Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I would like to address another issue connected to this debate. Before I do so, I would yield a moment of my time to my distinguished colleague, the junior Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, the amendment we are about to consider would empower States to collect and spend on the transportation infrastructure they need. We have a desperate need within our transportation infrastructure system that is not being satisfied by our current Federal system, one that has been bloated over the years and has centralized too much power within Washington, DC. This has resulted in gridlock within our transportation infrastructure projects. We increased the Federal gasoline tax by 460 percent between 1982 and 1994. Instead of using that to back up and secure the Federal highway trust fund, we instead overreached. We instead expanded dramatically the power of the Federal Government and the expenses we incur. I encourage all my colleagues to support this measure which would reempower States and move our interests further in the 21st century.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. First, I thank my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Vermont, for his leadership on this issue. I am pleased to join him as a cosponsor of this legislation. As the lead cosponsor of this bill, I attest to the fact that this is an issue that is neither Republican nor Democratic, it is neither liberal nor conservative, it is simply American. It is a fundamental concept of liberty that we have to control the government. The government and the immense power of government has expanded over time with advances in technology. Our country certainly has changed to an enormous degree over the centuries since James Madison penned our Bill of Rights. But the protection of liberty afforded by the Fourth Amendment has only become more important, not less important, as the government's ability to collect information has advanced. This legislation, which has broad-based bipartisan support, is absolutely necessary. It can be implemented in a way that will still allow the government to protect us. It will also protect us from the risk of overreach by the government. We have to remember it is not just the government that we have in place today, even if we assume, for purposes of this discussion, that everyone who works for the government, every government agent who participates in the collection of this information is doing what is right. We can't always assume that will be the case in the future. I see my time has expired. I once again thank my colleague, the senior Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, for his sponsorship of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to a great Utahn and patriot, Lance Howard Turner. Lance passed from this life on Monday last, and his family and friends will dearly miss him. There is a beautiful painting hanging on the wall of the Rex E. Lee conference room in my office. It is a painting of a majestic landscape in the Southwestern portion of United States painted by Lance Turner. This painting shows the beauty of the land that he loved so dearly and demonstrates the mastery developed over a lifetime of hard work. During his career, Lance was able to take part in and lead many successful programs. One such program, well known to all, involves a talking bear that helps campers keep our forests safe. In 2009, KSL, a Utah news station, ran a story on Lance, who was the art director at Foote, Cone & Belding in the 1950s. Lance was tasked with marketing the newly created Smokey Bear, whose mission was to reduce manmade forest fires. The campaign was a success and remains the longest running PSA campaign in our country's history. Smokey Bear also remains a highly recognized American character and continues his original mission of encouraging fire safety. More important than any success in his professional life, Lance was a good husband and father who, according to his children, was always willing to share the wisdom he had gained through a life of service. He was a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and made sure to always take care of those in need. He loved to hunt pheasants and had a deep love for this country. I offer my heartfelt condolences to his children, Heidi, Josh, Chip, and Matt, and his 14 grandchildren and 22 grandchildren. I know his legacy will shine brightly through their examples of faith and patriotism. Happily, Lance leaves this life to reunite with his sweetheart Marilyn. The thought of such a joyous reunion reminds me of an old but dear hymn by Katharina von Schlegel. I close with touching words of the third verse: ``Be still, my soul: The hour is hast'ning on, When we shall be forever with the Lord, When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored. Be still, my soul: When change and tears are past, All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.''

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the most extraordinary feature of the bill before us today is the incongruity between the bill's title and its content. The title, the ``Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act,'' is clear and straightforward. It suggests the bill is aimed at the important and worthy goal of protecting women's health. But the text of the bill plainly demonstrates that the bill's true objective is to circumscribe Americans' religious freedoms--the religious liberties of individual Americans--within the narrow confines of the Democratic Party's partisan agenda and the whims of politicians and bureaucrats. While maintaining the appearance of preserving all of the current legal protections of religious freedom in America today, this proposal quietly adds to them a subtle yet deeply problematic and inappropriate qualification. The Federal Government will not prohibit the free exercise of religion until the Federal Government decides that it wants to do so. Under this bill, your religious liberties stop at the doorstep of the Democratic National Committee. So I rise today in opposition to this bill because it doesn't do anything to protect women's health and it does much to undermine the bulwarks of religious liberty enshrined in our Constitution that have made America the most religiously diverse and tolerant Nation in human history. Although this proposal is only the latest maneuver attempted by my Democratic colleagues to assert their power and restrict religious freedom in America, it also represents the culmination, at least for now, of their opposition to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. On June 30 of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Government may not force closely held businesses to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs in order to comply with the contraceptive mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This decision has received a great deal of attention, but it has received this attention for all the wrong reasons. Contrary to what many critics have suggested, the Hobby Lobby decision did not promulgate national health care policy nor did it render any opinion on the virtues of contraception and religious faith. No, the issue in Hobby Lobby involved not a dispute of competing rights but a straightforward application of plainly written law. As the Constitution states in Article III, Section 2, the role of the Supreme Court is to adjudicate legal disputes by hearing ``cases and controversies'' that arise when two laws or two parties come into conflict. In Hobby Lobby, the two laws in dispute were the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, and a Federal mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, acting under the powers delegated to it by the Affordable Care Act. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA as it is sometimes called, reaffirmed Americans' commitment to the fundamental religious liberty already protected by our Constitution. With RFRA, a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, in cooperation with Republican minorities in both Houses, declared that when the Federal Government seeks to infringe on Americans' religious liberty, it must clear two thresholds. First, it must show that the law in question serves a compelling State interest. Secondly, if it does, the law must do so by the least restrictive means possible. Given that the government openly acknowledged that there was a significant number of far less intrusive means to ensure affordable access to the drugs at issue, the Supreme Court rightly ruled that the contraception mandate violated RFRA. However unwarranted, the overheated response to the Hobby Lobby decision among some ideological extremists on the left has led some of my colleagues to introduce a bill that would not simply overturn that modest and narrow decision but fundamentally rewrite America's social contract as it pertains to matters of personal conscience. Whereas, the Court's ruling was limited to ``closely held'' for- profit companies such as Hobby Lobby, this bill would empower the Federal Government to coerce employers of all faiths and of no faith into violating their deepest personal convictions. It would deny any employer--devout or secular, individual or corporate, for-profit or nonprofit--conscience protection under RFRA against all present and future government mandates. Perhaps most troubling is the warped theory of rights underlying the text of this bill. This theory holds that the American people possess constitutional and legal rights only when acting alone but not when acting in a group. These rights, along with any duties one may hold as a person of faith, must be forfeited whenever acting in association with others, on penalty of fines to be paid to the Federal Government. This view of religious liberty might be summarized as an amendment to Matthew, chapter 18, verse 20: For where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there is the IRS in the midst of them. This view is extreme. It is out of touch with the Constitution, with commonsense, and with America's heroic history of religious tolerance. From our earliest days as a country, one of the sources of our strength as a people and one of the reasons for our success as a nation has been our robust understanding of religious liberty. The breadth and depth of that conception has allowed and encouraged people of all faiths and all traditions to live here in friendship and in cooperation with one another. As two members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom put it: . . . respect for the flourishing of people requires respect for their freedom--as individuals and together with others in community--to address the deepest questions of human existence and meaning. This allows them to lead lives of authenticity and integrity by fulfilling what they conscientiously believe to be their religious and moral duties. . . . It also includes the right to witness to one's beliefs in public as well as private, and to act--while respecting the equal right of others to do the same--on one's religiously inspired convictions in carrying out the duties of citizenship. Expanding as wide as possible the space in which all people can witness their faith alongside one another has for two centuries elevated, enriched, and united American society. This robust conception of religious liberty was so essential to American unity that not only did the Founding generation reinforce its protection in a Bill of Rights--which many Framers actually thought was redundant--but it was the first freedom articulated in the First Amendment. They understood, as most Americans still do, that the proper role of government is not to define people's happiness but to protect all individuals' equal rights, to pursue happiness according to their own hopes and values and conscience. Yet for all its legal and constitutional protections, America's exceptional tradition of religious toleration rests ultimately on the uniquely American principle of equal dignity and respect for all women and all men, not simply as ``fellow passengers en route to the grave'' but as fellow pilgrims in search of their own promised land. The authors of this bill know all of this. They know the American people reject their intolerance of diversity and indifference to the First Amendment. We know their bill cannot become law. Indeed, we know this for a fact because if the regulations they support were actually written in the law, ObamaCare itself would never have passed. It was slipped in after the fact by bureaucrats who are not subject to public accountability and never stand for election. This legislation is more than an insult to the people it would target; it is an embarrassment to the party leadership that has embraced it. I still hold fast to that principle and to the freedom it preserves and thus strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this bill. Thank you. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, Federal job training programs are seldom evaluated to determine whether they are meeting their intended purposes. However, when the United States is $17.5 trillion in debt, we as representatives of the American taxpayers should do a better job to ensure that the programs we are funding are actually working and we are working with them. We should pay particularly close attention to programs that receive billions of dollars every year from the Federal Government when their authorization lapsed over one decade ago. The Murray-Isakson-Harkin-Alexander substitute amendment takes important steps to ensure title I State and local programs are more accurately evaluated, meaning performance measures and held accountable for unmet goals and resubmitted reports. More specifically, the bill would sanction State and local programs should they continually fail to meet their performance measures or fail to submit required reports. The substitute amendment does not hold the Department of Labor to similar standards. The Department is required to conduct evaluations and to submit separate reports to Congress. I was very pleased to work with Senators Alexander and Harkin to include in the managers' amendment a provision that would require the final evaluation reports to be made public and available to the public. In my opinion, requiring the Department to post these reports to the Department's Web site is a commonsense step toward improving transparency in the WIOA job training programs. In addition, I worked closely with the HELP Committee chairman and ranking member to further discuss a procurement provision within the Job Corps section of the bill. While I believe there are still some outstanding concerns that we should continue to discuss, I believe everyone's goal is to ensure that the best Job Corps operators are able to compete for these sites. Today I would like to offer an additional good governance measure that would subject the Department of Labor to similar sanctions as the States. It would help tackle the problem of the Department of Labor delaying congressionally mandated evaluations, which routinely has been abused by both Republican and Democratic administrations. It is a shame that Congress passing a law requiring the completion of an evaluation by a certain date is not enough to get the job done. My amendment would remedy this problem by reducing the budget of the Department of Labor's Office of the Secretary by 5 percent in the year a report is due, should the agency fail to conduct and release the independent evaluation as required by this bill. This reduction of funds would continue each year until the report is finalized. WIOA authorizes $9 billion each year for the next 5 years, and title I represents half of that funding. Therefore, ensuring an independent evaluation of title I programs is conducted and made publicly available for review and scrutiny by Congress and the American public. It is critically important for any future modification, renewal or elimination of programs. I would appreciate the support of my colleagues for the passage of this amendment. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LEE. If I could respond very briefly, I think it is important to point out that, yes, there may come a time when in any government office--whether it is an elected government office or appointed office--when someone who is new to the office might be affected by something that did or didn't happen during the predecessor's time in office. But even were that to occur in the case of the Secretary of Labor, this is a position that could easily enable, could easily empower the new Secretary to come in and within a matter of months make sure our contractor gets a report done and make sure that report gets submitted. It is also worth noting that when we entrust a Federal agency with the power to spend $9 billion of the American people's hard-earned taxpayer money, hard-earned resources, we should expect them to stand accountable, and they should certainly have the ability to have a study conducted and have that study released to the American people. If we don't trust them to be able to issue that report and make it public, then we should have some reason to be concerned about giving them $9 billion. But I think this is a reasonable requirement, and therefore I ask my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3380 to amendment No. 3378.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on April 11 of this year President Obama nominated Sylvia Burwell to be the new Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services--HHS--a position that was vacated that same day by former Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Article II, Section 3, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution grants the President, as the chief executive, plenary power to nominate members of his cabinet. But that same clause reserves the power of appointment--that is, the power to accept or reject the nominee-- exclusively to the Senate. The Constitution explains this unique division of power as follows: the President ``shall nominate, and''--this is important--``by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States.'' Far from a perfunctory practice, the responsibility to review the fitness of presidential nominees is one of the essential mechanisms in our Constitution's system of checks and balances. And for the Members of this body who took an oath to ``support and defend'' the Constitution, this is one of the most solemn duties incumbent upon those occupying the office of United States Senator. I urge my fellow Senators to demand that prior to confirmation Ms. Burwell provide concrete, specific, and forthright answers--in writing--to the questions that have been asked of her by Members of this body. I refuse to sit idly by and witness the same Washington charade in which stated commitments to transparency are more important than actual demonstrations of candor. If we do not insist that Ms. Burwell's appointment be contingent upon the transparency of her confirmation process, we will have established a dangerous precedent for the future of this body. Let's not forget: much of the authority that resides in HHS ultimately derives from the delegation of authority from Congress. And whenever Congress delegates power to the executive branch, we do so based on the premise that we retain the power of oversight. Therefore, we cannot, in good faith, hand over the reins of one of the most important executive departments at a time when questions remain unanswered and information is still undisclosed. Doing so would undermine the institutional prerogatives of the Senate. When we only partially carry out our constitutional duties to check and balance the other branches, we alone are to blame for the continued accumulation of power in the executive, where unelected bureaucrats are not always as wise or as impartial as their proponents claim them to be. The unprecedented accumulation of power in the executive today is a demonstrable fact. But it remains an open question whether we in Congress care enough to do anything about it. At this point, there is good reason for pessimism--if the kind of acquiescence demonstrated in this confirmation process is any indication. But I remain optimistic, because I know that the American people still get it. Outside the beltway, Americans still instinctively understand the universal truth articulated by James Madison, the father of the Constitution, over 200 years ago--that ``The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.'' This is precisely the