone would be able to see. It is currently being held up right now and going back and forth in this ongoing conversation about something as simple as: How many programs should we see? OMB has pushed this issue back on us and said: We will have program transparency but only for the biggest programs. We basically said: If you spend $1 million on this program, you should have transparency. They said: No, let's do a much higher number. Let's do $10 million or more. Yesterday, we asked Gene Dodaro: If we dropped this number from $10 million to $1 million, how many programs will suddenly go away? He said: It is in the thousands. That just puts us in the same spot. We can't eliminate duplication we can't see. The famous philosopher Muhammad Ali said: ``Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, the hands can't hit what the eyes can't see.'' We, as a body, spend a lot of our time saying: I would love to get rid of duplication, but we can't see it. Let's actually expose it. Let's get it out there so everyone can see it and we can clear this issue. Let's just solve this very simple issue. Let's make it transparent, and then let's work together. Senator Tester and I had a great conversation after the Indian Affairs Committee hearing yesterday. We agreed that we would look for areas of duplication in Indian Country. We are not looking for more programs. We are looking for programs that actually work and accomplish what they should accomplish, and for things that don't work, we can eliminate them. We can take that money from one area and put it in another area where it actually does work. At the end of the day, we have to get back to balance. We can't keep funding duplicative programs that don't work, and we should be able to accomplish this together. Last year, I put out a report called ``Federal Fumbles: 100 Ways the Government Dropped the Ball.'' Two-thirds of that book identified duplication and waste in the government. We have made progress on some of those already this year. We have so much more to do. The key to it is that we actually need to get busy working on it instead of just talking about it. Yesterday, Gene Dodaro, who is with GAO, also mentioned a bill that Ben Sasse is working on called the new hire database bill. I think it is a very good bill, and I am glad to be supportive of what he is trying to accomplish there. Senator Sasse wants to do one thing, and that is to be able to say that when we actually do means-tested programs, we should be able to see the employment records. That should be a very open process for those who are in the means-tested program, but right now GAO and other groups do not have access to the new hires database. So there is no way to see those in the means-tested program. There are people who self-report their income, and there is no way to be able to verify that. Shouldn't we be able to verify that? It is a straightforward solution in a day and time when they continue to bring up obvious things year after year, such as having the same person being eligible for disability and unemployment insurance at the same time. That person will actually receive unemployment and disability benefits simultaneously. Disability benefits, by definition, means you cannot work anywhere in the economy, and that is why you get disability benefits. Unemployment benefits, by definition, means you can work in the economy, but you are not currently employed. Why should you be eligible for both? GAO has brought that up to us. That is not a partisan issue. That should be a solvable issue, and it is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. It is one of the things that we have to be able to work on together so we can actually solve this problem. This is not too hard for us, and the American people expect us to get it done. My only challenge is this: Let's actually get it done. With that, I yield back.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, there are a lot of good things in this bill that we are discussing. There are a lot of good amendments that have been brought to the floor. There has been an awful lot of conversation over the past year about a program called the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is a straightforward program that has been around for a long time. It takes money from revenue from offshore oil drilling and it uses that money to purchase land, usually next to a national park or in other areas, and that becomes Federal land. The problem is that over the decades we have continued to accumulate more money in the Land and Water Conservation Fund and we have continued to accumulate more land onto the Federal roll but we are not taking care of what we have. The issue with this particular version of the Land and Water Conservation Fund is that it is not a short-term extension the way it has always been in the past; it is a permanent program put in place-- permanent meaning there are no changes. So permanently we put in a structure that continues to purchase Federal lands without maintaining those lands. We all know it. We all see it. Year after year, everyone has said we should add more to maintenance, but year after year we just buy more land using the Land and Water Conservation Fund and never use other budget funds for maintenance because, quite frankly, there are a lot of other vital Federal issues that need to be paid for. The simple solution to this is to take the money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund and make sure that one simple thing is done: that when we purchase land, we also maintain that land with that funding. We also take care of the backlog. This amendment is very straightforward: We use 50 percent to purchase land and 50 percent to maintain the land until we at least get down to a $1 billion backlog, and then we can reconsider. A $1 billion backlog is the goal. In some ways, this has become controversial. I can't believe it would be controversial to say: Let's try to work our Nation down to only a $1 billion backlog in our maintenance for all our Federal facilities. We have record attendance at our national parks. They are beautiful national treasures, but if we can't maintain them, then we reinforce what is already true: that the Federal Government is the largest landowner, largest land controller, and the worst landowner in the country. Federal lands are maintained the least of any other large holder of land. Let's fix it. This doesn't take away the Land and Water Conservation Fund; this makes sure we take care of what we have. When we purchase land and bring it in, we make sure we also set aside money to fix it. Frankly, it is straightforward. Today my daughter turns 16 years old. She will at some point get a used car. I am sure it will be a doozy--we are thinking somewhere around a 1978 Volvo. Nice and tough. Indestructible. At some point she will end up with a used car, but the requirement is that she has to be a part of the purchase of it. When we buy that car, we will not use