James Lankford

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to talk about the sacrifice of one of Oklahoma's own, MSG Joshua Wheeler of Roland, OK, Sequoyah County, America. The current Presiding Officer today is Senator Inhofe, and the two of us together recognize and celebrate the life of someone who laid down his life for the Nation. Roland and Muldrow are proud towns in eastern Oklahoma. It is Cherokee country, where families take care of other families and small- town American patriotism still thrives. It is the land of tall trees and very strong churches. Josh was killed in action on October 22 while liberating captives held by ISIL in northern Iraq. Josh was part of a team assisting Kurdish commandos to rescue 70 hostages who were about to be executed by Islamic State militants. There was aerial reconnaissance that had shown a newly dug mass grave at the prison where these 70 prisoners were being held. When the Kurdish attack on the prison where the hostages were being held stalled, Master Sergeant Wheeler responded. He could not watch the Kurdish forces face the attack without help. He would not allow those men inside the facility to face execution when he could help them escape. Master Sergeant Wheeler breached the wall. He engaged the enemy. The full force of the attack came directly at him, and he saved the day and six dozen men. You need to know that Master Sergeant Wheeler was the best of the best, the most highly trained warrior in the entire Department of Defense. Josh deployed three times as a Ranger in support of combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, then Master Sergeant Wheeler was assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command in 2004 and was deployed 11 additional times in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Master Sergeant Wheeler was highly decorated. We can see this from his uniform. Let me tell you a little bit about his awards. They included four Bronze Star Medals with Valor Device; seven Bronze Star Medals; the Defense Meritorious Service Medal; the Meritorious Service Medal; the Air Medal; the Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor Device; the Joint Service Commendation Medal; seven Army Commendation Medals; the Joint Service Achievement Medal; eight Army Achievement Medals; the Good Conduct Medal, sixth award; the National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Service Star; the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with three Bronze Service Stars; the Iraq Campaign Medal with six Bronze Service Stars; the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal; the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal; the Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, third award; the Army Service Ribbon; the Presidential Unit Citation; the Valorous Unit Award, second award; the Ranger Tab; the Combat Infantryman Badge; the Expert Infantryman Badge; the Master Parachutist Badge; three Overseas Service Bars; and finally, posthumously, the Purple Heart. He did everything his country asked him to do and more. Master Sergeant Wheeler was the first American serviceman killed in combat in Iraq since 2011. Americans, Kurds, and Iraqis alike owe Master Sergeant Wheeler and his family our deepest gratitude and respect for a life of selfless service. John 15:13 tells us that no greater love is this, than one who lays down his life for his friends. Josh did exactly that. Master Sergeant Wheeler's sacrifice exemplifies the highest virtue in defense of his family, friends, and Nation. Speaking of his friends, they called him a cutup. He was someone who made everyone laugh. He was a friend to everyone. I spoke to his wife Ashley last week, and she recounted his faith, toughness, and passion for his boys--all four of them. He was able to come home a few months ago for the birth of his fourth son. It was a peaceful and joyous respite from the brutal realities of war that Josh faced for years. Josh spent his life defending the weak and standing up for those who needed help. He spent much of his childhood caring for his siblings. He valued life, freedom, and duty. In contrast to Master Sergeant Wheeler's heroism and selflessness, let me remind you whom he was fighting against. In the days following the Paris attack, we understand that the barbarians of ISIL had no problem randomly killing people at a restaurant, soccer stadium, or concert. They kill for intimidation and pleasure. They do not even value their own lives, much less the lives of the people around them. The Islamic State has committed some of the most horrific acts of death the modern world has ever seen. Their fight is against all modern society, and their goal is to return the world to a medieval state ruled by fear. They have abducted girls and women, called them subhuman for practicing the wrong religion according to them, and sold them as sex slaves. In the world of ISIL, women can't get an education, drive a car, or even have their own rights. They kill and torture anyone who doesn't agree with them. Their reach extends to our own citizens. No one can forget the horrific deaths of James Foley, Stephen Sotloff, and Kayla Mueller, a 26-year-old woman who wanted to do good for the people of Syria but met pure evil when she got there. Recently, FBI Director James Comey spoke about ISIL's attempts to inspire Americans to turn on each other with blind brutality. Go out and kill, they say. It doesn't matter who, just act. Good men stand up to such evil. They don't allow it to grow and multiply. We honor Master Sergeant Wheeler's sacrifice and tenacious commitment to confront evil. We humbly thank his family for the sacrifice they made so that we may all live in a more peaceful world. Our Nation cannot say thank you loud enough or long enough to his family. When I spoke to Ashley, Josh's wife, she recounted when the doorbell rang early that morning. It didn't even cross her mind that it was about Josh. He was so tough and so dedicated. Who would have ever thought he would be gone? The painful and long process of grieving over a lost hero has just begun. Master Sergeant Wheeler was killed in action defending our freedom on October 22. His final service will be this week--just a few days before his birthday. The long days of Thanksgiving and Christmas are still ahead. Please join me in praying for the family of Master Sergeant Wheeler as our Nation grieves the loss of a husband, father, grandson, and friend to those who knew him. He is a hero to the Nation and the many lives he saved a month ago this week. May God bless Josh's family. May his boys grow up to be men who remember their dad's love for them and our Nation. With that, I yield back. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we have a lot of information this week about ObamaCare hearings. They are again back in the news because the administration has filed a lawsuit against the Little Sisters of the Poor to compel them to violate their faith and to be able to put into practice the principles of ObamaCare rather than their own personal faith. So the Obama administration is taking a group of nuns called the Little Sisters of the Poor all the way to the Supreme Court to compel them to cave on their faith. That case actually includes four universities from my State of Oklahoma as well that are grouped together with this group from the Little Sisters of the Poor that will all have to go before the Supreme Court to validate their faith publicly in front of the Nation while the administration tries to tell them they can't practice their faith in America.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, but I have to say this last weekend, as I was going through all the different news and the many things that we track, I was quite surprised last Friday afternoon at the way the President addressed something that this Nation has discussed for 7 years--a pipeline permit, a permit called the Keystone XL Pipeline. It is not a revolutionary thing. Quite frankly, I wish to show you something. These are all the pipelines that currently exist in the United States. Right now, there are 19 international crossings of pipelines already coming into the United States, either from Canada into the northern part of the United States or from Mexico and from the South. There are already 19 of them. This would just be a 20th pipeline. There is nothing different about that. There are 60,000 miles of crude oil pipelines in the United States right now. There are about 63,000 miles of refined product pipelines. If you want to go to natural gas, there are about 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines already in the United States. Yet this pipeline is treated like some radical and new invention--as if we have never considered a pipeline before. But what surprised me so much wasn't the 2,600-plus days that this pipeline request sat on the President's desk. What surprised me was his reason for actually deciding not to do then the permits. That was the surprising part. Quite frankly, last Friday afternoon as I heard the reasons, I went back, read the transcript, and these were the three reasons the President gave. He said: No. 1, ``the pipeline wouldn't make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy,'' and he encouraged us to pass a highway bill instead because it would provide more jobs. I don't remember ever discussing and saying: This pipeline is going to provide as many jobs as highways. That has never been discussed on this floor. It is apples and oranges. A highway bill is public funding. It is the taxpayers that actually fund transportation, and we should do highways in transportation. This is a private project that was never intended to have as many jobs as a highway. It is a pipeline. So he said it is not going to provide enough jobs, and so he is not going to permit it. The second reason he gave is this: ``The pipeline would not lower gas prices for American consumers.'' He said gasoline prices are already low, and so we don't need this pipeline--as if gasoline prices don't rise and fall and we shouldn't plan forward for the future. Do you want to know why gasoline prices are low right now? It is because over the decades, Americans have done this, and we have an efficient system of moving energy. By the way, the pipeline is the safest and least expensive way to move energy around our country. So what the President is saying is this: What we have is enough. I don't want to plan for the future anymore. I don't want to look for what is going to help our children. Our prices are low enough. I don't care what our children pay in the future days. Well, that is absurd. But, quite frankly, the third one is the one that was the most jarring to me, so I want to be able to say this statement to you. This is reason No. 3 the President gave: ``Shipping crude oil into our country from unstable countries would not increase America's energy security.'' Let me read that to you again because I was so stunned by it. This is exactly from the President's speech off of the White House site. This is what the President said off this statement. He will not permit the Keystone Pipeline coming from Canada into the United States. He said shipping dirtier crude oil into our country would not increase America's energy security. He said: What has increased America's energy security is our strategy over the past several years to reduce our reliance on dirty fossil fuels from unstable parts of the world. Now, as I heard the President say that, I was a little taken aback because I don't remember any other President referring to Canada as an unstable part of the world from which we don't want to get our energy-- an unstable country, and saying Canada was that country. So I kept reading it and rereading it, thinking maybe he was implying something else, but the problem with that is he either means that Canada is an unstable country and we don't want to be reliant on them to get energy or he is saying the Middle East and other countries are unstable and we don't want to rely on them, so maybe we should buy from Canada instead. Either way it makes absolutely no sense. But in its context--as I read it and read it and read it--the President stated that we don't need to have a Keystone Pipeline because Canada is unstable and we don't want to buy from unstable countries. I would tell you that since the War of 1812 we have gotten along with Canada pretty well. We seem to have settled our differences about 1815, and they have been a very stable trading partner for us. It seems nonsensical to hear the President say: Because it doesn't produce enough jobs, I am not going to permit it. Because it won't affect the price of gasoline today, I won't permit it. And because Canada is unstable as a trading partner, I am not going to permit it. The President can choose to do whatever he chooses to do, but answers like this make no sense to the American people and they make no sense to energy country when we understand full well the actual facts on the ground. In recent days, we have actually started an energy swap with Mexico. Many people may not even know that. You see, all oil is not the same. Heavier crude oil is preferred by many of our refineries in the United States. Quite frankly, our refineries are capable of separating out more of the different minerals and such that are within heavy crude or what is often called sour crude. Our refineries prefer the heavier crude, much like what Canada produces and many parts of the United States and Mexico produces. Many of the refineries in Mexico actually prefer the light sweet crude. We actually have more light sweet crude in America than we can use and what our refineries would prefer to have. So in the past couple of months, Mexico and the United States have worked a swap from pipelines, where they are picking up about 75,000 barrels of light sweet and swapping us 75,000 barrels of heavier crude because they have a commodity we want and we have a commodity they want. That is how we could solve some of our energy issues, to actually look for what is the most efficient, whether it