type of accumulated power possessed by executive departments such as HHS. This power cannot be curtailed or dispersed overnight. But it will continue to expand inexorably toward tyranny unless Members of Congress--exercising our powers as officers of a separate and coequal branch of government--don't push back. We can begin by subjecting this nomination to the close scrutiny it deserves. The first thing we must recognize is that this is not the average presidential nomination. We are not talking about the next secretary of the Department of Motor Vehicles. Quite the opposite: Ms. Burwell has been nominated to preside over one of the largest and most important departments in the Federal Government. No matter who the nominee, this is a job that should be filled with caution and circumspection. By way of illustration, the HHS Secretary oversees an annual operating budget of about $1 trillion--that is nearly 25 percent of all Federal spending--as well as 11 separate operating divisions, including the very important Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services--CMS--and the Food and Drug Administration--FDA. Moreover, the next HHS Secretary is going to assume the helm of an executive leviathan in the midst of implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is not only the most complex--and controversial--law in recent memory, but it delegates an unprecedented amount of authority to the HHS Secretary. Often this delegation comes in the form of sweeping, open-ended grants of power that give the Secretary discretion to shape and reshape the law. Like an unending series of blank checks to the bureaucracy, Obamacare contains 700 instances of the ultimate carte blanche--``The Secretary shall . . .''--to give the Secretary wide latitude to ``develop standards,'' ``award grants,'' ``establish committees,'' ``make adjustments,'' etc. This kind of massive delegation of authority is justified--especially by those who see it as a convenient way to avoid the difficulties of lawmaking--on the theory that Congress will retain and exercise some degree of oversight. And it is true that both chambers of Congress have the ability to hold hearings in which we subpoena executive officials to testify and answer questions about laws, rules, and regulations under their jurisdiction. But as we have seen over the past few years with the implementation of Obamacare, this power is significantly impeded if those executive officials refuse to answer our questions. These facts raise the central question that ought to guide the Senate's consideration of Ms. Burwell's nomination--namely, how will Ms. Burwell exercise the expansive authority delegated to HHS vis-aa- vis the powers and responsibilities of Congress? Much of the job of the next HHS Secretary will be to facilitate Congressional oversight of the Department, especially in its implementation of Obamacare. Therefore, the Senate's decision should be contingent upon Ms. Burwell's record of engaging with Congress. Sadly, Ms. Burwell's tenure as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as her performance in the Senate committee confirmation hearings, gives me concern that she will continue in the pattern of obfuscation and evasion established by outgoing Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. I therefore respectfully submit that we should proceed cautiously in consideration of this nominee. More cautiously, indeed, than we have up to this point. For over the past 6 weeks, since the President nominated Ms. Burwell, many in this body have neglected our end of the constitutional division of power--preferring to act as if Ms. Burwell's appointment was a fait accompli. This state of affairs is troubling--and not simply because questions remain unanswered, and information undisclosed, about Obamacare. The problem is more fundamental than any one law. The Senate's reluctance to protest against the equivocation and distortion seen in this confirmation process undermines the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances upon which our constitutional order depends. Respecting and upholding these principles of our Constitution is not a matter of adhering to some arcane formality or following some outdated tradition of the 18th century. At issue here is whether or not this institution still believes in the reason our Constitution divides power in the first place. Do we still believe, as Madison said, that ``power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it''? If we do, then we must employ the tools at our disposal to assert our institutional prerogatives. Doing so will demonstrate to the other branches that the power of government is not simply up for grabs. Here again Madison's insights are instructive: in the famous Federalist 51, he says, ``the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. [. . .] Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.'' But if we disagree with Madison about the encroaching nature of power . . . if we are undisturbed by the great accumulation of power in the executive branch, which predates and will outlive Obama's presidency . . . if we prefer to elevate policy preference and party allegiance over love of liberty and the constitutional rights of Congress . . . then we must not be surprised when--not if--our government takes on the character and the spirit of tyranny. Let me be clear: the kind of tyranny that threatens us is not of the Saddam Hussein or Bashar al-Assad variety. The tyrannies of Saddam's Iraq and, today, Assad's Syria are barbarous, murderous dictatorships that extinguish every semblance of freedom and maintain their power through violence and brutality. What I am talking about is the kind of soft despotism that arises when power is consolidated under the auspices of a paternal, benevolent government. At the end of his study of democracy in 19th-century America, Alexis de Tocqueville explained how this kind of tyranny could emerge within a democratic republic such as ours. Standing as a kind of warning for us today, Tocqueville envisioned ``an immense and tutelary power'' that ``extends its arms over society as a whole,'' covering it ``with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd.'' It does not ``break wills,'' he said, ``but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act''--even Tocqueville didn't foresee the individual mandate--``but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born.'' This is certainly a dark image. But we cannot forget that Tocqueville was bullish about America. He believed that American democracy had the right attributes needed to avoid descending to these depths. Chief among these attributes were our constitutional structures that divided power and, more importantly, the spiritedness, courage, and love of freedom that animated the American people and transformed the mere ``parchment barriers'' of the Constitution into true limits on governmental power. It is precisely this spirit of freedom that the Senate must recover if we are going to fulfill our constitutional obligations in this confirmation process. Once we recognize the need to assert and defend our interests as a separate and coequal branch of the government, we will begin to focus on what is really at stake in our consideration of this nominee. The main issue here is not Ms. Burwell's character or credentials-- both of which are first-rate--but whether or not her appointment will improve or further deteriorate the legislature's oversight over the executive departments to which Congress has delegated vast amounts of authority. The question is not whether Ms. Burwell deserves to be HHS Secretary, but whether the HHS, under Ms. Burwell's management, will continue in the pattern of obstinate autonomy and limited cooperation established under her predecessor. If the answer is no, we cannot possibly vote to confirm this nominee.