everything in our savings account, nor will we allow her to use all of her savings account. She has to have enough money to be able to put gas in it and maintain it when it breaks down because it is a car and it will break down. This change in the Land and Water Conservation Fund is as simple as that. Whenever we put new land in the inventory, we make sure we have money set aside to make sure we can actually take care of it. Why have a car if you can't put gas in it? Why continue to add land year after year if we are not going to maintain it? That is not good stewardship of our resources; that is bad stewardship of our resources. This amendment says that before we make this program permanent, let's fix the structure of this program to make sure we are also watching out for the program long term as well. One other quick note. Some of the land that has been purchased has been purchased for very high amounts, such as $1-million-per-acre types of amounts. This amendment puts a simple block in it that says: Before there is a purchase of land for more than $50,000 an acre, run that through Congress to make sure someone has had a second look at that. It is a straightforward provision to make sure the Federal taxpayer is not paying more than they should per acre for land in the Federal inventory. I would urge the adoption of this amendment. This doesn't kill the program; it enhances the program. It allows us to take better care of our Federal land and to engage with that. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 3210 and ask that it be reported by number.

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

Mr. LANKFORD. With that, I yield back.

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, it is a very straightforward Land and Water Conservation Fund amendment. We have common agreement on the Land and Water Conservation Fund--what it does, what it funds, how it is funded. Where we have some dispute is in whether we are we taking care of the land that we have. We continue to add more acres into the Federal inventory, and we are not taking care of them. The original plan of the Land and Water Conservation Fund is that someday, out of general budget, we will do maintenance on this, but let's keep adding land. We have all known for decades that has not worked. For decades we have added more land, and for decades we are not maintaining it. The easiest way to identify this amendment is this: This amendment is about not only purchasing land but taking care of the land that we actually purchased. It splits half and half--half for the purchase of land and half for the maintenance. My daughter's birthday is today. She is 16. She will get a car--an old used car--at some point. But the requirement for her is to not only help pay for the car but to actually have enough in her bank account that she can help maintain it and buy gasoline for it. She has to have a job so she can have income. We have set aside the Land and Water Conservation Fund to continually get more land but not be able to maintain it. We wouldn't do that with our children. We wouldn't do that with our homes. But we have done it year after year with this. Let's do something simple. Let's maintain what we actually purchased and make sure it comes into strict oversight of the Federal Government. We should take care of our Federal treasures that are these national parks and other Federal lands.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in February of this year, Justice Scalia passed away. It was an enormous loss to the Nation. In the hours and the days following that, Republicans in the Senate had the opportunity to talk about their constitutional responsibility-- the responsibility of advice and consent. Supreme Court justices don't show up to the Supreme Court because the President just nominates them. In the Constitution, article II, section 2, lays out a 50-50 proposition. The President has the first 50 percent. He narrows down his list, and he nominates. The Senate then has the second 50 percent. They have the power of what is called advice and consent. The first half of that is when. Is this the right time to do a nominee? And with many nominees, historically--Ambassadors, Justices, Cabinet officers--the Senate has had a long delay to be able to say: No, this is not the right time. So the first question is, Is this the right time? The second question is, Is this the right person? That is the process of advice and consent, and it has been for 200 years. So what has happened since February? Since February, Republicans have been very consistent--myself included--to say: This is not the time to have a Supreme Court Justice go through the nomination process. In the hours after Justice Scalia passed away, we made it very clear so that any nominee who went through the process, regardless of who they were, would know in advance this: You will not move to a hearing because it is not the right time. Of our two-part test--Is this the right time? Is this the right person?--the first part is not complete. It is not the right time. So this nominee will not move at all throughout this entire year, and everyone knew that in advance. So I understand Republicans have talked about the first test on that, the priority of ``is this the right time?'' Democrats have focused on ``is this the right person?'' They have focused on Judge Garland as the nominee. They want to be able to raise and talk about his profile, and I get the politics of that. But it is just the politics of it. We would expect that banter back and forth on the politics, but this is a settled issue among Republicans. He will not move through the nomination process. But we hit a new low today on this floor, and I had to come and address it. Today, this moved from a conversation about whether this is the right time and whether this is the right person to drawing in the memory of the 168 lives that were lost in Oklahoma City 21 years ago today--April 19, 1995. It was the worst act of terrorism at that time on American soil, carried out by another American, killing 168 people at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A Ryder truck loaded with fertilizer and diesel pulled up to the front and blew it up, killing 168. Timothy McVeigh carried that out. He got into his Ford and drove north to leave out of the State. But 90 minutes later--90 minutes later--Trooper Charlie Hanger, who was just doing his job, saw a vehicle on I-35 without a license plate on it, pulled him over, found out he also had a weapon on him, and put him in jail to be able to hold him. Trooper Charlie Hanger, doing his job, actually arrested the person who had killed 168 people just 90 minutes before, not knowing it. Local law enforcement and individuals quickly went through the debris trying to find individuals to save and evidence to be able to identify who this was. Within a few hours, they found the axle of the Ryder truck. They called the rental company. They identified it. They