is purchasing it from a pipeline from Canada, which makes great economic sense to us, or exporting our oil anywhere else around the world, whether to Mexico or any other country. This body knows full well the United States cannot sell our oil on the world market because we have a statute in place that would have us believe we are running out of oil rather than having a tremendous amount, which is factually true, and we have particular types of oil that like sweet crude many refineries around the world want. We actually have more of it than we can use. We should sell that. We should put that on the open market. It is cleaner, it is easier to refine, and it is a way to be able to stabilize jobs in the United States. I have been in front of this body time after time with a simple statement: We can sell unleaded around the world, we can sell diesel around the world, we can sell coal around the world, and we can sell natural gas around the world, but for whatever reason we can't sell crude oil around the world. That makes absolutely no sense and we should fix it. Tens of thousands of Americans have lost their jobs because this body has not acted on something as simple as being able to sell a product the world wants and we have on the world market. It is fixable. It is not about environmental disaster. The world is going to use oil. Even the administration and quite frankly even the President in his own speech made this statement last week: The truth is the United States will continue to rely on oil and gas. And so will the world. Until some other solution is out there, which no one sees currently on the horizon, we are going to continue to use oil and gas. Why don't we do it the cleanest way possible and why don't we provide American jobs while we are doing it? It is fixable. It shouldn't be divisive. It is about putting Americans back to work and about helping our economy. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, there is a lot of news that is happening this week. There are a lot of things going on--an incredible celebration of veterans and the recognition they are very worthy of. That is the 1 percent in our Nation that actually secures the security of the rest of the 99 percent of our Nation. We could not be more grateful--members of my own family, myself, and the proud people of Oklahoma who celebrate our veterans every single day of the year. We are very pleased to be able to do that.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we also have news this week that the President is trying to push through Gitmo and he is trying to change Gitmo through some sort of Executive action. We don't know exactly what that is. He seems to have this flippant attitude about what is going to happen at Guantanamo Bay, saying we can move them into the United States more cheaply. Well, I would tell you--as a person who has been to Guantanamo Bay and has seen that facility and am very aware of what is going on there--we are missing one big element. The terrorists do not know who the guards are at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nor do they have access to their families. And while they are infuriated about Gitmo, I promise you if those prisoners are moved into Colorado, Oklahoma or Kansas or any other place, the terrorists overseas won't rage about Gitmo anymore, they will then rage about Colorado or they will then rage about Illinois or wherever those prisoners are being held. They are not mad at Gitmo and the treatment there. They are mad that these terrorists, whom they have affection for, are being detained by the United States of America. Right now all of the individuals who are guarding those individuals and keeping them detained will no longer be hidden anymore because terrorists could linger around the outside of these facilities and contact the different guards that are coming in and out. Suddenly, the guards and their family members become exposed and the stakes for those individuals are exposed. He is not thinking through the real consequences of flippantly moving these individuals into the United States. It is a big issue that we face.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, people in my home State are trying to figure out what they missed on this budget deal. It was announced by the White House today that this is a great job-creating achievement, but all they see is more spending and no change in the status quo. Everyone throws around numbers, but here is the one number people in my State want to hear. How much does it save the American taxpayer? Put another way, does it help us to balance our budget or to address the debt problem? We need two things to be able to balance our Federal budget: spending restraint and a growing economy. Right now we have neither. We have $18.5 trillion in debt and over $430 billion in deficit in this year. To start paying down our debt, we have to first balance our budget. The Presiding Officer knows very well that we passed a budget earlier this year that took the next 10 years to be able to balance our budget. Let's play pretend for a moment in this body. Let's say we put that budget into place, and over the 10 years we work down a little bit each year and get to a balanced budget 10 years from now. Let's take a guess in this body, and let's say the year after that we had a $50 billion surplus. It took us 10 years to get back to balance, and in year 11 we had a $50 billion surplus. How many years would we have to maintain a $50 billion surplus until we paid off our debt? The correct answer would be: 360 years in a row we would have to have a $50 billion surplus to pay off our debt. We need to start doing budgets that actually deal seriously with our debt and deficit. Today, our GDP growth was announced again. It is a whopping 1.5- percent growth in the American economy. With new regulations on every business, the assault on American energy, new loan restrictions on banks, and ObamaCare cost increases--including in my State of Oklahoma, where premium increases are hitting 35 percent for next year on individuals--people know inherently that if you keep overspending, it limits our economic growth in America. We have fewer jobs because of it. It is harder to start a business because of it. The President keeps saying if we will just spend a little more, we will have more jobs. But people don't believe it anymore because they have seen it is not true. After 6 years of ``if we just spend a little more, spend a little more, this will get caught up'' we still have a 1.5-percent growth rate in the American economy. That is pathetic. While we have a great number of terrific people in the Federal workforce, people inherently know if you just keep adding jobs in the Federal workforce, it hurts our economy because it continues to take money out of private hands and puts it into government control. What people want is not unreasonable. They just want a plan. People want to know that if we are going to spend money, we use it efficiently and that there is a plan to be able to get us out of debt. What we heard