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the theft of valuable metal is a serious crime, one that can damage valuable infrastructure--sometimes government infrastructure--and it can cause serious harm to businesses and to the owners of the infrastructure at issue. For this reason, many States, including my own State of Utah, have enacted measures that deter such criminal activity and punish harshly those who engage in this type of criminal activity. These measures are generally appropriate, but where the Federal Government enacts legislation creating criminal penalties, we as lawmakers must be careful to respect the Constitution's enumerated powers and the constitutionally ordained structure of federalism. I have heard concerns expressed regarding people who steal valuable metal and cross State lines to sell stolen metal. While I would support Federal legislation addressed to such truly interstate, unavoidably national circumstances, I cannot support legislation that more broadly regulates intrastate conduct. Because this bill exceeds Congress's power under the commerce clause and imposes a Federal regulatory scheme in an area of the law the Constitution properly reserves to the States, I must object to the Senate passing it by unanimous consent.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this fall, seven remarkable Utahns will enter three of our prestigious military academies, and I would like to take this opportunity to officially congratulate them and to recognize their individual achievements. Dexter Chayton Clark will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy. A graduate of Brighton High School, Dexter has maintained a 4.0 GPA, he is an AP Scholar with Honor, a member of the National Honor Society, a National Academic League Champion, a gifted swimmer, and an Eagle Scout. Jillian Lemay Combs will be attending the U.S. Air Force Academy. She graduated from the Waterford School with academic high honors; she is an accomplished violist and a member of the National Charities League with over 400 hours of service. She was the captain of Waterford's debate team as well as the swimming, diving, and water polo teams, and she is a Girl Scout Gold Award recipient. Amy Noelle Johnston will be attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. A graduate from Brighton High School and a member of the National Honor Society, Amy was captain of the Brighton lacrosse and tennis teams. She served her community with the Red Cross and also performed volunteer service on the Northern Cheyenne and Coeur d'Alene Reservations. Carson Eugene Nuttall will be returning to study at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Carson displayed commitment to his faith by resigning from West Point to serve a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 2 years in Chile. He has been recognized consistently as a natural leader and one who is committed to honor and service. Zerek Douglas Olson will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy. A graduate from Layton High School and a JROTC Captain, Zerek was captain of his football, wrestling, and track & field teams. He is a member of the National Honor Society, attended Boy's State, and served our veterans at the VA hospital and VA homes in Utah. Seth Lawrence White will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy. A graduate of Sky View High School, Seth served as one of its student body officers, the captain of both the debate team and the football team, and a Dwight D. Eisenhower People to People European Representative. Seth also helped in organizing the Don't Drive Stupid program to discourage drunk and distracted driving. Keven Shin Yeh will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy. Keven graduated from Brighton High School with a 4.0 GPA. He is a member of the Governor's Honors Academy and the captain of both Brighton's cross country and track & field teams. He has given over 100 hours of dedicated service to our veterans at the VA hospital in Salt Lake City. It appears that the future of our military is in good hands. I challenge these praiseworthy appointees to continue the tradition of honor, sacrifice, and courage that has been so exceptionally demonstrated by so many throughout the great history of our military. I should like to close with a quote from Lincoln, which I hope we will all remember as we strive to do what is right for our country. Of the brave soldiers who were then fighting to preserve the Union, he wrote: Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as he best can, the same cause--honor to him, only less than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the American economy is the envy of the world, primarily because it is still seen as a place where anyone-- regardless of who you are or where you come from--can work hard, play by the rules, and succeed. That belief is predicated on the notion that America has a thriving, competitive, and free enterprise economy in which the best ideas and hardest workers win the day, while those who are less successful always have a fair chance to try again. The free enterprise system is not perfect, by any means, but it is fair. Unfortunately today, Americans increasingly believe our system is rigged. In President Obama's America, they have good reason. From the stimulus to Cash for Clunkers, from the bailouts to cap-and-trade, from Dodd-Frank to ObamaCare, every namebrand initiative of the President's term of office has distorted public policy to privilege well-connected insiders and elites at the expense of taxpayers and consumers. The Export-Import Bank is another taxpayer-funded example of distorted public policy that further erodes Americans' confidence in our markets and our system. In short, the Ex-Im Bank exists to dole out taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to help American exporters. Most