did a composite sketch, and they figured out within hours who this might be-- a guy named Timothy McVeigh. Running a search on him, they figured out he was already in jail. He had been picked up by Trooper Charlie Hanger. Before he was released--because he was in the process of being released--they were able to hold him and unwind a horrific crime. It was incredible local law enforcement. It was an incredible task that happened. Within 40 hours of that event occurring, a gentleman named Merrick Garland had come from DC, where he worked for the Department of Justice, to Oklahoma City to help on the Federal side of the prosecution, along with thousands of other people from around the country. Our State and our city was overwhelmed with the compassion of people around the country as we saw what happened, and Merrick Garland was one of those. We are grateful as a community for what he did in the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh, what he did against Terry Nichols, and what he did against Michael Fortier. We are grateful for his work there. But today, on the floor of this Senate, the implication was laid out twofold. One is that, since Judge Garland served the country and did that, he deserves something else. I have never met Judge Garland. I will meet him next week and, quite frankly, look him in the face and say: Thank you for your service to Oklahoma. To make clear again the same position before, there will be no nomination this year. He does deserve our gratitude. He doesn't deserve a lifetime appointment onto the bench because of his faithful service to our country and to our community as is being alluded to. The politics of it really, really deeply struck me as an Oklahoman-- that for some reason, today, of all days, the tragedy that happened to 168 people and their death 21 years ago suddenly became paraded out here as a political prop. One of the Senators was even standing with a picture of a dead child behind him like she is a prop. This child is not a prop for politics. She has a name. She was identified as a toddler. She was 1 year and 1 day old. She was killed in the Murrah Building the day after her 1-year birthday. She is not some random toddler. Her name is Baylee, and she is not to be used as a prop for politics in the Supreme Court nomination process. It is absolutely fair game to talk about the record of Judge Garland and what he has done. We are grateful as Oklahomans for his service to our State and to our Nation to put away those awful terrorists. But to use a child who was killed in the Murrah Building bombing as a prop so far exceeds the line that I had to come and speak about it and say that I am absolutely offended--and I should be. So it was 21 years ago today. We remember. It is a statement that comes up to Oklahomans over and over: We remember. We remember the victims. We remember the survivors. We remember the first responders. We remember the thousands of people who came from across the country to help us. We remember, and we will continue to remember. But don't do politics with the life and death of the children and adults in Oklahoma City. Let's keep this where it should be. We could have the debate about process. Do not draw this in. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, as I traveled all over Oklahoma during the State work weeks in March, I heard the concerns over and over from families in my State about terrorism. I talked with a gentleman in Coalgate, OK, who absolutely could not understand how the United States could release $1 billion to Iran the same month that rural hospitals across our State and across America were facing new cuts from CMS in new criteria there. That $1 billion that was sent by the United States to Iran could have bailed out every single rural hospital in America. I talked to a mom in Lawton who did not understand why there was a conversation in DC about closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and bringing those individuals into the United States. I talked to a dad in Tulsa, a dad of a soldier, who wanted to know what is happening with terrorism and what is America's response. I talked to an Oklahoma business owner who is very concerned about cyber security and the threat of foreign governments attacking his network and other networks and businesses around the country. As details come out about what happened in Brussels in that terrorist attack, every American has their security and their family in mind. I continue to pray for the victims of those awful attacks and work to determine the best way our great Nation can confront this threat. As the only Member of this body who serves on both the Homeland Security and the Intelligence Committees, I have the privilege to ensure that Oklahomans and Americans have a strong voice in the discussion over our Nation's national security priorities. There is no simple solution, though, and there is no single method to confront terrorism. But we must be absolutely clear that terrorists will find no quarter in the land of the free, in the home of the brave. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I walk behind a heavy door several times a week to hear the sobering details about foreign threats and the amazing work that Americans do to confront them. I wish we could talk about all those things here because I believe Americans would be very proud of the work that is going on. We can talk about disrupted terrorist plots and insight into adversaries' plans that allow us to adjust and to prepare and to confront those terrorists before they bring the fight here. There are hard questions behind those closed doors. Oversight should be expected, and open discussions should be expected. Let me say today how incredibly grateful I am for the people in the intelligence community who work hard every single day. Members of our military and members of law enforcement around the country wear uniforms, and we get a chance to say thank you to them personally when we see them. But members of the intelligence community are patriotic Americans who are working to protect their families and our families every day. We don't get to say thank you to them because we don't know who they are. But let me say thank you to them today from our country. Right now, members of radical Islamic groups around the world are calling out on social media, through encrypted messages and in public forums around the world, for the small minority of Muslims who believe as they do and who believe in their hate-filled doomsday mission. They tell people that if they believe as they do, they should kill as they do. ISIS is enraged by our views about free speech, freedom of religion, girls attending school, equal pay, equal opportunity, and even voting in elections. It is almost impossible for Americans to imagine their hatred for the modern world and for freedom and basic human rights. How do you win against an enemy like that? You confront them is how you do it, not ignore them. You