Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to an additional 15 minutes.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, if there is one thing we know about American politics--if there is one thing we have learned from the 2016 Presidential race thus far--it is that there is a deep and growing mistrust between the American people and the Federal Government. This institution, Congress, is held in shamefully low regard by the people we were elected to represent, but so, too, are the scores of bureaucratic agencies that are based in Washington, DC, but extend their reach into the most remote corners of American life. In my home State of Utah, the public's distrust of Washington is rooted not in ideology, but experience. In particular, the experience of living in a State where a whopping two-thirds of the land is owned by the Federal Government and managed by distant, unaccountable agencies that are either indifferent or downright hostile to the interests of the local communities that they are supposed to serve. I have lost track of the number of stories I have heard from the people of Utah about their run-ins with Federal land management agencies, but there is one story that every Utahan knows: President Bill Clinton's infamous use of the Antiquities Act in 1996 to designate as a national monument more than 1.5 million acres of land in southern Utah--what would become known as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. What Utahans remember about this episode is not just what President Clinton did, but how he did it. Signed into law in 1906, the Antiquities Act gives the President power to unilaterally designate tracts of Federal land as ``historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest.'' The purpose of the law is to enable the Executive to act quickly to protect archaeological sites on Federal lands from looting, destruction, or vandalism. But the Antiquities Act is not supposed to be carte blanche for the President. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The language of the law is clear. It instructs the President to restrict the designation of national monuments under the Antiquities Act to the ``smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.'' So you can imagine the surprise, and, in fact, the indignation across the State of Utah following President Clinton's decision to annex a stretch of land roughly 1\1/2\ times the size of the State of Delaware and then to give control over that land to a Federal bureaucracy that routinely maintains a maintenance backlog that is several billion dollars higher than its multibillion-dollar annual budget. Even worse than the enormous size of the designation was the Clinton administration's hostility toward the people of Utah and the communities that would be most directly and severely affected by his decision. Not only did President Clinton announce the monument designation in Arizona--over 100 miles from the Utah State border--but he refused to consult or even notify Utah's congressional delegation until the day before his announcement. Consulting with the people who live and work in the communities around a potential national monument area isn't just a matter of following political etiquette, it is a matter of ensuring that Federal land policy does not rob citizens of their livelihood, which is exactly what happened as a result of the Grand Staircase designation. Utah's economy is built on the farm and agriculture industry, and livestock is the State's single largest sector of farm income. But of the 45 million acres of rangeland in Utah, nearly three-quarters is owned and managed by the Federal Government. Since the 1940s, Federal agencies have slashed livestock grazing across the Utah landscape by more than 50 percent--a policy of economic deprivation that accelerated after 1996 on rangeland within the Grand Staircase case. Even today the Bureau of Land Management shows no sign of relenting. For most people, the Grand Staircase episode is a case study of government-sponsored injustice and a form of bureaucratic tyranny. For me, it brings to mind the line from America's Declaration of Independence in which the colonists charge that the King of Great Britain ``has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.'' But for President Obama and the radical environmental groups that have co-opted Federal land agencies, it is the textbook model for the application of the Antiquities Act. In fact, it appears that President Obama is considering using his final year in the White House to target another vast tract of land in southern Utah for designation as a national monument. Covering 1.9 million acres of Federal land in San Juan County, this area, known as Bears Ears, is roughly the same size as the Grand Staircase. Both are situated near the southern edge of the State, and both possess an abundance of national beauty unrivaled by any place in the world. The similarities don't end there. Each area is home to a group of Utahans deeply connected to the Federal land targeted by environmental activists for a national monument designation. In the case of the Grand Staircase, it is the ranchers, and in the case of Bears Ears, it is the Kaayelii Navajo. The Kaayelii believe that a national monument designation in Bears Ears, their ancestral home, would threaten their livelihood and destroy their very way of life. Their concerns are well founded. In the 1920s and 1930s, hundreds of Navajo families settled on homesteads located in national monuments only to find themselves steadily pushed out by imperious Federal agencies all too eager to eradicate the private use of public lands. So it should come as no surprise to us today that the Kaayelii are protesting the unilateral Federal takeover of Bears Ears and calling on the Obama administration to forgo the high-handed approach to land conservation that was employed by President Clinton in 1996. The Kaayelii, of course, are not opposed to the protection or the conservation of public lands. They care about the preservation of Bears Ears just as much as anyone else. To them, the land is not just beautiful, it is also sacred. They depend on it for their economic and spiritual survival, which is why all they are asking for is a seat at the table so that their ancestral land isn't given over, sight unseen, to the arbitrary and arrogant control of Federal land management agencies. I agree with the Kaayelii. The President of the United States has no business seizing vast stretches of public land to be micromanaged and mismanaged by Federal agencies, especially if the people who live, work, and depend on the land stand in opposition to such a takeover. There is no denying that the people of San Juan County reject the presumption that they should have no say in the management of the land in their community. The truth is that most of those who have mobilized to support a monument designation at Bears Ears, including several Native American groups, live outside of Utah in States such as Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. By contrast, the people of San Juan County, UT--the people whose lives and livelihoods are intricately tied to Bears Ears--stand united in their opposition to a monument designation. That is why I have offered amendment No. 3023, which would update the Antiquities Act in order to protect the right of the Kaayelii and their fellow citizens of San Juan County to participate in the government's efforts to protect and preserve public land. Here is how my amendment works: It preserves the President's authority to designate tracts of Federal land as national monuments, but it also reserves a seat at the table for people who would be directly affected by Executive action. It does so by opening the policymaking process to the people's elected representatives at the State and Federal levels so they can weigh in on monument designations. Under my amendment, Congress and the legislature of the State in which a monument has been designated would have 3 years to pass resolutions ratifying the designation. If they fail to do so, the national monument designation will expire. Some critics might claim that this amendment would take unprecedented steps to curtail the President's monument designation authority under the Antiquities Act. This is not true. This, in fact, is nonsense. The truth is that Congress has twice passed legislation amending the Antiquities Act. In 1950, Congress wholly prohibited Presidential designation of national monuments under the Antiquities Act in the State of Wyoming. Some 30 years later, Congress passed another law requiring congressional approval of national monuments in Alaska larger than 5,000 acres. If you have ever visited Wyoming or Alaska, you know that these provisions have not led to the parade of horribles conjured up by radical environmental activists who seem intent on achieving nothing short of ironfisted Federal control of all Federal lands. In reality, the States of Wyoming and Alaska have proven that national monument designations are not necessary to protect and conserve America's most beautiful, treasured public lands. So why should the people of Wyoming and Alaska enjoy these reasonable, commonsense protections under the law while the people of Utah--and indeed, the people of every other State in the Union--do not enjoy the same protections? There is no good answer to this question except, of course, the adoption of my amendment. To anyone who might suggest that the people of these communities in and around national monuments are not prepared to participate in the monument process and policy process that leads to the creation of a monument, I invite you to visit San Juan County in southeastern Utah. You will see a community that is not only well informed about the issues and actively engaged in the political process, but also genuinely dedicated to finding a solution that works for everyone. The people of San Juan County--from the Kaayelii to the county commissioners--have the determination that is necessary to forge a legislative solution to the challenges facing public lands in their community, and that is exactly what you would expect. San Juan is a hardscrabble community. It is one of the most disadvantaged in the entire State of Utah, but you wouldn't know it from the people there. The citizens of San Juan County are hardworking, honest, decent, and happy people. Yet for far too long, Federal land management agencies have given the people of San Juan County and the people all across America little reason to trust the Federal Government. My amendment gives us an opportunity to change that. If Congress wants to regain the trust of the American people, we are going to have to earn it, and one of the ways we can earn it is by returning power to the people, and that is what this amendment would do. Passing this amendment giving all Americans a voice in the land management decisions of their community would be a meaningful and important step toward earning back that trust. I urge my colleagues to lend their support to this amendment and the vital public trust that it will help us to rebuild. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 3023.