of the benefits go to large corporations that are perfectly capable of securing private financing anywhere in the world. That is to say, Congress allows Ex-Im Bank to risk taxpayer money unnecessarily to subsidize well-connected private companies. This kind of public policy privilege, best described as crony capitalism, is a threat to the free market and to its moral underpinnings. Crony capitalism corrupts the free market by rewarding political connections over competitive excellence. It subverts the rule of law by codifying inequality. It undermines social solidarity by pitting citizens against one another, twisting cooperative communities into rival special interests. That is why in Obama's crony economy, we are seeing record corporate profits but stagnant middle-class wages and an anemic, jobless recovery. Cronyism has promoted and exacerbated inequality. It has isolated the poor and it has squeezed America's middle class. There are three principal reasons why we should start making this discussion part of the public debate and why we should start doing it right now: First, we should do this to fix the economy. Nearly all of our Nation's net job creation comes from firms that have existed for 5 years or less. But cronyist policies tilt the playing field against those very firms, and make it next to impossible for those companies to succeed, to grow, and to create new jobs that we so badly need, and that the American people so significantly deserve. Leveling the playing field creates competition in both directions. It allows smaller, younger firms to compete, and it forces larger, older firms to do the same. That dynamic competition is what creates new jobs. It is what creates new economic growth. It is what gives rise to new opportunities up and down the economy on every step on the economic ladder. Second, this is a matter of basic justice. The American people have a fundamental right to equal opportunity under the law, and it is the job of the government to protect equal opportunity. If the very people who work hard and play by the rules are forced by government to bail out, prop up, and subsidize elite insiders who do not, then the land of opportunity, well, is not. Third, as those who most support free enterprise and equal opportunity, Republicans must bear the burden of reform. We believe in the power of free markets and a voluntary civil society to expand, lift people out of poverty, and support a secure and prosperous middle class. So it is our responsibility to follow through on our own convictions and close our own branch of the beltway favor bank. It starts with conservatives having an agenda to reform government and to end cronyism. Fortunately, some of us have already started working on it. These proposals focus on protecting the American people from the economic harm that comes from the collusion of big government, big business, and big special interests. For example, we have policy reforms that force Congress to periodically reevaluate expensive regulations; level the playing field for all energy producers; open our higher education system to new students, teachers, and competition; give Americans the right to choose whether to join a union; cut out the bureaucrats who waste critical infrastructure funding; and, yes, eliminate taxpayer subsidies to organizations such as the Ex-Im Bank. This agenda will create jobs, grow the economy, increase opportunities by allowing small businesses and forcing big businesses to compete on a level playing field where success depends on customer service and not on political connections. A conservative agenda to get right on cronyism will be good for jobs, for the economy, and above all it will be the right thing to do. Eventually, later this year, the reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank will be before the Senate, and I hope my colleagues will keep these points in mind. But before us today is the nomination of Wanda Felton to be First Vice President of the Export-Import Bank. This is a position she already holds, but it is being renominated so that she can continue holding that position. Ms. Felton, significantly, sat on the board of the Ex-Im Bank, and she did so at a time when the Ex-Im Bank declined to take several recommendations from its own inspector general to lower its risks, which, in turn, put taxpayers at greater risk. The Ex-Im Bank has also continued to make claims about the importance of Ex-Im on job creation without necessary caveats or references to the bank's methodology--claims the GAO has heavily criticized. I cannot support putting someone back into this position after that person largely ignored these recommendations by government watchdogs. For all the reasons I have mentioned, I respectfully and strongly ask my colleagues to oppose the renomination of Wanda Felton to be the First Vice President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Coburn, who is not here today, I object.

Mr. LEE. My understanding is that Senator Coburn's objection is based on the lack of a pay-for in this proposal. There is, however, an amendment that has been introduced by Senator Vitter that addresses this concern and fills this gap. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Veterans' Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 3521, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I also ask unanimous consent that the Vitter amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to, that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE. Yes.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, this week the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce will honor my friend, the former Governor of Utah, Michael Leavitt, with our Giant In Our City Award. I would like to take this opportunity to honor my fellow Utahn, whose example as a public servant is instructive for all those who wish to make a difference. Mike Leavitt, who is a native of Cedar City, was the 14th Governor of the great State of Utah. He was handily elected to three terms as Governor, a feat that only one other Utahn has ever accomplished. In 2003, during his third term, he was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. After just over 1 year at the EPA, Governor Leavitt was nominated and confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, where he served through the end of the Bush administration. He is the coauthor and author of several books, and he has most recently served on Mitt Romney's campaign as the head of Governor Romney's transition team. These accomplishments alone are enough to warrant praise and admiration for Governor Leavitt, but I would like to underscore the way in which he served in these positions to explain the virtues of leadership and service. It has been said those who lead best lead by example, and Mike Leavitt is one of those best leaders. He has continuously