through the negotiations was that any increase in spending would be offset with pay-fors that were real. The spending negotiations that were done were supposed to develop that plan. What we have as a final document is not a plan to get us out of debt. In fact, it increases our debt again. What we have is not a plan to handle the long-term consequences of deficit. In fact, it obfuscates that again. We need a plan to deal with entitlements, and what we have done is just scratched the surface dealing with entitlements. What I have heard over and over is that at least the pay-fors are real, that for any increased spending that was done, at least there were offsets for that. Let me give a couple of examples of these real pay-fors, as I read the bill. Here are a couple of real pay-fors. One is called pension payment acceleration. This is listed as one of the real pay-fors in the document. Pension payment acceleration in section 502 changed the due date for pension premiums from October 15, 2025, to September 15, 2025, in order to get another $2.3 billion into the 10-year budget window. You see, this is all laid out to say that in the next 10 years we will pay this off. So they took a payment that was due 10 years and 2 weeks from now and moved it forward a month. So literally, yes, it adds $2.3 billion into the 10-year window, but if we had a 10-year-plus-2- week time period, it would be exactly the same. It is actually zero savings. It is not real. They moved the payment a month and said that is a pay-for. It is not a pay-for. That is the pension payment acceleration. How about this one? We have this one in the Federal Government called the Crime Victims Fund. The Crime Victims Fund is money seized from criminals and designated not for general use but to compensate the victims of crime--hence the name Crime Victims Fund. Apparently, this budget agreement qualifies as a victim of crime because $1.5 billion is taken from the Crime Victims Fund and dedicated not to victims of crime but to spending in other areas. We literally take $1.5 billion out of the Crime Victims Fund and spend it on the EPA, the IRS, and silent Shakespeare festivals out there in Federal funding--so much for helping crime victims. We have 12 appropriations bills we have done in the Senate. It is the first time in a very long time that the Committee on Appropriations has done all 12 appropriations bills through committee. In this agreement, all 12 of those appropriations bills will have to be redone. Here is how they will be redone. The defense bill will be cut, and the other 11 will all go up in spending. The top of that debt ceiling is without reform. The final straw for me in looking at this deal is Social Security disability. The Presiding Officer knows full well I have worked for 3 years on Social Security disability reform, knowing that the day was coming when we would have to fix Social Security. The CBO has warned us for 4 years that Social Security disability would reach insolvency in 2016, so my office has spent the last 3 years preparing for how we could actually reform this program to make sure we stabilize the Social Security disability program. I have interviewed individuals within the disability program--attorneys that work with it, Federal judges, administrative law judges, representatives, Social Security staff in all of those cubicles across the Social Security Administration offices, advocacy groups, parents of the disabled, and we held bipartisan hearings to look for common-ground solutions and worked with the inspector general and the GAO to hear other practical solutions they had discovered. We have a long list of real solutions to solving Social Security disability for the disabled and for the taxpayer. We have submitted those solutions as an amendment to this bill because there are real answers to solving Social Security disability, if you do the work. We have actually done the work to prepare for this. Instead, this budget bill renews a few demonstration programs, changes a few names, transfers some funds from retirement Social Security over to disability Social Security, and calls it reform. If you look at the way the actuarial tables work out, of the 100 percent that needs to be done to bring solvency, they do 1.5 percent of what needs to be done to bring the program to solvency. The estimate is 1.5 percent of the 100 percent that needs to be done, and it is called real significant disability reform. I wish it were, because it is desperately needed. Everyone knows this Congress only seems to do anything when they have to. A deadline is coming to deal with Social Security disability. This is the time we have to do the reforms. This opportunity will not come around again for 7 years, because this extends out this program for 7 years with almost no reforms at all. We are missing our window. These are the most vulnerable individuals in our society who are on disability. These are individuals who literally cannot work in the economy in any way, and they need our help and they need real reform in this program, and we have punted. There is 1.5 percent of reform of the 100 percent that is needed to actually stabilize the program. What does real reform look like? It helps those stuck in the painful process of disability applications and gets them the help they need at the time they need it. Real reform helps with those who game the system to get out of the system. It gives clarity, accountability, and oversight to the system itself. That is what real reform would look like. Let me give a couple of examples. The grid--it is called a vocational grid--which is used to determine if someone can work in the economy, has not been updated since 1978. It needs to be updated not just now but every 10 years in order to have a regular cycle of updating, and not every 40 years. But that is not required in this bill. We need to have good record keeping--evidence for disability. That is not required in this bill. We need to have a standard to be able to rotate off disability and to bring some clarity to it. Right now it is medical improvement. The problem is there are no good records often for those individuals on disability. So there is no way to rotate off of it. An individual is permanently trapped in it because the records were so bad at the start. There is no change in that. What does that look like in real life? Let me give a couple of real- life examples. In Puerto Rico, the Office of the U.S. Attorney accepted a case for prosecution about 4 years ago. The inspector general initiated a Federal grand jury investigation, working closely with the Office of the U.S. Attorney, the FBI, and the Puerto Rico Police Department. In August of 2013, 74 individuals, including 47 medical professionals and a nonattorney claimant representative, were indicted and arrested for their involvement in a large-scale disability fraud scheme. On January 15, 2015, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Puerto Rico announced the indictments of an additional 40 individuals, including a psychiatrist, for their