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on Sunday, January 17, 2016, this country lost an American hero--Officer Doug Barney of the Unified Police Department in Salt Lake County, Utah, was shot and killed in the line of duty. He died honorably, doing what he loved to do: serving and protecting his community. Every day of his 18 years on the force, Officer Barney made his community not just safer but better. I know this not from personal experience--I was not one of those fortunate enough to have met Officer Barney--but from the community's response to his untimely death. When the tragic news spread across Utah and the Nation, those who knew him or knew of him--and it was hard to live in Salt Lake County without knowing Officer Barney--sprung into action to support his family and to commemorate his life of service. The most important step was taken first: to surround Officer Barney's wife and three teenage children with love, comfort, and assistance. The outpouring of support came not just from friends, family, and neighbors, but from strangers, too. Nanette Wride and Shante Johnson didn't know Officer Barney, but they were among the first to join his wife, Erika, on her long journey of healing. Indeed, Wride and Johnson came as fellow travelers on that journey--they, too, had suffered the loss of a husband serving on the front lines of law enforcement-- knowing all too well the unique challenges facing the Barney family during this trying time. Then there was the candlelight vigil honoring Officer Barney, hosted by the Salt Lake Valley Law Enforcement Association and the city of Holladay, UT. Despite bitterly cold temperatures, hundreds of friends and neighbors huddled to pay their respects to the man who had meant so much to so many. That same night, another ceremony took place at the Utah State capitol, as firefighters, first responders, and police officers gathered to receive the U.S. honor flag at the end of its thousand-mile journey from Fort Worth, TX. The flag has flown over battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Ground Zero in New York City, and now, it is escorted by State troopers to communities across America that are mourning the loss and honoring the sacrifice of those who have been killed in the line of duty. It stayed with Officer Barney's body until his funeral, which brought together thousands from across the country. This was not the first time Doug Barney galvanized his community. In 2010, the students, teachers, and administrators of Eisenhower Junior High School rallied behind Officer Barney who was in the middle of what would become a 12-year battle with cancer. To the students, Officer Barney, the school's resource officer, was ``one of the good guys,'' so they organized a dodge-ball tournament--they called it the Battle for Barney--that raised over $1,000 to help him pay for his medical treatment. All of this stands as a testament to the profound impact Officer Barney had on the people and the community he dedicated his life to serve. Standing 6 feet, 5 inches tall, he had the physical attributes to be a good police officer, but as someone who genuinely respected and cared about everyone he met, he had the character to be a good person. And that is how Officer Barney will forever be remembered. His death serves as a stark reminder of the dangers our law enforcement personnel face every single day. Living with the hazards of the job takes a tremendous amount of courage. And Officer Barney was as brave as they come. Whenever he had to take time off from work for his cancer treatments, he was always eager to return. In fact, he had not been scheduled to work on January 17--that fateful Sunday when he gave the ultimate sacrifice. But with medical bills to pay and a family to feed, he volunteered to work overtime--which is exactly what you would expect from a man like Officer Barney, who chose to enter the police force 18 years ago for just one reason, to help people. Doug Barney was taken from this life tragically early, but he did more good in his 44 years on this Earth than most of us can hope to accomplish in a lifetime. May he rest in peace, and may God bless his family and the community he served. It will never be the same without him.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, here we are again: another year of legislative dysfunction capped by an undemocratic, unrepublican process that uses the threat of another manufactured crisis to impose on an unwilling country the same broken government policies that have repeatedly failed the people they are supposed to serve. The bills moving through Congress today and tomorrow, made up of the omnibus spending bill and the tax extenders package, and the process that produced it are an affront to the Constitution--to the very idea of constitutionalism--and an insult to the American people we were elected to represent. I am not even talking about the substance of the bill, which is bad enough and which I will get to in just a moment. I am talking about the way it was produced. A small handful of leaders from the two parties got together behind closed doors to decide what the Nation's taxing and spending policies will be for the next year. Then, after several weeks, the negotiators emerged, grand bargain in hand, confident the people they deliberately excluded from the policymaking process would now support all 2,242 pages of the legislative leviathan that they cooked up. This is not how a self-governing--or a self-respecting--institution operates, and everyone here knows it. The leaders who presided over these negotiations were elected, just like the rest of us, to represent the people residing in their State or congressional district and not the entire population of the country. Yet they excluded 99 percent of the country from this process, as if their representatives are just partisan seals trained to bark and clap on cue for their leaders. That anyone is celebrating this bill as some kind of achievement is further evidence of how out of touch Washington has truly become. Indeed, the very premise of this process--that the established leaders of the two parties can accurately and fairly represent 320 million Americans--is itself absurd. This isn't just my opinion; it is the opinion of the vast and bipartisan majority of our constituents. Seventy percent of the American people think the country is on the wrong track, and Congress, for its part, is the least trusted institution in this country. A dwindling minority of Americans trust the Federal Government to do what is right for the country. The country doesn't trust us or respect us. And if we pass this bill and assent to the secretive, undemocratic process behind it, we will be telling the country, loud and clear, that the feeling is mutual. All of this is before we even get into the substance of this bill. We are being told that the omnibus and tax extenders grand bargain is a legislative accomplishment of the highest order--some kind of shining example of what can happen when the two parties in Washington come to together to ``get things done.'' In a sense, I don't disagree. This bill is the textbook example of how Washington actually works, and that is precisely the problem because all too often, when Washington works, it does so not for American families, workers, or future generations, but for political elites and the sprawling ecosystem of lobbyists and special interests that subsist on the Federal Government's largesse. This bill is a case study of Washington's bipartisan bargains turning into special interest bonanzas. Like so many policies that come out of Congress today, the omnibus and tax extenders have something for everyone. Maybe you are a Puerto Rican rum distributor or exporter. If you are, this bill has you covered. It renews an underhanded tax scheme whereby the United States imposes artificially high import taxes on rum from Puerto Rico and then sends the proceeds back to the island's government. Perhaps you own a stable, multimillion-dollar racehorses, or maybe a NASCAR speedway. In either case, you are in luck, too, because this bill maintains the profitable accelerated depreciation schedules carved out in the Tax Code just for you. Maybe you run a salmon fishery and you are concerned about genetically engineered salmon cutting into your market share. Don't worry, there is something in this bill for you, too--a provision that empowers the Food and Drug Administration to use its regulatory powers to block genetically engineered salmon from hitting the grocery store shelves. Puerto Rican rum exporters, racehorse owners and breeders, speedway owners, salmon fishermen--this bill has something for everyone except for one group: the hard-working individuals and families living in one of America's forgotten communities left behind by Washington, DC's, broken status quo. I will be the first to admit there are some laudable provisions in both the spending and the tax bill that make some important policy reforms. There is the 2-year moratorium on ObamaCare's ill-conceived medical device tax and the defunding of ObamaCare's cronyist Risk Corridor Program. There is the lifting of the government's foolish ban on crude oil exports and the extension of several sound tax provisions that never should have been temporary in the first place. But the process has been rigged so that we can't vote on these commendable policy reforms by themselves. In fact, we can't vote for any one of these sensible, positive reforms without also voting for each and every dysfunctional, irresponsible, and unsustainable policy found in the 2,000-page bill--a bill, by the way, we received 36 hours ago--nor, it appears, will we have the opportunity to amend a single provision found within this massive legislation. This is a ``take it or leave it'' proposition. That means no up-or- down votes on controversial provisions that Members of the House and Senate as of 36 hours ago had no idea were going to be in this bill. There will be no up-or-down vote on the President's controversial Green Climate Fund; the unpopular and unwise cyber security measure; the divisive rules promoted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and the backdoor tweaks to the H-2B immigration visa program--all hidden within the pages of this bill, none of which saw the light of day, none of which saw committee action, none of which had the opportunity to be debated and discussed and changed, improved, amended until 36 hours ago and still will have no opportunity to be changed, improved, or amended even after they hit the floor. We will not have a chance to add the priorities of the more than 500 Members of Congress who were not in the negotiating room. So all Members who weren't there are left out of the process altogether. For instance, Members of Congress from Western States, including my home State of Utah, have been working tirelessly for months on a provision to prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from using government funds to implement the Bureau's land-use plans in the nearly 67 million acres of sage grouse habitat situated on western Federal lands. Amendments to strike or to add those provisions might have succeeded or they might have failed, but either way, the American people at least would have known where their representatives stood on these issues. With that transparency comes accountability, credibility, and ultimately trust. If the House and Senate actually voted for these measures as amendments to the spending bill, I might not like it, but it would at least put the question back into the hands of the American people and their elected representatives instead of deliberately taking it from them. Our credibility is on the line here. There is still time to get it back. We can still fix this. We can hit the reset button. We can pass a short-term, stopgap spending bill and then come back to this in the new year and give it the time it deserves, approach this with the kind of process for which this body has always up until now been known. Give the American people back their voice. Let's keep the government funded but buy ourselves more time so that this can be debated, discussed, improved, changed, and, where appropriate, amended. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute, bid farewell, and, coincidentally, to wish a 1-day belated birthday to a truly extraordinary gentleman from Cedar Hills, UT, who is a dear friend, a trusted partner, and one of the finest human beings I have ever known. For nearly 4 years, Boyd Matheson has served my Senate staff ably and honorably, first as State director and then for the last 3 years as chief of staff. He has served with special distinction on Team Lee, so much so that as far as my staff and I are concerned, we are all on Team Boyd. I can say with confidence and a great deal of gratitude that without Boyd Matheson I would not be here today. I first met Boyd about 12 years ago when he and his wife Debbie and their five children moved into my neighborhood. They had just returned to Utah after spending more than a decade outside the State and in places as far away as Australia while Boyd was building his successful consulting business. I could tell right away that Boyd felt at home in Utah, as well he should. After all, the State was settled by Boyd's ancestors, who came to Utah in the 1850s in search of a place where they could worship, believe, and live as they saw fit without fear of persecution. While Boyd's ancestors helped settle the State in the 19th century, his parents, who raised an impressive 11 children, helped populate our State in the 20th century. I soon got to know Boyd, who was active in many of the same ecclesiastical and political causes in which I was involved, and I was immediately struck by his masterful command of the English language. Boyd wasn't given to excessive speech, but when he spoke people listened. I noticed that everything Boyd said was at once profound, disarming, inviting, persuasive, and informative--a rare combination. Not much has changed since then. To this day, listening to Boyd speak is an uplifting experience for all who are fortunate enough to be present. Although it would be several more years before I got to know Boyd very well, I quickly identified him as someone whose opinion mattered to me and to others and whose skills as a communicator I deeply admired. Whenever anyone I knew was in need of advice on how to communicate an important message, I referred them to Boyd, assuring them with great confidence that this was a man who had an uncanny ability not only to say the right things but also to say them in just the right way. For that very reason, when I began considering running for the Senate, Boyd was one of the very first people I called. As one who had never previously sought or held public office, I knew that the odds were highly stacked against me, to put it mildly. With an instinctive trust in his judgment, I understood that I would need Boyd's help in order to have any plausible chance of winning. I still remember the first of what would be countless conversations that would take place over the next few months. I was on my way home from work late one evening when I placed the call. I wasn't sure whether he would tell me I was out of my mind or whether he would provide encouragement, nor was I even sure which answer I would prefer. Nevertheless, I knew, regardless of his response, that I should listen carefully to his assessment of my ideas. To his credit, and consistent with his thoughtful, careful approach, he didn't give me a definitive answer immediately. Instead, he asked for time to think about it, suggesting that we continue to visit periodically over the next few months, and this we did. In due time, we both came to the same conclusion. When I entered my Senate race in 2010, I asked Boyd to serve as my communications director. I knew that his distinctive vision for the future, his commitment to positive reform, and his unparalleled gifts for communication would provide my campaign with the direction, clarity of purpose, and optimism it would need to have any chance of success. I was right. Boyd was the perfect man for the job. He proved to be indispensable to the campaign, quickly earning an appropriate and very descriptive nickname. We often referred to him not simply as Boyd but by his longer and appropriate nickname, which was ``Boyd to the rescue.'' You see, just weeks into the campaign my wife Sharon christened him ``Boyd to the rescue'' because she noticed that he could solve just about any problem, that his calming reassurance had a positive effect on everyone around him, and that somehow things just went more smoothly when he was around. With Boyd's help I was elected in November 2010. Then, when it was all over and I made plans to transition to Washington, I invited him to join my Senate staff. While disappointed, I was not surprised that he opted to remain in Utah, returning to his career as a businessman and a consultant, a career which I had rather rudely interrupted a year earlier. You see, Boyd is not your typical chief of staff. Indeed, he is very unlike most of the people you will find in this town--or in any town, for that matter--in the best and most admirable ways imaginable, Boyd didn't ascend to his post by working his way up Washington's political pecking order, biding his time until it was his turn. No, he spent the bulk of his career--which, I would add, is just still getting started-- outside of politics, starting and running his own businesses to serve others and to create true value in society, and he began doing this at a very early age. In high school, Boyd ran sports camps where he taught kids in his community the fundamentals of how to succeed on the field, on the court, and in life. This has been the Boyd Matheson business model ever since he was in high school and started his first business-- inspiring, teaching, and helping those around him to succeed, though his target audience has changed over time from youth athletes to business executives, foreign dignitaries, long-shot political candidates, and eventually, thankfully, this Senator from Utah. Boyd agreed to join my campaign not because he had any political aspirations or ambitions of his own; he just wanted to make a difference. He knew that our country was headed down the wrong track and that his fellow Utahns and Americans in every State were facing challenging times ahead. He wanted to help however he could, but it wasn't until he had spent a year crisscrossing the State and the country with my campaign that Boyd realized the magnitude of the economic and social challenges facing the United States. He met countless families and hardworking Americans anxious about their country's future and struggling just to keep up. He visited far too many isolated, forgotten communities that were stuck in poverty with few opportunities and even fewer reasons for hope. And he got a glimpse into the political dysfunction plaguing and, at the same time, perversely enriching Washington, DC. By the end of the campaign, I could tell that Boyd knew the road to economic recovery and social revival in America would be long and arduous, but I also knew he cared enough about his family, his community, his State, and his country that he would do just about anything to be part of the solution. So when Boyd decided not to pursue a job on Capitol Hill after the campaign, deep down I knew that, God willing, he would be back. Thankfully, God was willing and so was Boyd. If my first year in the Senate taught me anything, it was that I needed Boyd Matheson's help to survive in Washington. So on December 5, 2011, as my first year in office was coming to a close, I decided to call him and ask him to take a job as my State director. Here again, I wasn't sure what his answer would be, but I knew I needed to ask. It was an offer I hoped he might accept. Not only had I given him ample time to forget about all the late nights and early mornings of the campaign, but the job I was offering him would allow him to stay in Utah most of the time, at least for the time being. In the end, it was providence that sealed the deal. When I called Boyd to offer him the job, I was at the airport in Salt Lake City traveling back to Washington after a weekend at home with my family. After a few minutes of small talk and catching up on the phone, Boyd asked me where I was at the moment. I told him I was at the airport. ``Me too,'' he said, adding that he was on his way to Bangkok. ``Which airport?'' ``Salt Lake City,'' I replied. ``Me too,'' said Boyd. ``Which concourse,'' he asked. ``D,'' I said. ``Me too,'' Boyd repeated again. ``Which gate,'' Boyd asked, as we both started looking around the crowded terminal. Before I could respond, we had both spotted each other sitting with only a few chairs between us in the waiting area adjacent to gate 6. We continued the conversation in gate D-6 in person and then via text message once we boarded our respective flights--mine to Washington and Boyd's to Thailand. Eventually he accepted the offer, convinced that our chance encounter in the airport that day was, as his wife Debbie would later put it, an ``inspired connection.'' It was inspired, indeed, but the connection was not just between Boyd and me; it was a connection between a man and his moment, between Boyd and the countless people whose lives have been forever changed because of his faithful service over the last 4 years. And no one has been more blessed than I have. Boyd has been my constant ally, spiritual coach, advocate, speaking surrogate, and friend. In addition to his many skills and attributes, so many of which are well-known to anyone who has interacted with my office, Boyd possesses a deep and genuine concern for others. Coupled with his freakishly intuitive sixth sense, this makes Boyd the consummate friend and indispensable teammate. For reasons I don't entirely understand but appreciate more than he can possibly know, Boyd has the extraordinary ability to know when, where, and how he is most needed long before anyone else does, long before the person who needs him knows. Years ago I lost track of how many times Boyd had sensed that I was worried about something and then he immediately called or texted-- invariably with exactly the right words that addressed my concerns. This, of course, is not part of the chief of staff job description in my office; it is just what Boyd does, not only for me but for everyone he knows. I can't count the number of times he has stepped in to help me, my family, and my staff in moments of need without having been asked and often at great personal sacrifice. Considering how hard he works to help others, many of us who know and work with him often ask: Does this man ever sleep? This, in turn, has sparked a number of half-joking suggestions among my staff that Boyd Matheson is actually a vampire, one who