deal with their ideology that spreads like a cancer around social media platforms around the world. Some people say poverty and lack of education creates radicalism. There are billions of people in the world who live in poverty, and most of them do not practice this particular form of radical Islam. The shooters in San Bernardino, CA, weren't living in poverty or lacking in education. The killers in Paris and Brussels were not isolated and poor. While refugees and isolated communities in poverty are undoubtedly breeding grounds for anger and frustration, that is not the primary cancer of terrorism. There are millions of people living as refugees in the world right now who are not extremists. They are not terrorists; they just want peace so they can go home and have a normal life again. We do have a moral and national security obligation to help the vulnerable when we can. The refugee crisis is immense, and it is affecting millions worldwide. Many countries are at the brink, and we need to stay engaged. But America has already given billions of dollars in aid. No country--no country has done more for the refugees than the United States. Our logistics, our support, and our financial aid have sustained most of the refugee communities there either through direct aid or what we are doing through the United Nations right now. But the people living as refugees need access to education and training so their children will grow up with skills and opportunity. We can help them have a second chance. But that is not the primary source. We need to engage with religious leaders around the world. We cannot and we will not define faith for them, but we can challenge any faith that promotes the death of people because of their race, their belief, or their gender. We should work to shut off terrorists' financing around the world, their illegal energy trade, their drug trafficking, their extortions, and persons in wealthy countries who send money with the implicit promise that those terrorists will not bring terrorism to their country if only they will send them money to do terrorism in other places. We must also fight and confront those individuals militarily. We must learn the lesson of 9/11. They are not just a group of radical thugs over there who we can ignore. They hate us, and they will find every way possible to attack us here and to attack our allies. No one wants war, but we cannot stand by and watch terrorists beheading Egyptian Christians on the beaches of Libya, killing Shia Muslims because of their faith in Iraq, blowing themselves up in an airport in Brussels, shooting people at a rock concert or a synagogue in Paris or just people enjoying a party at work in California. We can't put our heads in the sand and ignore what is really happening and assume it will just go away if we do nothing. As long as they hold territory, they call out to people worldwide to come join them in their caliphate to come fight for them or to fight where they are. We are Americans. We lose track of that at times, I am afraid. No one in the world has the same logistical capability as the United States of America. No one in the world has the most moral, most powerful military in the world like the United States of America. No one has our intelligence capability. No one in the world has our Tax Code planning capability. So the whole world is waiting on America to decide what we are going to do so they can decide if they are going to join us in this fight against this radical Islamic terrorism. It is not about massive troops on the ground; it is about a clear plan and a clear strategy to carry it out. It is why the Russians currently look more mobile and more capable than us all of a sudden. So the ``now what'' question rises large in this body. No. 1, there are multiple proposals in State and foreign operations for how we can engage in peaceful activities: helping refugees, helping those in poverty, helping to bring education to places, helping engage diplomatically with religious leaders around the world and with other countries to deal with terrorist financing. Those are things we could and should do and should do more aggressively. No. 2, the national defense authorization is coming, and it is coming soon. We need to give great military clarity--not only rules of engagement in the battlefield, but what is the clear purpose militarily for the United States in this battle against radical Islam? No. 3 is tougher for this Nation, apparently: Believe and understand that Iran is one of the key areas in this fight. I believe this administration has been too eager to believe good news about Iran and is ignoring the concerns that many of us hold. I have stood here several times in the past year to speak out against the President's reckless nuclear deal with the Iranian Ayatollah. I didn't like it then, I still don't like it, and I still don't believe Iran can be trusted to be able to carry out its end of bargain. I recently authored a resolution that clearly outlines to the administration how the United States should respond if Iran--and I believe when Iran--breaches the nuclear agreement. We should reapply waived sanctions and U.N. Security Council resolutions and limit Iran's ability to import defensive equipment so they can stop fortifying their nuclear capabilities over the next 10 years. When all the enrichment limitations are lifted, they will be well prepared to defend those facilities they have now created. As I have said many times, until Iran proves it is a peaceful, responsible player in the Middle East, the international community must be vigilant in pushing back against Iran's harmful and destructive influence among its neighbors. Last week I spoke with Adam Szubin, Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and he communicated to me exactly what everyone already knows and fears--that Iran has become even more of a destabilizing factor in the region after the nuclear deal was signed. This is clearly evident in Iran's continued, unabashed support for terrorism and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, their propping up of the Assad regime in Syria--a government that continues to blow up its own people and butcher its own people--and Iran's shipments of weapons to rebels in Yemen to be able to fuel their civil war there, right on Saudi Arabia's southern border. We haven't even discussed Iran's testing of ballistic missiles in direct violation of international law. If Iran can't be trusted to uphold the law now, how can it be trusted to be able to uphold some agreement which it hasn't even signed? That is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Congressionally imposed sanctions on Iran is what brought the Ayatollah to the negotiating table. Let's be honest about this. Regardless of what some people may say about the momentum of the moderates and the reformists inside of Iran, Iran's foreign policy, especially in dealing with the United States, runs through the Ayatollah Khamenei. He