alleged involvement in this conspiracy when they undertook an early-morning arrest operation for those individuals. All of these individuals were apprehended, and at the end they estimate the cost to the taxpayer is $100 million of fraud in that one case alone. In Huntington, WV, in May of this year, the Social Security Administration mailed letters to approximately 1,500 individuals informing them of their need to redetermine their eligibility for Social Security disability--many of those individuals have been on disability for years--because the Social Security Administration and the Inspector General's Office noted that many of these individuals were put on in a case that did not match facts with what actually happened in their lives. They were led to believe this by a representative, an attorney in this case, fraudulent work behind the scenes by physicians, and the inside work of individuals within Social Security who tracked them through the process. What happened? There were hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud. These things still continue. Nothing changes on this. I wish this bill would correct some of these issues today, but it doesn't. Those individuals were told by someone that they fit into the disabled category, only to find out later that they had also been defrauded in the system. There is nothing in this bill mandating the Social Security Administration to update its medical and vocational listings. There is nothing in this bill to prevent people who receive unemployment insurance, who by definition must be employable, from also receiving disability insurance--people who by definition cannot also work. There is nothing in this bill to streamline the adjudication process or to eliminate the second level of appeal, which is called reconsideration. Many individuals within the process who are legitimately disabled and who just want to have their cases heard get stuck in this long process. There are actually more appeals in Social Security Administration, in the Social Security disability program, than there are on death row, which puts people in this cycle of endless appeals, year after year, and continues to rack up the cost to the taxpayer and the effect on those who are disabled. There is nothing in this bill to ensure that a claimant's medical record is well developed so that when they come up for a continuing disability review, a disability determination service examiner can make an informed judgment and actually evaluate whether they are medically improved. There is nothing in this bill to conduct oversight of the administrative law judges or claimants' representatives. The bill increases the number of administrative law judges but not the oversight. I am not sure if many in this body are aware that some of the administrative law judges in this country have an overturn rate of 95 percent or higher, and we are adding more but not increasing the oversight. There is no opportunity given for greater accountability or even to improve the Code of Judicial Conduct--a basic element of reform that should be in this. As for the claimant representatives, according to the Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General, in tax year 2013, the top 10 highest earning claimant representatives made $23 million. Remember that the payment for the claimant representatives comes directly out of the money that should go to the disabled individual, not from another fund. It is from the individual who should have received that money as disability. So the more the reps make, the less tax money that actually gets to the disabled individual. There is no change in this model. It continues to provide funding for claimant representatives and attorneys and continues to leave the disabled exposed. By the way, today in Social Security Administration offices all around the country, they are processing the money from the disabled and sending checks to the representatives because although the reps are hired by the disabled individual, they are paid and processed by the Federal workforce from the disabled person's money. We can do better than this. We should do better than this. This is not a deal the American people are looking for. This is not a budget agreement the people of Oklahoma say fixes our debt and deficit issues and stabilizes disability. This is a deal that is done, apparently, but not a deal that is done well. Based on where we are in debt and deficit, we need to do better, and I pray we do in the days ahead. We have much to get fixed. It is time to actually fix some things, not just to stay operational. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, there is a football coach in Washington State. He is the head coach of the JV team, and he is the assistant coach of the varsity football team. Tonight is the last game of the season for them, but he will not be coaching on the sidelines today because last night he was dismissed from his duties in Bremerton, WA. According to the attorneys at the school, he was dismissed from his duties because last Friday night at the football game, he had the audacity to kneel down at the end of the game and silently pray at the 50-yard line when the game was over, when the school had instructed him that he was not to silently pray at the end of a game. Help me understand this. The night before the last game of the season, they kick the football coach off the field because he had the audacity to silently pray when they told him not to. To his defense, this is not brand new. Since 2008, this same coach, at the end of the games--each game--has had the habit of kneeling and praying at the 50-yard line after the kids have gone, after the game is over, to thank God for the safety of his kids. It is a habit he started 7 years ago, but for some reason the Bremerton School District has determined this is completely unacceptable. Their perspective is that you can only have faith if no one sees it. They have literally set a new standard. What they are taking from the Borden case, which I will explain in a moment--they are saying that if you are a school official, no one can see that you have faith because if anyone sees that you have faith, they will take that as the establishment of religion from the school district. That is a standard no court in America has set. That would mean any individual who is Jewish couldn't wear a yarmulke if they were also a teacher. That would mean anyone who is Muslim couldn't wear a head scarf because clearly that is a visual display of faith. That would mean no teacher could bow their head and pray before their meal in the school lunchroom. That would mean no football coach could kneel down with 5 seconds to go in the game in, the fourth quarter, before their 16-year-old is about to kick a field goal. They would say: No, you can't kneel down and pray on the sidelines. The absurdity of this is they set this brandnew standard that says you cannot have anyone see you have faith. That would mean that in this situation, this district has created a new legal standard that no one else has