survives on Diet Coke rather than blood and rarely, if ever, sleeps. When we ask him whether he will ever take the rest that he needs and most certainly deserves, he relies on a well-worn response, saying, ``I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.'' The literary world recognizes these as the words of Robert Frost, but my family, my staff, and I will always attribute them to Boyd. By word and by deed, he made these words his anthem. Needless to say, Boyd has kept his promises and has more than earned his right to sleep. Yet, somehow, knowing Boyd as I do, I doubt he will hold still for long. Boyd Matheson at his core is a passionate reformer. He is exactly the kind of reformer with exactly the kind of courage and convictions that are so badly needed but too often in short supply here in Washington. Boyd is, in the words of essayist William George Jordan, one of the reformers of the world: . . . its men of mighty purpose. They are men with courage of individual convictions, men who dare run counter to the criticism of inferiors, men who voluntarily bear crosses for what they accept as right, even without the guarantee of a crown. They are men who gladly go down into the depths of silence, darkness, and oblivion, but only to emerge finally like divers--with pearls in their hands. Ask Boyd what pearls he has found in Washington and he will tell you, without pause or hesitation, ``the people.'' It is the people he will miss the most, which is exactly the kind of answer you would expect from Boyd--a man who genuinely cares about people. No matter who you are or how your path happened to cross with his, Boyd listens to and learns from you, he inspires and teaches you, and he always sees the best in everyone, challenging each of us to do the same. I am most fortunate to know Boyd Matheson and to call him my friend. I am most thankful for his sacrifice and that of his wife Debbie and their five children, who have seen on so many occasions the sacrifice of this great man in the service to me, to my staff, and to others. The people of Washington, DC, are going to miss Boyd Matheson, and the people of the great State of Utah will be lucky to have him back. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, tomorrow the Senate will vote on the Every Student Succeeds Act--a bill that reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, which is the legislation governing Federal K-12 education policy. By all accounts, the Senate is expected to pass this bill with a bipartisan majority, and President Obama is of course expected to sign it into law. This would be a serious setback for America's schools, teachers, and students, one that will have sweeping consequences for decades to come, because when we get educational policy wrong, as this bill does and as we have done at the Federal level for so many years, it affects not just the quality of education students receive as children but the quality of life that will be available to them as adults down the road. The problem is not just the particular provisions of this particular bill but the dysfunctional and outdated model of education on which it is built--a model that concentrates authority over education decisions in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, instead of in the hands of parents, teachers, principals, local school boards, and State officials. For the past 50 years, this model has defined and guided the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the bill before us today is unfortunately no exception. Not coincidentally, this central planning model has also failed to produce any meaningful improvements in academic achievement, especially for students from low- income communities. In fact, since 1969, test scores in reading and math have hardly budged for public school students of all ages, even while per-pupil spending has nearly doubled and school staff has increased by more than 80 percent. Yet here we are once again on the verge of passing another ESEA reauthorization bill built on the same K- 12 education model that has trapped so many kids across America in failing schools and confined America's education system to a state of stagnant mediocrity for half a century. This is not simply a failure of policy, it is a failure of imagination. Our 1960s-era, top-down model of elementary and secondary schooling has endured, essentially unchanged and unchallenged, for so many decades that the education establishment has come to take it for granted. For many policymakers and education officials in Washington and in State capitals around this great country, the status quo isn't just seen as the best way but is seen as the only way to design a K-12 education policy today. Even the most creative policy thinking is confined within the narrow boundaries of the centrally planned status quo. The only reform proposals that are given the time of day are those that seek to standardize America's classrooms, enforce uniformity across school districts, and systematize the way teachers teach and the way their students learn in the classroom at every step along the way. So we insist that the most important teaching decisions--about what to teach, when to teach it, and how to assess learning--are made by individuals outside of the classroom and are uniformly applied and reapplied regardless of the particular character and composition of a class in question. We expect students of the same age to progress through their curriculum and master each subject at exactly the same pace. We assign students to their school according to their ZIP Codes. We allocate public education funds to education agencies and schools--never directly to parents--and manage their use through bureaucratic restrictions and mandates. We evaluate teachers and determine their compensation not on the basis of job performance in the classroom but according to standards that can be quantified, such as the number of years on the job. Student learning is assessed in much the same way, using standardized tests and age-based benchmarks. We never let stagnant educational outcomes or a persistent achievement gap shake our faith in the ability of central planners to engineer and superintend the education of tens of millions of students in America. These are the fundamental pillars of the status quo model for elementary and secondary education, and the Every Student Succeeds Act leaves them wholly, entirely intact, but schools are not factories, education can't be systematized, and learning can't be centrally planned. Good teachers are successful not because they are following some magic formula concocted by experts in Washington, DC, but because they do what good teachers everywhere have always done in order to advance the learning of their students: They work harder than just about anyone, and they know their class material--the material they teach their students--inside and out. They communicate early and often with each student's parents so they and their students can be held accountable. They observe and they listen to their students in order to understand their unique learning needs and goals and tailor each day's lesson plans accordingly. They evaluate students honestly and comprehensively, assessing whether they have mastered the material, not just figured out how to take a test. So instead of imposing an obsolete conformity on an invariably varied environment, we should be empowering teachers and parents with the tools they need to meet the unique educational needs of their students and children. Instead of continuing to standardize and systematize education across the entire country, we should be trying to customize and personalize education for every single student. The good news is, we don't need to start from scratch. We know local control over K-12 and even pre-K education is more effective than the prescriptive, heavy-handed approach of Washington, DC, because we have seen it work in communities all over the country. For years education entrepreneurs in the States--including my home State of Utah--have been implementing and refining policies that put parents, teachers, principals, and school boards back in charge of education policy, back in charge of curriculum, and back in charge of teaching and testing standards. Perhaps the most popular State- initiated reform is the movement toward school choice, which overturns the embarrassingly outdated and manifestly unfair practice of assigning schools rigidly based on ZIP Codes. We know a good education starting at a young age is an essential ingredient for economic opportunity and democratic citizenship later in life for each child. We also know America has always aspired to be a place to where the condition of your birth doesn't determine your path in life. So why on Earth would we want to prohibit parents from choosing the school that is best for their children, especially if, as is far too common, their local school is underperforming at the moment. School choice is one of the most important, locally driven reforms aimed at resolving this fundamental injustice that our current assignment by ZIP Code system has attached to it, but it is not the only one. There are also education savings accounts--or ESAs--which give parents control over the per-pupil education dollars that would have been spent on their child by the school system. There is the recent innovation of course choice, pioneered within my home State of Utah, which brings the same kind of education customization and a la carte choice that have spread on college campuses to elementary and secondary schools. Of course, there is the distinctively American notion that parents, principals, school districts, and State officials have the right and should have the ability to opt out of the most onerous, restrictive, and misguided Federal commands. Whether it is parents who don't want their children wasting dozens of hours each year taking standardized tests or State policymakers who develop local education reforms that are more effective and less expensive than the Federal one-size-fits-all policies, we should support the rights of all Americans to have a say in the education of their children. The point isn't that there is a better way to improve America's schools, but it is rather that there are 50 better ways or even thousands of better ways. In our increasingly decentralized world, in our increasingly decentralized and complex American economy, there are as many ideal education policies as there are children and teachers, communities and schools. But Washington is standing in the way, inherently, if irrationally, distrustful of any alternative to the top- down education status quo. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, Washington's outdated, conformist policies will continue to be in the way, which is why I urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting against this bill. Even if most Senators vote in favor of the failed status quo, I am confident I have the majority of moms and dads in America on my side. I often hear from Utah parents, calling or writing my office to express their support for local control over education. I recently received an email from Kierston, a proud mother of four and the PTA president at her local school, who urged me to vote against this ESEA reauthorization. I thought I would let her have the last word today. Based on years of experience with the public schools in her community, Kierston warns that maintaining Washington, DC's, monopoly over America's public schools will ``force my three incredibly different children who learn in very different ways into a box where my daughter will be forced to learn things she isn't ready to learn . . . my oldest who is ahead of his peers will be forced to slow down or help teach his peers in a way they don't understand . . . and my third will constantly be in trouble for not sitting still and pestering his peers because he understands quickly and is bored.'' ``We need standards, we need benchmarks,'' Kierston wrote, ``but we also need to allow children to learn at their own pace. . . . We need child centered education where children have the ability to go as fast or as slow as they need. . . . Please think about the children of Utah. Vote against [the ESEA reauthorization]. Allow our kids the freedom to learn.'' I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the highway spending bill before us today--and not just the failed substance of the legislation. I rise to oppose the bill's irresponsible and unsustainable funding mechanisms and the cynical process that produced it. We are told this bill fully funds Federal highway spending for the next 5 years and that it won't add a single dime to the Federal deficit. The math may add up on paper, but does anyone really think the pay-fors in this bill are honest, responsible ways to fund a government program? Let's look at a few examples. Of the $70 billion this bill uses to bailout the highway trust fund over the next 5 years, more than $50 billion comes from an accounting gimmick that steals money from the rest of the Treasury's general fund. Here is how the shell game works. Normally, the Federal Reserve sends the profits from its portfolio assets directly to the U.S. Treasury. These surplus profits are actually one of the major reasons our Federal budget deficits have fallen in recent years below where they were a short time ago. However, this bill would siphon off that money and redirect it into the highway trust fund. Just today, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen testified before the Joint Economic Committee, where she commented on this particular provision--on this particular aspect of this bill. She said: This concerns me, I think financing federal fiscal spending by tapping resources at the Federal Reserve sets bad precedent and impinges on the independence of the central bank; it weakens fiscal discipline, and I would point out that repurposing the Federal Reserve's capital surplus doesn't actually create any new money for the federal government. That is not the only funding gimmick found in this legislation. It also purports to raise $6.2 billion in revenue for transportation and infrastructure projects by selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Let's leave aside for a second that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was never intended to be a piggy bank for congressional appropriators. What makes this pay-for particularly objectionable is that its authors assume they can get $93 for a barrel of oil when it is currently selling for less than $40 per barrel. Only in Washington could we come to love a provision like this. Only in Washington could we come to accept a provision like this as somehow acceptable. If we are going to start selling Federal assets at fantasy prices--prices that do not exist and will not exist in any universe for the foreseeable future-- there is absolutely no limit whatsoever to the number of things that we can pretend to pay for. But that is what we will be doing--pretending to pay. As bad as this bill's funding schemes are, the cynical process used to secure votes in its favor might well be far more troubling. For instance, this bill adds back $3.5 billion in crop subsidy spending that we just cut last month in the budget deal. Is this really how we do business in the Senate? We reduce spending one month in order to appear fiscally responsible only to reverse course the very next month when we think no one is looking? You don't need to oppose crop subsidies to see the dishonesty and cynicism of this particular maneuver. Even worse, this bill would never have had a chance of passing the Senate were it not for a deal to include the renewal of the Export- Import Bank as part of this legislation. I have spoken out against the Export-Import Bank many times before, so there is little need to revisit the mountain of evidence proving that it is one of the most egregious, indefensible cases of crony capitalism in Washington, DC. But it is worth highlighting some of the so-called reforms that Ex-Im supporters included in the bill. First, there is the new Office of Ethics created within the Export- Import Bank. Presumably, this is supposed to help the Bank's management reduce the rate at which Ex-Im employees and beneficiaries are indicted for fraud, bribery, and other wrongdoing. Since 2009, there have been 85 such indictments, or about 14 per year. The bill also creates a new position called the Chief Risk Officer and requires the Bank to go through an independent audit of its portfolio. Only in Washington will you find people who believe that an organization's systemic ethical failings can somehow be overcome by creating a new ethics bureaucracy or that hiring a new risk management bureaucrat is a suitable replacement for market discipline or that giving another multimillion-dollar contract to a well-connected accounting firm will somehow substitute for real, actual political accountability. None of these bogus reforms will make an ounce of difference. None of them will change the essential purpose of the Export-Import Bank, which is to use taxpayer money to subsidize wealthy, politically connected businesses. Finally, it must be stressed that this bill does nothing to fix our fundamentally broken highway financing system. After this legislation is enacted, the highway trust fund will spend more money than the Federal gasoline tax brings in. And after this series of fraudulent pay-fors are exhausted in just 5 years, we will be right back to where we have been for the last decade, and that is trying to find enough money for another bailout without attracting too much attention from the American people. Let's not forget that the States are big losers under the status quo system too--under the current system that we have. Federal bureaucrats divert at least 25 percent of State gasoline dollars to nonhighway projects, including mass transit, bike paths, and other boondoggles such as vegetation management, whatever that is.

Mr. LEE. As I was saying, Federal bureaucrats divert at least 25 percent of State gas tax dollars to nonhighway projects, including mass transit, bike paths, and other boondoggles such as vegetation management. Federal Davis-Bacon price-fixing regulations then artificially inflate construction costs by at least 10 percent, and Federal environmental regulations, such as those issued under the National Environmental Policy Act, add an average of 6.1 years in planning delays to any federally funded project. I understand that Washington is not ready for a more conservative approach to infrastructure funding--at least not yet--one where States get to keep their transportation dollars and decide how and on what they will spend those dollars, free from interference by Federal regulators. We can have honest disagreements from policy, and I know there is more work to do in making the case for conservative transportation reform, but what I refuse to accept is the toxic process that produced this bill--the backroom deals, the about-face on crop subsidies, and the Export-Import Bank. The American people deserve better than this, and I won't stop fighting to ensure that we do better than this in the future. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I have less than a page of my remarks that I prepared left. I ask unanimous consent for permission to have an additional 2 minutes to complete my remarks.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, nearly 6 years ago this body was on the verge of passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Today the Senate is poised to repeal that insultingly misnamed law. Back in the winter of 2009, of course, we still had yet to pass the bill to see what was in it, although one didn't need a Ph.D. in economics to foresee that the Affordable Care Act would be a mess. It wasn't just conservatives and Republicans raising concerns; every sensible observer saw the obvious flaws and the inevitable disasters embedded in the rickety, ideological scheme congressional Democrats were foisting on the American people in an exercise of unprecedented partisanship. Six years later, the Democratic Party's dream of ObamaCare has become the American people's nightmare. For the past 5 years, the American people have lived with and have suffered through the chaos and dysfunction wrought by ObamaCare's assault on American health care. At every step along the way, opposition to the law has grown stronger and calls for its repeal by the American people have grown louder, which brings us here today. Last year Republicans running for Congress promised to repeal ObamaCare as a first step toward replacing it with real health care and real insurance reform. It was largely on the basis of this pledge that the American people elected to put the GOP in charge of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The bill we are scheduled to vote on later this week brings us as close to fulfilling that promise as is possible under the Senate rules, pursuant to the instructions from the budget resolution that Congress passed just a few months ago. I applaud the majority leader for his steadfast leadership over the past several days and weeks, and I commend the Senate Budget Committee for its tireless efforts, as Republicans have worked together to craft a reconciliation package that doesn't just tinker around the edges of ObamaCare but lays the groundwork for ObamaCare to be erased from the books altogether. This is the only responsible step for Congress to take because by the law's own standards, according to the promises of the ideologues who imposed it on an unwilling country, ObamaCare has been a failure. As its name suggests, the overriding objective and promise of the Affordable Care Act was to make health care more affordable for Americans. Yet, nearly 5 years after its passage, no one seriously claims the law has made it easier or more affordable for the American people to access the health care services they need. Facts are not optional, and the facts prove that quality, affordable health care is harder to find in America today than it was 6 years ago, especially for low- and middle-income Americans. With so much political and ideological capital invested in propping up and defending ObamaCare, President Obama and his allies here in Congress are forced to simply try to skirt the facts. Take, for instance, the left's favorite half-truth--the notion that ObamaCare has succeeded because there are fewer uninsured Americans today than before the Affordable Care Act was signed in the law. But the other salient fact routinely omitted by the President and congressional Democrats is that the vast majority of the newly insured receive their coverage