focused on efficiency, relationships, professionalism, and improvement. These qualities are not only cultivated in Mike Leavitt personally, but they are also fostered in all those with whom he works. Governor Leavitt's efforts to make government work for the people--as government always should work--stands as one of his greatest accomplishments. Such accomplishments often require innovation and entrepreneurship, which Mike Leavitt learned prior to his governorship as the president and CEO of the Leavitt Group. An example of this innovation is the emergence of a new kind of education in the mid- 1990s. When many in the education sector were skeptical of the possibility of online learning, Governor Leavitt proposed a new idea for a competency-based online university. He worked to gain the support of other Governors, and after many months of preparation, Western Governors University was established. This institution was part of Governor Leavitt's mission to expand access to and reduce the cost of higher education. Today WGU is recognized as one of the most innovative and affordable universities in the country. Governor Leavitt encouraged his fellow Utahns to avoid focusing on what is wrong with America, a lesson we as Senators would do well to follow. He reminded Utahns to focus on what is right with America, as he believes wholeheartedly in the greatness of our Nation. He once said: ``In the history of mankind, there has never been a nation as admired, as willing and as capable of inspiring and fulfilling hope.'' The dignified competence of that statement is needed in these Halls and needed around the world today. Utah was an example of such dignified confidence in 2002 when the State hosted the Winter Olympics. Governor Leavitt's precision in preparing the State for the games produced a tremendous success not only for Utah but also for our country. Working on the issues that are constitutionally reserved to the States and to the people, Governor Leavitt oversaw the expansion of Utah's transportation network and managed facilities and lands with great care. He sought out skilled leaders to help in this grand effort, and thousands upon thousands of Utahns volunteered countless hours to make the 2002 Olympics one of the most successful Olympic Games in history. Multiple volumes of the Congressional Record could be filled with examples of service and leadership exemplified by this great Utahn, especially from his years leading the EPA and HHS. However, in the interest of brevity, I will simply say that this country needs more citizens like Mike Leavitt. We need men and women who are able to focus on the details and simultaneously think on a macro scale. We need leaders who believe in our founding principles and who make important decisions with those very same principles in mind. We need leaders who will make government more efficient, more responsive, more deliberate, and more meaningful. Such meaningfulness may often require less from the Federal Government. When action is required from us in this body, let prudence, love for country, love for our fellow beings and dedication to principles, displayed so admirably by Governor Mike Leavitt, be our guide. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from South Dakota, for his leadership in this area. I agree with his comments and support those statements, along with the other actions taken by my colleagues from New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Nebraska, in addition to others. I too had an amendment I wanted to present in connection with this legislation. I too offered that up and identified reasons why this is both relevant and germane to the legislation at hand. Unfortunately, the majority leader saw fit to block this, to object to it, to refuse altogether to allow the U.S. Senate--which is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative legislative body--to consider these or any of the other amendments that were presented along with them. We are not asking for passage by unanimous consent. We recognize some people might not share our views. We recognize there might be a diversity of opinion within the body. We nevertheless believe, as U.S. Senators, we are entitled to have these amendments considered because they are relevant, because they are germane. We also think they should be considered because they would benefit the American people. This is the sort of thing we are supposed to do. It is what we do. What we are supposed to be doing as Senators is to be offering amendments and voting on amendments to make legislation we consider better. You see, the amendment process can make a bad bill good or at least better, and that is exactly why we have an obligation to consider amendments. It is important to point out here that one of the reasons why I ran this amendment in the first place has to do with the fact that one of the struggles facing working families today is the constant struggle moms and dads feel as they try to juggle the work-life balance. Parents today need to juggle work, home, kids, community, and other obligations they face. For many families, especially families with young children, the most precious commodity parents have is time. But today Federal labor laws severely, and I believe unfairly, restrict the way moms and dads and everyone else can use their time. That is because many of those laws were written decades ago--decades ago--before the Internet existed; decades ago, when a number of demographic factors were aligned much differently than they are today, when a number of social trends operated much differently in our economy than they do today. Because of these laws--these same Buddy Holly-era, Elvis-era laws--because of these same antiquated laws that need to be updated, an hourly employee who works overtime is not allowed to take comp time, not allowed to take flextime. Even if she prefers it, her boss cannot even offer it without violating Federal law. Today, if a working mom or a working dad stays late at the office on Monday or Tuesday, and instead of receiving extra pay wants to get compensated by leaving early on Friday and spend the afternoon with the kids, that kind of arrangement could well be violating Federal law. That sounds unfair, especially to parents, and it is unfair, especially to parents and their children and everyone else. It also seems like the kind of arrangement that should not be prohibited by Federal law but ought to be perfectly acceptable. But how do we know that for sure? Well, we know that for sure because Congress gave a special exemption from that very law--the law I just described a moment ago--that is available only for government employees. This is unacceptable. The same work-life options that have been made available by Congress itself to government employees should be available to the citizens they serve. In May of last year, the House