ever agreed to, literally created in the school district a faith-free zone, put up a sign on the front door that says ``No one can express any type of faith in this building.'' That is absurd. The school district quoted multiple times from the Borden case, which is the Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick case. This is what the actual case was. It was a football coach who, before the game, at a mandatory meeting of the team, led them in a prayer. The only similarity here is prayer and football because this is not a mandatory meeting before the game; this is not a required closed time; this is an individual, after the game is over, kneeling down on his own and freely expressing his faith without requiring anyone else to be there, anyone to listen. This is an individual living their faith. That is free in America, whether you are Muslim, whether you are Wiccan, whether you are Hindu, whether you are Christian, whether you are Jewish, whether you are a Federal employee or a State employee or a private citizen. Every individual retains their constitutional right to the free exercise of their religion. Does that mean they can coerce people or proselytize in that situation? No, it does not. The Court has been very clear on that. But that is not what this was. This is not a situation where the coach was coercing his players to participate in a prayer or proselytizing his players while he was on school time. He was simply kneeling down to pray, and for whatever strange reason the school district has put him on paid administrative leave and has started the process of firing the coach. I bring this up because it suddenly becomes a national issue when a school district creates a new legal standard for every person of faith in America. Every person of faith in America has the right to live their faith. A school district does not have the right to say to someone: Your constitutional right ends here. I can go through in great detail the different standards they leave out there, but their accommodation was this one simple thing: He could privately pray in a room of the school district's choosing. If he wanted to pray, they would put him in a spot and say: You can pray in there, in a place we pick, but you can't pray out there. May I remind Americans that we do not have freedom of worship in America; we have the free exercise of religion in America. The government does not have the authority to confine your faith to the location of the government's choosing. A government entity like a school district cannot say to an employee: You can only live your faith over there, where we pick. I don't know what the school district is going to do in the days ahead, but I know what Americans of all faiths and people of no faith should do. They should rise up and say: We are a nation that protects the free exercise of religion. And people who disagree with that coach should rise up in the same way with people who agree because I can assure you--if they will silence a Christian who is silently praying on the 50-yard line, I can assure you they will be after every other faith in the country and say: You can only practice your faith in the place of the government's choosing. That is not who we are. Coach Joe Kennedy has the right to pray anywhere he wants to pray as long as it doesn't interrupt his school responsibilities. I pray that this school district and the attorneys who are trying to manufacture a new requirement on people of faith will see that in the days ahead. I yield the floor.

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 Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 28, 2015, at 3:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 28, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SR-253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 28, 2015, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled, ``The U.S. Role and Strategy in the Middle East.''

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 28, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Retirement Plan Options for Small Businesses.''

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 28, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Assessing the State of Our Nation's Biodefense.''

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 28, 2015, at 2:30 p.m. in room SR-418 of the Russell Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``VA Mental Health: Ensuring Access to Care''.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 28, 2015, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The State of Rural Banking: Challenges and Consequences.''

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I object to the modification.

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you for letting me join the conversation. The argument here is not against whether I would want or other Members would want cancer-causing items or would want to have the degradation. The problem is the degradation in our public parks and lands. We have an $11.5 billion backlog in our national parks right now. Inexplicably, the Land and Water Conservation Fund does not allow for the maintenance of what we have. The U.S. Government currently manages 29 percent of the land mass in the United States. We have a multibillion dollar backlog, including in our national treasure, which is the national parks that are out there. This amendment that I have, and which others are proposing, is to simply say: Before we keep adding land--at least at the same rate we are adding more land--we should be maintaining that land. It is equivalent to if you are going to buy car, you need to at least set aside some money to pay for gas. All that we are asking for is something that has been asked for now for a long time through multiple committees and multiple hearings, and that is, that as we engage in purchasing new property, we also make sure we are setting aside dollars from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to actually maintain what we are purchasing. The dollars that are there already are a $20 billion amount that is set aside for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The fund continues to function under the current CR. Appropriations have already been planned and put in place by the committees to be able to put it out there. This doesn't affect the current ongoing functioning. It only affects new dollars coming to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is already functioning as it is. In fact, it has a 65-year account set aside for it. The challenge now is this: Are we going to maintain what we have or are we going to keep purchasing new lands and not maintain what we have? I would say we can protect us from cancer-causing agents and we can maintain what we have as well.

Mr. LANKFORD. Would the Senator consider consent to join the colloquy?

Mr. LANKFORD. I object.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would like to ask that the consent be modified to pass a short-term extension, S. 2169, with my amendment, which is at the desk.