through Medicaid. The reason ObamaCare supporters have made a habit of ignoring this fact is obvious: For 50 years, Medicaid has served as the preeminent case study of how not to run a health insurance program. Medicaid's abysmal track record of failing our most vulnerable populations will only get worse as millions of new, able-bodied adults join the program. Then there is the fact that in 2016, insurance premiums are set to continue their steep assent toward unaffordability. That goes for insurance plans on the ObamaCare exchanges as well as commercial plans purchased in the private market. ObamaCare supporters have long promised that rising premiums would be at worst a brief detour on the centrally planned road to affordable health care, but as it turns out the iron laws of economics have once again triumphed over ideological wishful thinking. According to a survey of commercial insurance brokers conducted by Morgan Stanley, the average rate hike in 2016 for individual insurance plans will be 12.6 percent--slightly higher than the 11.2-percent increase last year--and the increase in small group rates will be 13.5 percent, up from a hike of 11.7 percent last year. So this creep continues. It keeps getting worse for the American people. The outlook for insurance plans on the ObamaCare exchanges is just as bleak. Last month the Department of Health and Human Services announced that insurance premiums will rise an additional 7.5 percent next year in the 37 States using the notoriously defective and flawed healthcare.gov, and that is just the average, which obscures the more dramatic premium increases for residents in several States in particular, such as Oklahoma and Alaska, both of which are projected to see their ObamaCare premiums spike more than 30 percent next year. Compounding the continued acceleration of premium hikes is the simultaneous increase in deductibles and the narrowing of choices that patients face in the health care market. In my home State of Utah, for instance, the residents of 20 out of my State's 29 counties are limited to only one health insurance plan option. This toxic combination of rising health care costs and limited health care choices has already had serious consequences, especially for low- and middle-income Americans who are most severely affected by the law and who are the least capable of dealing with adverse consequences. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly one in three Americans report that they or a family member have postponed or delayed medical treatment within the past year because of the cost, and they are more likely to have done so for a serious medical condition than for a medical condition deemed nonserious. What is even more remarkable is that the proportion of Americans who delay medical treatment because of the cost has remained basically unchanged for the last decade, even as the number of Americans with insurance coverage has increased. It is not just patients who have found ObamaCare to be too expensive. Insurance providers are coming to the same conclusion. To date, half of the 23 cooperatives created by ObamaCare collapsed despite receiving billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies. The shuttering of the once- celebrated ObamaCare co-ops is not just a sign of the law's unsustainability, it is also a major source of the stress and anxiety that millions of Americans are experiencing as a result of this unfortunate law. Just ask the hundreds of thousands of Utahans who recently found out that Arches Health Plan, a co-op that served roughly one-quarter of the State's exchange enrollees could not afford to stay in business next year. The announcement came only 5 days before open enrollment began this fall, leaving families across Utah scrambling to find a new plan and hoping they can afford it--like so many before them, the collateral damage of the President's repeated broken promise that if you like your health care plan, you can keep it. Then there was the recent warning from United Healthcare. United is the Nation's largest health insurance provider. It was supposed to be big enough and with enough efficiencies built into its operations to absorb the new costs associated with doing business within the ObamaCare regulatory framework. Yet just a few weeks ago, United announced that the financial realities of its ObamaCare plans may soon force the insurance giant to stop offering insurance plans through the public exchanges. The Affordable Care Act has been described by some of its supporters as a train wreck. It certainly looks that way as we watch hard truths and economic realities unravel the coalition of insurers that were once great champions of ObamaCare, but when you think about it, the term ``train wreck'' isn't quite the right metaphor to describe the calamity that is the Affordable Care Act. It misses the crucial point. Train wrecks are accidents, aberrations, anomalies. The failures of ObamaCare were no such thing. They were entirely predictable. We knew they were coming, despite the President's repeated assurances to the contrary. There was nothing unexpected about the collapse of a national health care pseudo market, governed by a perverse set of incentives and exemptions that encouraged young and healthy individuals to stay out of the health insurance market. Now, nearly 5 years after its passage, there is no denying the manifest failures of ObamaCare. The only question left is, What are we going to do about it? For the Democratic Party, the answer is--as we have come to expect-- more of the same. Shield the ramshackle architecture and bloated bureaucracy of ObamaCare from any meaningful reform, and whenever possible double down--more ill-conceived and costly regulations, more Federal micromanagement of the health decisions of individuals, families, doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies, more price controls, all peddled using the same hackneyed promises and proclamations of compassion and fairness that have nearly drowned out any honest discourse during the past 6 years regarding health care. ObamaCare has given the American people a preview of this approach to health care policy, and they have emphatically rejected it, which is why the Senate will soon vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but just saying no is not by itself enough. Conservatives and Republicans must also offer the country a health care reform agenda to be for, something they can support affirmatively, proactively. Already there are a number of conservative leaders in Congress who have developed reform plans that would replace ObamaCare's cumbersome, bureaucratic, and expensive health care system with one that is flexible, decentralized, and affordable. We must build on these plans and advance legislation that empowers patients and families--not distant, coercive, powerful bureaucracies--to decide how they want to spend their health care dollars, and that encourages innovation and investment across all health care sectors. Repealing the Affordable Care Act is the first step in that process--the beginning, not the end of our road to building a market- based, patient-centered health care system in America. I look forward to joining my colleagues in voting to repeal ObamaCare and entering this new phase of health care reform. I thank my colleagues who cooperated and worked together in developing this bill that I wholeheartedly support. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Governor Olene Walker, Utah's 15th Governor, who passed away on Saturday, November 28, 2015, at the age of 85. She was the first woman to serve as Utah's Governor, worked as Lieutenant Governor for over 11 years, and was a member of the Utah Legislature for 8 years. Olene Walker will be remembered and revered by Utahns not because of the many firsts she pioneered in politics but for her commitment to leave a legacy of public and, more importantly, private service based on principles that truly last. Olene Walker's life and career were centered in the principles of lifelong learning, selfless service, and making a difference through civil discourse and meaningful dialogue. Governor Walker believed that the best way to open a mind was to read a book. Immediately upon becoming Governor, she launched her Read With a Child Program, focused on getting adults to read with a child for 20 minutes every day. She knew that 20 minutes of daily reading would not only transform children across the State by getting them to read at or above grade level, but it would transport them to magical places, big ideas, and brighter futures. Because she became Governor at the age of 73--and as a grandmother--I think she also recognized that 20 minutes of reading with a child would inspire the adults in the State of Utah as well. Governor Walker was never far from a book or a group of children to read to, often choosing her personal favorite from Dr. Seuss, ``Oh, the Places You'll Go!'' Governor Walker went many places in her public service but sent thousands and thousands of Utah children on adventures never to be forgotten in the wonderful world of good books. She was living proof that books expand the mind and that a mind expanded, especially the mind of a child, could never return to its original state. I was inspired when reading her obituary that the last line, in typical Olene Walker style, stated: ``In lieu of flowers, please read with a child.'' Her commitment to the principle of lifelong learning is a legacy in and of itself. Governor Walker also understood that it didn't really matter where she served, but how she served. Whether working alongside her husband in the family's snack business, in the legislature or in the Governor's office, Olene Walker knew that her time on this Earth would never be measured by the titles she held but by the impact and influence that she had on others. She understood and lived by the adage: ``We are to live our lives not by days, but by deeds, not by seasons, but by service.'' After leaving the Governor's mansion, she participated in literacy forums, served an LDS mission with her husband in New York, and at an age when most people slow down, Olene Walker took on a new and, many would say, daunting challenge of leading dozens of 3- to 11- year-old children for 2 hours every Sunday in her LDS congregation. Governor Walker served with confidence, charisma, and charm that was elevating and at the same time enlightening. National political players, rural farmers, business executives, and children were equally inspired by her energetic approach, and they responded to her invitation to engage because they sensed that what they were about to experience was not about Governor Walker; it was about them. In an age of egomaniacs and narcissists, Olene Walker's example of selfless service in high office is a model for all to follow--a model that all people should try to emulate. Governor Walker also understood the principle that mean-spirited arguments produce little, while meaningful dialogue creates much. She was known for her disarming style and for her corresponding ability to pull people into a conversation. She believed and lived by a motto that my office is committed to. The solution to any and every problem begins when someone says: Let's talk about it. Olene Walker challenged political candidates, elected officials of both parties, and young people in particular to transcend the talk-radio style bombast in personal attacks in favor of civil, serious, and substantive discussions. The Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service, at her beloved Weber State University, is a testament to her commitment to make a difference through a more meaningful and deeper dialogue. A picture of Olene Walker taken inside the Governor's mansion contains an interesting image that illuminates much of what Olene Walker was really all about. Resting on a desk in the background of the picture is a statue of a vibrant, energetic, pioneering Brigham Young. He is walking swiftly, leading with staff in hand, eyes set on a bright future as he began the audacious endeavor of being the first to establish a lasting legacy in the tops of the Rocky Mountains. In the picture, the statue of Brigham Young almost appears to be trying to keep up with Governor Walker. Only Olene Walker could get a trailblazing Brigham Young to pick up the pace. Governor Walker, likewise, was a pioneer and a trailblazer, moving swiftly, leading with a clear vision of a better society, and guided by her principles of lifelong learning, selfless service, and civil dialogue. Her life of many firsts will be celebrated and emulated for generations to come because it was founded on and inspired by such principles--principles that will truly last.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute.