has made it crystal clear that his regime is built on radical Islamist views, and this particular view of Shia Islam--though it is opposed to ISIS--is supportive of spreading their views around the world. It is absolutely anti-American. It is essential that the Treasury continue to completely shut down Iran's access to the U.S. dollar, and it is essential that Treasury rigorously enforce the still-standing human rights and terrorism- related sanctions on Iran. I spoke with DNI Clapper in this administration just a few weeks ago. When I asked the Director of National Intelligence if there has been any change in Iran's focus on being the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, this administration's Director of National Intelligence said there has been no change in Iran's behavior since the nuclear deal was signed in relation to terrorism. We should not release known terrorists or bring them to U.S. soil. I can't believe I have to even raise this as an issue in this Nation. We should keep Guantanamo Bay, known as Gitmo--that detention facility-- open and operational rather than releasing known terrorists back into the battlefield or bringing them to the United States. In this era of growing threats, why would we irresponsibly release these individuals? Senator Kirk and I, along with four other members of this body, introduced a bill last week to prohibit the President from transferring terrorists detained in Guantanamo Bay to any other state where they may go and actually sponsor terrorism. It is not a hard decision; it is common sense. Our bill is very clear: If those individuals are transferred out of Guantanamo to some other state and then they later commit some act of terrorism, that state's foreign aid is cut off. The expectation is if these individuals go to that location, that location is actually going to monitor them. Americans assume that at this point, but it is not happening. Senator Inhofe and I will introduce a bill later today which prohibits the transfer to the United States or release of terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay. It also goes further than what we do with Senator Kirk's bill, and it actually prohibits the President from closing the facility entirely. The President should not risk our Nation's national security just to fulfill some campaign promise that makes absolutely no sense and puts our country at risk. The executive branch occasionally laments congressional engagement in foreign policy, but this is the way the American people speak out because the people in Oklahoma are absolutely concerned about what is happening in national security and they want this administration to hear it loud and clear. There seems to be no clear plan, and the plans that are clear seem to weaken our resolve on national security. Today I simply ask my colleagues to join me and do what the people who we represent sent us here to do--to assume the mantle of responsibility as leaders and to show them that we are not afraid to work with this administration or any administration. We need to take responsibility for setting the Nation's national security agenda. It must be done. It can't be done just militarily. It must be done in a broad method by reaching out, not only strategically and diplomatically through our State Department but also militarily with a clear focus to make sure we protect the Nation and that we don't release terrorists and actually do what we are supposed to do--guard this Nation's security. With that, I yield back. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, upon waking this morning, like a lot of other people did, I put on the news. About midway through the morning, about 7 a.m., a bulletin came out that the President had selected a nominee for the Supreme Court. Newsworthy. At about 7 a.m., the email came out that said: ``I've made my decision.'' At 7:07 this morning, White House Legislative Affairs circulated a notification to all those folks on Capitol Hill, including our office, from President Obama that stated this fact: ``We've reached out to every member of the Senate, who each have a responsibility to do their job and take this nomination just as seriously.'' Well, this Senator thought that was very interesting because we hadn't received a notification. At 7:14 a.m., 7 minutes later, the White House Legislative Affairs Office emailed my chief of staff with an attachment of the 7:07 a.m. email from the White House notifying that they had this. So when my counsel called over to the White House Counsel and said: You stated earlier this morning that you contacted our offices--``you have reached out to us'' was the term--they clarified later in the morning: Well, that email we sent after we said we contacted you was really the contact that we meant to send earlier. This was quite a morning for us. It is again the same doublespeak we received from the White House. When he said that they had reached out to all Members of the Senate, that actually means they had sent us an email after they had sent the American people an email saying they had made a decision. But even that email didn't say who it was. Here is the challenge. It is a constitutional responsibility here, and it is extremely important that all of this is done right. It is extremely important that article I, the legislative branch, and that article II, the White House, agree on a Supreme Court nominee because article I and article II select article III judges to the Supreme Court. A month ago, the U.S. Senate--the Members of the majority party notified the White House and the American people that we wanted to follow the same historical precedent that has been followed for decades, saying that in an election year, we would not appoint someone to the Supreme Court. This is not a new policy; it is a policy that has been around for a very long time. In fact, in 1968, when Democrats had the Senate and a Democrat, LBJ, was in the White House, the Democrat, LBJ, wanted to be able to appoint a Supreme Court nominee, and Democrats in the Senate blocked someone from their own party from putting up a Supreme Court nominee because it was an election year, and they held it. It has happened over and over again. In fact, it has been interesting, because on this floor I heard numerous folks step up and say: This is unprecedented. This is new. This has never happened before. The problem is that all of us know the history. It is the same history all of us look at. The Washington Post this morning even put out a piece identifying this basic issue. They occasionally do what has been called the Pinocchio test, and this morning they identified multiple different Democratic Senators who have spoken on this floor saying things such as ``Republican Members met behind closed doors to unilaterally decide, without any input from this committee, that this committee and the Senate as a whole will refuse to consider any nominee. It's a dereliction of our constitutional duty.'' Another