Mr. LANKFORD. I object.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, it is just past the middle of football season in America--a sad thing for a lot of us who are football fans. This is the time when some fans are thinking seriously about the playoffs and other fans start thinking seriously about trying to get their coach fired. In Bremerton, WA, coach Joe Kennedy is in trouble not because the team has a losing record but because he has the audacity to kneel down and pray on the 50-yard line after the football games are over and thank God for the chance to coach there and for the safety of his players. Gratitude to God is certainly not a crime in America. In fact, that is encouraged every year in the national prayer proclamation given by every President for decades, including this one. Coach Joe Kennedy is the varsity assistant coach and the JV head coach in Bremerton, WA. He enjoys working with the guys and coaching football. He has an excellent employment record at the school and has been a great motivator of the guys on his team. Since 2008, Coach Kennedy has had the habit of walking out to the 50- yard line after the game is over and kneeling down to pray. After a few weeks of his starting to do this in 2008, a couple of the Christian students on the team also asked if they could come and kneel down next to him, which they have done and he has allowed them to do. They are not required to pray. They are not required to be there at all. But those students have the freedom they have exercised to express their faith, and so does Coach Kennedy. For some reason, this season has been different. Now the district has asked the coach not to pray after the games. Instead, they want to provide him with a private room where he can go and pray separately so no one will see him. I have a letter from the district where they say they will give him this accommodation: ``[A] private location within the school building, athletic facility or press box could be made available to you for brief religious exercise before and after games.'' They literally want him to go into another spot so no one will see him pray. That seems to be the accommodation here. They are saying to him that he has the freedom to pray in a location we choose. The district has the fear that if anyone sees the coach praying, they may think the coach endorses or that the district endorses a particular faith. They wrote in a separate letter to the coach these criteria to say: As we go forward, these are the standards to apply. Quoting from the district: Students are free to initiate and engage in religious activity, including prayer, so long as it does not interfere with the school or team activities. Student religious activity must be entirely and genuinely student-initiated, and may not be suggested, encouraged (or discouraged), or supervised by District staff. Second, and continuing to quote: If students engage in religious activity, school staff may not take any action likely to be perceived by a reasonable observer, who is aware of the history and context of such activity at BHS, as endorsement of that activity. Examples identified in the Borden case include kneeling or bowing of the head during the students' religious activities. You and all District staff are free to engage in religious activity, including prayer, so long as it does not interfere with job responsibilities. Such activity must be physically separate from any student activity, and students may not be allowed to join such activity. In order to avoid the perception of endorsement discussed above, such activity should either be non-demonstrative-- In other words, you can't see it outwardly-- (i.e. not outwardly discernible as religious activity) if students are also engaged in religious conduct, or it should occur while students are not engaging in such conduct. In other words, don't get near a Christian student when they are praying and bowing their head and also bow your head. It is an odd thing that the district would worry that their actions would be perceived that they may have an official policy for Christianity, but they don't seem to have the same worry that their actions to try to eliminate anyone expressing their faith would be an official policy of atheism at the campus, since if they purged all displays of faith from any person, it would appear that no faith is the endorsed faith of the district. Under this policy, if a teacher who is a Christian sees another Christian student praying, they have to get away from them or at least walk past them as if they are disinterested. I don't think people understand how offensive that is to our faith. If I see a student praying, I would want to stand by them to hear their prayer, to be encouraged by their prayer. Under this policy, if a Christian student had been bullied at school and they wanted to sit by a Christian teacher at lunch, when that student at lunch bowed their head to pray over their low-calorie lunch meal, at their school lunch, the Christian teacher would either have to walk away or they would have to ignore their prayer, further ostracizing the student. Citizens don't lose their freedom of faith just because they also work for a State or Federal agency. People can display their faith--as this coach did for 7 years, and it had not been a problem for this coach to kneel down and pray at the end of the game. I am confused why suddenly now the district is concerned about this display of faith. Individuals can display their faith personally. It is their personal faith. It is not some endorsement by the district. A Wiccan teacher can wear a pentagram necklace. A Muslim teacher can wear a head scarf. A Christian can bow their head to pray at lunch, even a faculty member. A Sikh teacher can wear a turban. All of those are outward displays of a certain faith. How can a school district say that if you display your faith in a way that someone else can see it and figure out that you have faith, suddenly that is a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution? Courts have ruled that in a school setting, prayer cannot be mandatory in the school, compelled by the school, led by the school. While some have a problem with this interpretation, frankly, I don't. I, quite frankly, think teachers have multiple different faiths and multiple backgrounds, and I have the responsibility as a parent to train my child how to pray consistent with our faith. That is not the responsibility of that teacher at school to be able to teach them their faith. That is my job. I do have a problem when an individual teacher is restrained from practicing their own faith or an individual student is restricted from that. It is entirely different when a district states that a coach may not quietly pray or allow students to voluntarily participate with a coach in prayer when they share the same faith. After a game is over and all the players are free to leave, that is their own free time. They can go to the locker room, they can talk to their parents, and they can flirt with the cheerleaders on the sidelines. That is their own