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

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I thank my friend and distinguished colleague from Tennessee for his remarks. In light of the fact that this bill does involve a complicated process, in light of the fact that this bill--the original Senate bill--was many hundreds of pages long, in light of the fact that the conference report is likely to be lengthy, I would hope and I would urge my colleagues to have a say in the matter. I hope we will all work toward a process that can result in at least allowing the American people to see this bill before it comes back in conference report form--at least a week or so before we actually have a vote on the conference report. I think the American people deserve to see what is in it before their representatives in the House and in the Senate have an opportunity to vote on it. I hope that will be the case and I hope my colleagues will agree to that.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, shortly the Senate will vote on the motion to appoint conferees--or what is often called the motion to go to conference--for a bill that reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the ESEA, which is the legislation governing our Federal K-12 education policy. Because most Americans have probably never heard of this obscure parliamentary procedure--the motion to appoint conferees, that is--I wish to take just a moment to explain how it works or at least how it should work. When the House and the Senate each pass separate but similar bills, the two Chambers have the ability to convene what is called a conference, a conference committee. A conference is essentially a meeting where delegates from each Chamber come together to iron out any differences between their respective--similar but somewhat different-- bills and then put together what is called a conference report, which is a single piece of legislation that reconciles any disparities between the House-passed bill and the Senate-passed counterpart to that bill. Once the delegates to the conference--the conferees, as they are sometimes known--agree on a conference report, they bring it back to their respective Chambers, to the House and the Senate, for a final vote. It is important to note that once the conference report is sent to the House and the Senate for a final vote, there is no opportunity to amend the legislation. It is an up-or-down vote. Each Chamber can either approve or reject the conference report in its entirety. If each Chamber votes to approve the conference report, then it is sent to the President, who can either sign it into law or veto it. So what we are doing today is voting on the motion to appoint conferees for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Earlier this year, both the House and the Senate passed their own ESEA reauthorizations and now we are voting to proceed to the conference process and to appoint certain Senators to participate in that process as conferees. Historically, and according to the way the conference process is supposed to work, this vote is not that big of a deal. Voting on the motion to appoint conferees is usually, and mostly, a matter of routine, but it is not a vote that should be rushed through on a moment's notice because it is the last opportunity for Senators and Representatives who are not conferees, such as I, to influence the outcome of the conference process. We can do that by offering what are called motions to instruct the conferees. For example, let's say I was not chosen to be a conferee on a particular bill, but there was an issue related to the bill that was important to me and to the people I represent. In that case I could ask the Senate to vote on a set of instructions that would be sent to the conference to inform the conference's deliberations and influence the substance of the conference report. This is how the conference process is supposed to work, but it is not how the conference process has been conducted with respect to this bill--the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization. Sure, we are still voting to appoint conferees and those conferees will still convene a conference and that conference will still produce a conference report. So from the surface it will still look like the conference process is happening, is unfolding in the manner in which it is supposed to, but beneath the surface we know that all of this has already been prearranged, precooked, predetermined by a select few Members of Congress working behind closed doors free from scrutiny, and we know this vote was scheduled on extremely short notice so it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the rest of us to influence the substance of the conference report through motions to instruct. Why does this matter? We know the American people care deeply about K-12 education policy, but why should they care about this obscure parliamentary procedure in the Senate? They should care, and we know they do care, because the process influences the policy. In this case, the process expedites the passage of policies we know don't work, policies to which the American people are strongly opposed. For instance, it is my understanding this bill would authorize $250 million in new spending on Federal pre-K programs--what amounts to a downpayment on the kind of universal, federally run pre-K programs advocated by President Obama. This would be a disaster not only for American children and American families but for our 21st century economy that increasingly requires investments in human capital. We know a good education starting at a young age is an essential ingredient for upward economic mobility later in life. A mountain of recent social science research proves what experience and intuition have been teaching mankind for millennia; that a child's first few years of life are critical in their cognitive and emotional development. Yet we also know that too many of America's public schools, especially those public schools in low-income and disadvantaged neighborhoods, often fail to prepare their students to succeed. Nowhere has the top-down, centrally planned model of public education failed more emphatically than in our Nation's public pre-K programs. The epitome of Federal preschool programs is Head Start, which has consistently failed to improve the lives and educational achievements of the children it ostensibly serves. According to a 2012 study by President Obama's own Department of Health and Human Services, whatever benefits children gain from the program disappear by the time they reach the third grade, but because bureaucracies invariably measure success in terms of inputs instead of on the basis of actual outcomes, Head Start and its $8 billion annual budget is the model for Democrats as they seek to expand Federal control over childcare programs in communities all across this country. This bill also doubles down on the discredited common-core approach to elementary and secondary education the American people have roundly and consistently rejected. Parents and teachers across America are frustrated by the heavy-handed, overly prescriptive approach to education policy by Washington, DC. I have heard from countless moms and dads in Utah who feel as though anonymous government officials living and working 2,000 miles away have a greater say in the education of their own children than they do. The only way to improve our K-12 education system in America is to empower parents, educators and local policymakers to meet the unique needs of their communities and serve the low-income families the status quo is leaving behind. With early childhood education, we could start block-granting the Head Start budget to the States. This would allow those closest to the children and families being served to design their own programs rather than spending all their time complying with onerous, one-size-fits-all mandates and designate eligible public and private preschools to receive grants. We know this works because many States are already doing it. In my home State of Utah, for instance, the United Way of Salt Lake has partnered with two private financial institutions, Goldman Sachs and J.B. Pritzker, to provide first-rate early education programs to thousands of Utah children. They call it a pay-for-success loan. With no upfront cost or risk to the taxpayers, private capital is invested in the Utah High Quality Preschool Program, which is implemented and overseen by the United Way. If, as expected, the preschool program results in increased school readiness and improved academic performance, the State of Utah repays the private investors with the public funds it would have spent on remedial services the children would have needed between kindergarten and the 12th grade had they not participated in the program. Washington policymakers should not look at Utah's pay-for-success initiatives and other local success stories like them as potential Federal programs but rather as a testament to the power of State and local control, of State and local ingenuity. We should not expand Washington's control over America's schools and pre-K programs. Instead, Congress must advance reforms that empower parents with flexibility and with choice to do what is in the best interests of their children. The policies in this bill, as I understand them, move in the opposite direction. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, reserving the right to object, there is nothing divisive about this resolution I have offered today, nothing divisive whatsoever. This simply seeks recognition of the great work that is performed by the men and women who staff these pregnancy centers. There is nothing about it that is a political football, nothing about it that is designed to drive a wedge. Unlike our resolution, the resolution I submitted today, S. Res. 312, which mainly commends community volunteers around the country for helping young mothers and their children--hardly divisive--the Senator's counterproposal is divisive and controversial. My cosponsors and I only wanted to recognize the life-affirming and lifesaving work, the kind of work that brings families and communities together the counterproposal would only pull Americans further apart and further away from the more humane and compassionate society that all Americans deserve. If calling for recognition of these brave and noble men and women who serve people at pregnancy centers around the country is divisive, we have significant problems, but the fact is, it is not. I would encourage anyone within the sound of my voice to read S. Res. 312, and they will discover it is not the least bit divisive and doesn't discuss anything that is the least bit controversial. On that basis, I can't agree with the modification, and I object.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I rise today to support and to request the Senate's approval of this resolution, which would designate the second week of November as National Pregnancy Center Week in honor of the lifesaving and life-affirming work of America's community-supported pregnancy centers. I am asking for my colleague's unanimous consent because there is absolutely nothing contentious about this resolution, S. Res. 312, nor is there anything contentious about the pregnancy resource centers commemorated by this resolution. There are approximately 2,500 pregnancy resource centers in America. Every single day they serve an average of 65,000 women and men faced with challenging pregnancy decisions, providing them with a wide array of resources. That includes, at many centers, health care services such as pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and testing for STDs and STIs. It includes emotional and educational support such as options counseling and parenting classes. It includes material and logistical assistance to help new moms and dads deal with all the little things that easily add up to big obstacles in the first few weeks and months of parenthood. America's pregnancy resource centers aren't out to make a profit nor are they out there to push a particular political agenda. They are just there to help and to do so in a way that is compassionate, considerate of individual privacy, and respectful of the equal dignity of all human life. Any way you look at it, America's pregnancy resource centers deserve our recognition and they deserve our respect and our gratitude. The real measure of their significance isn't in the words of a floor speech in the Senate or the outcome of a vote, it is in the thousands of lives they help save from the pain of abortion every year and in the millions of teachers, soldiers, nurses, neighbors, friends, and spouses whose lives and contributions to our communities we might never have known had it not been for the unassuming heroes down at the local pregnancy center who give their time to keep the lights on, answer the phones, and help young women find the hope and the courage to choose life. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 312, submitted earlier today; that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the budget deal before the Senate today is not just a horrible piece of legislation that is undeserving of this Chamber's support, it also represents the last gasping breath of a disgraced bipartisan beltway establishment on the verge of collapse. The bill is the product of an unfair, dysfunctional, and fundamentally undemocratic process--a process that is virtually indistinguishable from what we promised the American people a GOP- controlled Congress would bring to an end. We made that promise precisely because negotiating legislation behind closed doors without input from the majority of Members and then rushing it through to final passage without debate or opportunity for amendments violates our party's core principles. It also inevitably leads to bad policy. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 is a case in point. This bill would suspend the debt limit for 17 months and increase government spending beyond its already unsustainable levels. It would do so while failing to make reforms that would put us on a path toward fiscal sustainability. Many proponents of this budget deal challenge this claim. They say: Well, the bill isn't perfect, but while it isn't perfect it does include some meaningful entitlement reforms. The sales pitch we hear most often alleges that this budget deal will save the Social Security disability trust fund from insolvency, but we are never told exactly how this bill would do this. That is because, as always, the devil is in the details. I rise today to discuss these very details, details that prove this budget deal's so-called entitlement reforms are nothing of the sort. At best, they are well-intentioned but ineffectual tweaks to a program that desperately needs fundamental, structural overhaul. At worst, they are accounting gimmicks unbecoming of the U.S. Congress. According to the Social Security trustees, the Social Security Disability Insurance Program--or SSDI--is scheduled to run out of money in 2016, which means that without serious reform disability benefits would be slashed across the board by nearly 20 percent. Under the Budget Control Act of 2015, the bankruptcy deadline of SSDI would be pushed off for an additional 6 years until 2022. But here is the kicker: It would do so by raiding the Social Security trust fund to the tune of $150 billion. That is right. Our grand, bipartisan solution to the impending insolvency of our Nation's disability insurance program amounts to stealing $150 billion from our Nation's largest retirement insurance program. This isn't the only phony pay-for in this budget deal. There are others that simply move money around from elsewhere in the Federal budget, such as the Crime Victims Fund and the Assets Forfeiture Fund. There are also new heavyhanded instruments that purport to implement cost savings in Medicaid reimbursements but actually only impose misguided price controls on the generic drug industry. Only in Washington, DC, could something so deceptive and ineffective, something so unfair to America's seniors and future generations, be considered a reform. To be fair, there are a couple of sound entitlement reforms in this budget deal that deserve to be commended. First, there is a position that would correct a design error in the Social Security program that amounts to an unfair and wasteful loophole. Fixing this would save a significant amount of money over a 75-year window. There are also measures that would increase the penalties for fraud, create new pilot programs, and prohibit doctors with felonies from submitting medical evidence. But these minor changes don't even come close to putting SSDI on a path toward fiscal sustainability and sanity, and they represent only a tiny fraction of the sensible reform proposals put forth by our conference. Many of my colleagues, such as Senator Lankford and Senator Cotton, have already spoken or will soon speak on the floor about the long list of structural reform ideas that are still sitting on the sidelines of this debate. I wish to take a moment to touch on just a few of them. Senator Coats has a proposal that would protect the SSDI trust fund from being drawn down by fugitive felons illegally receiving disability benefits. Senator Hatch has put forth a plan that would prevent an individual from receiving both unemployment insurance and disability insurance simultaneously, ensuring that SSDI funds would remain focused on their intended population. I also have a proposal that would expand the footprint of private disability insurance program, which I intend to file as an amendment to this bill. That is not all. My friends, Senator Cotton and Senator Lankford, have their own proposals, and there has been an equal amount of policy innovation by our colleagues in the House of Representatives. They are all commonsense ideas that would bring us much closer to real SSDI reform than what is found in this budget deal, but you won't hear much about them in this debate because there won't be any real debate on the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015--no amendments, a fast- approaching deadline and, in the end, a take-it-or-leave-it choice forced upon us with our backs up against a cliff. This is not how Congress is supposed to operate. This is not how we promised the country we would conduct the American people's business if given control of the House and the Senate. We should be the party of ideas, but we won't be so long as we continue to tolerate a legislative process that stifles our most innovative proposals from getting a fair hearing. We should be the party of reform, but we won't be so long as individual Senators are blocked from offering amendments to legislation. We should be the party of fiscal sanity and responsible governance, but we won't be so long as we continue to govern by crisis and by cliff, delaying the inevitable while working only 3 days a week in our legislative calendar. We should be the party that looks out for the most vulnerable among us, but we won't be so long as we lack the courage to enact the structural reform that our retirement and disability programs need to survive for generations to come. We can be all of these things. I know we can, but it is going to take hard work--a fair, open, and inclusive legislative process, and all the policy innovation we can muster. It is going to take something more, something better than this budget deal. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. I object.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have an opportunity to update and reform the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and to do so in a way that would ensure it works more efficiently and helps solve the problems facing our Federal Government and States. To do so, we need to pursue a few goals. First, more money from the LWCF should be sent to the States to implement the worthwhile projects. When the LWCF was conceived, 60 percent of its funding was required to go to the States. That statutory requirement was removed years ago, and now just 12 percent of LWCF money is given to the States, with minimal Federal strings attached. Next, the LWCF should be used to solve, not to exacerbate, the current Federal lands maintenance backlog. The Federal Government has undertaken an impossible task in trying to manage more than 600 million acres of variant terrain dispersed across thousands of miles. Evidence of the Federal Government's failure to manage its holdings is found in the $13 billion through $20 billion maintenance backlog, a number that has grown nearly every single year since President Obama has been in office. Since LWCF was created some 50 years ago, Congress has appropriated nearly $17 billion to the fund, and 62 percent of this money has been spent on land acquisition, resulting in 5 million acres being added to the Federal estate. We should work together to improve the LWCF. Let's work together to make sure that North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and every other State in this country gets more money. Let's work together to make sure that the Federal Government only acquires such land as it can adequately manage. On that basis, I object.