statement: ``The Senate shall advise and consent by voting on that nominee. That is what the plain language of the Constitution requires.'' Over and over again this has come up. The Washington Post went back and researched and did an extensive piece detailing all the real history here of Supreme Court nominees, and they ended with this statement: ``[But] the Senate majority can in effect do what it wants'' to do, as it has historically, ``unless it becomes politically uncomfortable. Democrats who suggest otherwise are simply telling supporters a politically convenient fairy tale.'' The Washington Post gave the Democrats who made all these statements about the Republicans doing something unprecedented in shutting down this process a whopping three Pinocchios in their test in the Washington Post this morning. This is not something new or radical; this is consistent. Quite frankly, the Constitution--article II, Section 2--sets up a 50/50 proposition for the selection of Supreme Court Justices. The White House has the first 50 percent to make that nomination, and the Senate has the second 50 percent in that we have what is called advice and consent, and that is choosing the time and person in the process. Is this the right time to do this nominee? Is this nominee the right person? That is advice and consent. It is not new for the White House and the Senate to disagree on this. George Washington couldn't even get some of his nominees through the very first Senate, and he personally came over to the Senate, bringing his nominee, and said: I want my nominee to have a hearing. And the very first Senate, with the very first President--the very first Senate sent George Washington away and said: We are not going to hear it today. It is the wrong time and maybe the wrong person. We haven't decided yet. This is an ongoing process. This Senate has determined, as it has many times, that an election year is the wrong time to have a departing President choose a Supreme Court nominee. As many folks have said over and over again, this is not only old history in the United States, it is recent history. At that time, Senator Biden, who was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on this floor in 1992: The Senate, too, Mr. President, must consider how it would respond to a Supreme Court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year. It is my view that if the President goes the way of Presidents Fillmore and Johnson-- Referring to LBJ-- and presses an election year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over. It would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is underway, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over. That is what is fair to the nominee and is central to the process. Otherwise, it seems to me, Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution. Others may fret that this approach would leave the Court with only eight members for some time, but as I see it, Mr. President, the cost of such a result, the need to reargue three or four cases that will divide the Justices four to four, are quite minor compared to the cost that a nominee, the President, the Senate, and the Nation would have to pay for what would assuredly be a bitter fight, no matter how good a person is nominated by the President, if that nomination were to take place in the next several weeks. Even Senator Reid in 2005 said: The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give Presidential appointees a vote. This is not new; it has just become politically expedient to bring this up. It is not even new in the media. It was interesting to be able to see a comment in the New York Times from 1987 when the New York Times wrote an editorial about what happens if a President in his final term wants to be able to appoint a nominee with a Senate majority from the other party. Well, at that time in the previous election, the White House had a President who was a Republican, Ronald Reagan, and the Senate had changed over to the Democrats in the previous election. The New York Times wrote this about a Supreme Court selection process: The President's supporters insisted vehemently that having won the 1984 election, he has every right to change the Court's direction. Yes, but the Democrats won the 1986 election regaining control of the Senate, and they have every right to resist. That was true then for the New York Times, that is true now, and we will see if they stay consistent as a newspaper standing from the exact same principle decades later--not new, not different. The fact is, the Supreme Court is still working, still hearing cases, still going through the arguments, and still releasing opinions. Nothing has changed over there. The work is still continuing in the U.S. Senate. We are still hearing legislation. We are voting on legislation. We voted on a confirmation this week to the Department of Education. We are still working through nominations. We are still working through legislation. Nothing has changed on that. The decision was made that this Senate will not move during this election year. It is interesting. I had a telephone townhall this Monday with individuals across my State, with thousands of people on the line. We asked a simple question about what should happen in this process dealing with the Supreme Court--this is before a nominee was even announced--and 71 percent of the people on our calls said the next President and the American people should choose who the next Supreme Court Justice will be. I will submit that we should allow the people to decide this, that when they decide the Presidential election this November, they are also determining the direction of the Supreme Court in the days ahead. I don't want us to lose track of the basic facts here, but I also want us to stay focused. This Senate cannot get distracted with bitter fighting over something that we resolved a month ago and that will remain resolved. We are not going to move. We have a lot of budget issues to deal with. We have appropriations bills that will come up in the days ahead. I would submit that one of the biggest things we can do in the Senate is to also reform the budget process, to stay focused on things that are really going to matter long term for us, because this issue with the Supreme Court is already resolved. We need to find ways to be able to eliminate the budget gimmicks that are in the budget process to get a long-term view, to make sure there is not this playing with the system in this 10-year window, and to deal with biennial budgeting to get a better prediction of where we are going in the days ahead. We need to find a way to stop government shutdowns and the constant threats of government shutdowns because they do nothing but hurt us. These are things we can work on and work on together to keep us on focus. The Supreme Court issue is settled. It is not going to move. Let's find the things that we can agree on, that we can work on, and continue to work on those things together. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Deanna Mitchell, a National Park Service detailee in the office of Senator Murkowski, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this calendar year.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I rise to speak on the nomination of John King to be Secretary of Education. Dr. King has impressive credentials and an inspiring personal story. I have had the opportunity to meet with him and discuss his leadership and his view of the law. I shared with Dr. King that in the view of many legal experts and school officials across the country, the Department of Education has been bullying schools to comply with policies that simply do not have the force of law. This coercive use of power, however well intentioned, is wrong and it is unlawful. Leadership requires making sure that those serving within the Department conduct themselves in full compliance with the law. I have an obligation to the people of Oklahoma to ensure that the President's nominees adhere to the law. Regrettably, Dr. King has refused to commit to stopping these regulatory abuses if he were confirmed. For that reason, I will oppose his nomination today. For far too long we have witnessed executive overreach in this administration. From the Clean Power Plan to waters of the United States, Federal departments and agencies have usurped the power to invent law with increasing boldness. The Department of Education overreach is similar in this kind. Instead of promulgating rules that conflict with congressional intent, the Department of Education is skirting the rulemaking process altogether by issuing guidance documents they call Dear Colleague letters. Guidance documents cannot and do not have the force of law. Guidance documents may only interpret existing obligations found in statute or regulation. Some agencies complain that the rulemaking process is too long and it requires too much public input, so it is easier just to say that the new rule simply interprets an existing rule, and then skip the compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act that is required for a new rule. It is complete irony that agencies see regulatory compliance as too burdensome, so they impose new regulatory guidance on States, local governments, tribes, and private institutions at a faster pace, and those institutions have no way to fight the rules--only comply. Let me give an example from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. They have a great responsibility to promote our shared American values of equal opportunity, ensuring gender equality, and to work with federally funded schools to prohibit sexual harassment and sexual violence. As the father of two daughters, I fully support the objectives of Title IX and condemn all forms of sexual discrimination. But the Office of Civil Rights enforcement authority comes from Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bill, and those Office of Civil Rights Dear Colleague letters that are now being put out there supposedly notify schools of their obligations under Title IX. Two of the Office of Civil Rights Dear Colleagues letters significantly expand school liability by prescribing policies required neither by Title IX nor by OCR's regulations. I am particularly concerned with OCR's 2010 Dear Colleague letter on harassment and bullying and a 2011 letter on sexual violence. These letters respectively prohibit conduct and require procedures not required by law. For example, the 2010 letter says that making sexual jokes or distributing sexually explicit pictures or creating emails or Web sites of a sexual nature can be actionable under Title IX. Well, regardless of what one personally thinks about abhorrent things like what I have just described, the First Amendment protects all forms of speech, and no part of our Federal Government can dictate what is said and not allowed to be said on a university campus. The 2010 letter leaves schools to wonder whether they should police certain speech on their campus or fear a Title IX investigation. The 2011 letter requires schools to change their Title IX disciplinary procedures to require what is called a preponderance-of- the-evidence standard of proof. This means that the decisionmaker is 51 percent sure a student committed an act of sexual assault or sexual violence. But the Office of Civil Rights doesn't require many due process protections for the accused that he or she would enjoy being provided in a court of law. The Office of Civil Rights said it was merely interpreting the ``equitable resolution'' standard that is in the law. So it changed, creating a new standard and saying it is just interpreting some equitable standard that is in the law--a standard that no other administration has ever applied. If these policies had been subjected to notice-and-comment rulemaking, I wouldn't be standing here today. When agencies follow the law, notice and comment allows for public input and leads to better regulatory outcomes. But universities never got that chance. So on January 7, 2016, I asked the Department of Education a simple question: From where in the text do you derive this new authority? Where is it in the law that you created this new policy? Because the Department of Education can't create a new law; they can simply promulgate rules from existing law. That is a pretty basic question: Where did it come from in the law? Unfortunately, the Department of Education did not answer my question. They sent me a letter back, but in their response they insisted that they have the authority to issue guidance under Title IX and cited general abilities in the statute. They also cited prior guidance documents, which are also not legal documents. You can't make a new guidance off of old guidance documents. So on March 24, 2016, I replied back to them, pointing out that the 2010 and 2011 letters did, in fact, create new policy. In my reply, I also expressed concern over the reliance by the Office of Civil Rights on letters of findings to support their policy requiring the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. But these letters are not binding on other schools, either. In fact, they show that the Office for Civil Rights looks to and has enforced these policies enumerated only in ``Dear Colleague'' letters across the country. Legal scholars at Harvard Law and Penn Law have argued that the Office for Civil Rights' sexual harassment policy was ``inconsistent with the most basic principles we teach.'' Title IX was not written and has never been said to imperil these ``basic principles,'' as the professors pointed out, which include free speech, due process, and adherence to good administrative procedures. To me, this is evidence that the ``Dear Colleague'' letters changed the application of title IX and its regulatory landscape in fundamental ways. These policy changes should be subject to rulemaking process, not just inventing new guidelines. Other prominent