time. They can choose to do what they want to do, but they shouldn't be restricted from praying if they also choose to do that. The Bremerton School District attorneys have chosen to apply the Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick to this particular case. In that case, the coaches couldn't lead a prayer or participate if all the players were required to be present before the game. This is a required team meeting in the Borden School District of the Township of East Brunswick. This is completely different. This is after the game, when no player is required, no one is expected to be there, and those students and those coaches are on a brief period of respite after the game. For some reason, in this day and age, some citizens have become terrified of faith in America and prayer in America. They are frightened when people exercise their faith and live according to their sincerely held religious beliefs. So they try to quash it quietly. That is astounding to me--as a nation that was based on this basic principle of people being able to live their faith, not just to have it but to be able to live it. If a coach went to the 50-yard line after the game, sat down on a lawn chair and drank a Coke, no one would have a problem. If a coach went to the 50-yard line and sang Michael Jackson's ``Thriller'' and did the dance moves, he would be a YouTube sensation, but the district would have no problem with it. But if a coach goes to the 50-yard line, kneels down and prays, somehow that is a different type of speech or action. It is not. It is speech. It is the freedom of faith. It is who we are as Americans and our diversity in America. There is nothing different about that speech. The establishment clause in the Constitution is clear: ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . . '' This is not the freedom to have a religion. This is the freedom to exercise it. It is very clear in the Constitution. For some in this generation, they want to talk about freedom of worship. You can worship and you can go to a place of worship, you can worship with anybody, any way you want to, if you go over there and do it, but they don't want people to actually come out and live their faith publicly. We don't have freedom of worship in America. China has freedom of worship. We have the free exercise of religion, where we can live our faith outside of our church buildings, in our private lives, even if you are a public individual. It is reasonable for this Congress to speak out on this issue because it is a First Amendment freedom. Protecting one coach's right to pray protects every person's right to pray in the Nation. So let me ask a question. Is the district going to engage in stopping coaches from kneeling down on the sideline during the fourth quarter in a last-second field goal attempt and prevent them from praying on the sidelines? That is a rich tradition in football. How about this moment. Last Saturday at Oklahoma State University, we had an incredible tragedy where a car careened through the homecoming parade, killing many and injuring many more. It was a horrible tragedy. It happened just hours before the game. Players and coaches at Oklahoma State University walked out of the tunnel, and before the game started--when typically they would all gather and cheer together--they instead chose, players and coaches, to kneel down on the sideline and to pray for the families who were affected by this incredible tragedy just hours before. This apparently offends some people, that people in a State setting would express their private faith. Nothing was mandated about this. This was a group of players and coaches, that their heart was grieved for what was happening in their city and among the Oklahoma State family. This shouldn't be prohibited in America. This is who we are. I don't challenge the people in Bremerton. These are all honorable people who want what is best for Bremerton, WA, families. They all care about their kids there. The superintendent, the principal, the coaches, they all care about the kids there. This is a genuine misunderstanding of what our Nation protects and what our Nation stands for. Article 6, clause 3 of the Constitution says this: ``No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.'' In our Constitution, any individual who serves in any public trust in the United States doesn't have to set their faith aside nor have to take on any faith. In America, you can have a faith and live it or you can have no faith at all. That is the United States of America. Every day in this Chamber, including today, the Chaplain for the U.S. Senate begins our session in prayer. In this Chamber, the words ``In God We Trust'' are written right above the main doors as we walk in, the same as it is in the House Chamber above the Speaker's chair. We are not a nation that is trying to purge all faith. We are a nation that allows people to live their faith. I ask individuals in this Chamber right now who choose to, to even pray with me as I close out this statement. Father, I pray for Coach Kennedy and the leadership of Bremerton, the superintendents, and the principals. They have a difficult job, and I pray that You would bless them today. And I pray that You encourage those students, as they struggle with this basic religious freedom that we have in this Nation, that there would be a unity there and a decision that would be made that would clearly stand on the side of freedom. For the coaches and teachers of all faiths who serve there and serve across our Nation, I pray that You would bless those coaches and teachers today. They do a difficult task. As they walk with students through difficult decisions, I pray that You would encourage them in Your faith. Thank You, Jesus, for the way that You sustain our Nation and for the freedom that we have. We ask Your help in protecting us. In Your Name I pray. Amen. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, this Land and Water Conservation Fund has been around for 40 years. It has $20 billion built up in reserve. The authorization, as it is expired at this point, only changes the amount of money coming into it. We are still doing the same projects. Literally, this fund has 65 years worth of reserve built into it. What we are trying to find is some way to be able to help protect the lands that we already have. We are adding more lands. We are not doing maintenance on the lands. We have an $11 billion maintenance backlog just in our national parks. So I do have a concern that we are continuing to add more lands, and we are not taking care of what we have. There is not an immediate emergency need for this because the fund continues to operate. We are just not adding new dollars into it in the days ahead. But, again, we have about 65 years of reserve currently in it. So we are not in a hurry. We do want to be able to get this right, though, on how we actually maintain our lands as well as actually do purchasing or State entities do--whatever it may be--so I do object.

Mr. LANKFORD

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