voices have also stated their concerns with the substance of and the manner in which the guidance documents were issued. Take, for example, the director of the civil liberties-minded Foundation for Individual Rights and Education, known as FIRE, who stated that ``OCR has consistently avoided giving real answers to questions about its power to issue regulations outside the bounds of the law. It cannot avoid accountability forever.'' An analysis from Inside Higher Ed, a respected news outlet for the postsecondary education community, stated: Last week, the Department clarified in a letter . . . that the Dear Colleague letter acts only as a guidance for college and does not ``carry the force of law.'' But many college presidents and lawyers argue that the Department's Office for Civil Rights treats the guidance far more than as a series of recommendations. Instead, they say, OCR uses the letter to determine which colleges are in violation of Title IX and to threaten the federal funding of those that don't follow every suggestion. Some Department officials have recently said there are clear ``musts'' and clear ``shoulds'' in the guidance, though colleges say the Office for Civil Rights does not seem to clearly differentiate between the two. Attempts to clarify which parts of the letter should be read as hard regulations and which should be considered recommendations have only led to more confusion and frustration. That from this well-respected entity. The publication also quotes Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education saying that ``the department's political leadership can say or write whatever they want, but where the rubber meets the road is where the Office for Civil Rights shows up to investigate cases on campus, and in those cases they consistently treat every single word of the guidance as an absolute mandate.'' Kent Talbert, a lawyer who served as general counsel at the Department of Education from 2006 until 2009, went on the record to say that the response to my letter that I got back from Dr. King and from the Department of Education ``glosses over'' concerns regarding whether the Department circumvented notice-and-comment rulemaking. Hans Bader, another former attorney in the Office for Civil Rights, characterized OCR's response as a ``question-begging rationalization'' that did not ``address the criticisms . . . made by many lawyers and law professors.'' Mr. Bader went on to say that ``the 2011 Dear Colleague letter that was the subject of Senator Lankford's questions is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Education Department imposing new legal rules out of thin air, without codifying them in the Code of Federal Regulations, or complying with the notice- and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act.'' Commentator George Will penned an op-ed on the same issue as my letter, and he said that when the Department argues ``its `guidance' letters do not have the force of law--it's a distinction without a difference.'' Last week in my conversations with Dr. King about the Department of Education's practice of issuing guidance in lieu of rulemaking as required by law, he stated that if a school has a problem, they can challenge the Department in court, basically saying: If the schools have a problem with our guidance, they can sue us. Were the Office for Civil Rights to take adverse action against a school for failure to comply with the guidance documents and if that school fought back in court, I believe that school would prevail. In fact, the legislative and policy director for FIRE said that institutions ``would be on very solid ground in challenging OCR because OCR's statements and policies clearly skirted the notice-and-comment requirements.'' But you tell me what school would have an incentive to accept the existential threat that litigation poses to their university when they file suit against the Office for Civil Rights? They risk reputational harm, legal penalties, and recision of Federal funding, all because the OCR thinks no one would actually sue them. Many schools decide the risk is not worth the reward, and the Department of Education knows it. While individual companies or entire industries can and often do fight back against regulatory overreach from the Department of Labor or EPA, the Department of Education is in a position to hold Federal funding ransom if universities don't comply with its policies even when those policies are unlawful abuses of regulatory power. This is unacceptable. Just because we share an objective of equality and school safety doesn't mean we can turn a blind eye to a Federal department running roughshod over the very regulatory process we require. Here the ends certainly do not justify the means, and schools and the very students we want to protect suffer as a result. I do want to stress that I admire Dr. King's dedication to bettering our Nation's schools. All Americans are undoubtedly enriched by contributions made by such conscientious and exceptional educators. I thank him for his previous time of service, which is an impressive record. Likewise, I appreciate that these guidance documents predate Dr. King's service at the Department and that he had no role in overseeing their development or issuance, but when asked to reexamine them and the process of how they were created, he protected them instead of acknowledging the problem with the process. That tells me there are more ``Dear Colleague'' letters coming to our schools, and this agency will continue to make up the rules in a vacuum and threaten Federal funding for those who dare not comply. As part of my continuing discussions with the Office for Civil Rights, the Department has assured me they will take steps to clarify the interpretive role of guidance, increase transparency, and enhance opportunity for public input. I am encouraged that the Office for Civil Rights has committed to these improvements, and I look forward to a continued discussion on how better guidance practices, both in the Office for Civil Rights and across the entire government, can actually occur. Unfortunately, these proposals don't answer the questions I have asked Dr. King, nor do they in any way address the fundamental problems with the 2010 or 2011 ``Dear Colleague'' letters or the Office for Civil Rights' broader practice of issuing guidance in lieu of rulemaking. Because I have not received a full answer to the questions I asked the Department and because Dr. King does not acknowledge that this overreach is even occurring within the agency he is nominated to lead, I have no choice but to oppose his nomination today. Time will tell whether this Department of Education is about to take a new direction with new leadership or whether they will continue the same path of coercive overreach they have already been on. This needs to stop. The American people require a voice in the rulemaking process, and I hope this can press on today. With that, I yield the floor.