of Representatives responded to this deficit in existing Federal law by passing the Working Families Flexibility Act, sponsored by Representative Martha Roby of Alabama, to equalize the comp time rules, existing within a government employment context, for all workers. Last fall, I introduced companion legislation in the Senate proposing to do exactly the same thing. Now, today, I would like to offer an amendment that is modeled on this same legislation to end this flextime discrimination, this comp time discrimination against private sector workers. You talk to any working mom or any working dad and they will tell you they need more time. Now, Mr. President, as you well know, we cannot legislate another hour in the day. If we could, I am sure it would have been done by now, and, frankly, I am a little surprised someone has not tried it. But we know mathematically it will not work. It would not do any good. But what we can do is to help working people so they can better balance the demands they face--the demands of family and work and community and every other demand they face. We can ease some of this pressure by removing an unnecessary, outdated, and manifestly unfair Federal restriction on utilizing comp time in the private sector. There are real problems in this world. There are bad things that can be and must be prohibited by Federal law. But the fact that working parents would prefer, quite understandably, to spend more time with their families is not one of those things that needs to be prohibited, nor is it one of those things that we should allow to continue to be prohibited, especially when it is prohibited in a patently unfair discriminatory fashion--one that inures to the benefit of government employees, inures unfairly to the detriment of everyone else. Congress needs to stop punishing America's moms and dads for wanting the same fair treatment that government employees are able to receive through comp time and flextime programs. The United States of America deserves to have amendments like this one, and other amendments, that would make our laws less intrusive, less oppressive, less unfair, that would lead to the development of a more fair, just economy, and a more fair, just system of laws. We are never going to be able to get there if we are not even allowed to debate and discuss and vote on it, consider, much less pass, amendments. It is time to restore the Senate to what it was always intended to be, which is the world's greatest deliberative legislative body. That cannot happen when amendments like this one are categorically blocked from consideration. We must end this. We must do better. We can and we must and we will. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this month, the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce will honor Raymond John Noorda, posthumously, with the 2014 ``Pillar of the Valley'' Award. I would like to take a moment to recognize the achievements of this great Utahn. Raymond Noorda, or ``Ray,'' as everyone knew him, was born in Ogden, UT in 1924 to Dutch immigrants, Bertus and Alida Noorda. Like nearly all Americans who grew up during the Depression, Ray learned the virtue of hard work early on, and he never stopped working throughout his life. The Deseret News reports that during his youth, Ray worked ``in a candy shop, setting pins in a bowling alley, as a loading clerk at a train station, picking cherries, selling magazines, and even herding sheep.'' He was an outstanding baseball player, and he was asked to join a professional team right out of high school. However, his mother had other plans for young Ray, and he subsequently enrolled in classes at Weber State College. During World War II, Ray put school on hold and served in the Navy as an electronics technician, working on radar systems. At the conclusion of his military service, he returned to his studies, transferring from Weber to the University of Utah, where he earned a degree in engineering. Ray married his sweetheart Tye shortly after graduating from college, and they were together for 56 years, until Ray's passing in 2006. After his graduation from college, Ray worked for General Electric for 21 years, where he was known as an innovator and entrepreneur. He eventually left the company and led a number of businesses to success in the following years. In the early 1980s, Ray became the leader of a struggling Utah company called Novell Data Systems, which would shortly thereafter become Novell. Ray worked to put together a team of engineers, dubbed ``SuperSet.'' The team eventually invented powerful networking software, which opened the doors to modern networking. For this and other contributions, Ray has been called the ``Father of Network Computing.'' This development set Novell on a path to success and pushed the company far ahead of their early competitors in computer networking throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. Of Novell's success under Ray's leadership, The Independent reported, ``Novell's NetWare product was to become the de facto standard networking software from the late 1980s through to the mid-1990s. Noorda oversaw the growth of the company from 17 to 12,000 staff, whilst still maintaining a community spirit for his employees, whom he treated with immense respect and who, in turn, affectionately referred to him as Uncle Ray.''' Ray was a visionary and humble leader, who believed that cooperation with competitors would help grow the emerging computer networking industry. Thus, he led his company with a term he coined--``co- opetition''--and Novell was a leader in cooperative advancements in the computing industry. One of Novell's Vice Presidents once said of Ray, ``What he preaches is what you always wanted to hear from your father-- love, sharing--and he uses those words.'' When Ray spoke to employees, he was rarely, if ever, without a joke, and he was always positive and encouraging. Ray's success in business was a testament to his personal character and virtues. He loved children, and enjoyed serving in his church. His philanthropy knew no bounds, and his family continues that legacy in Utah and throughout the country each day. Ray was a titan of business, and his life is a shining example for not only business leaders, but also Americans in general. I join with the Utah Valley Chamber in honoring his wife Tye and his family, and I thank them for their support of such a great man. I pray that we will honor the life of Ray Noorda by doing the best we can in our individual capacities, and by helping those around us achieve greatness, success, and happiness throughout life.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this month, the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce will honor Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the 2014 ``Pillar of the Valley'' Award. I would like to take a moment to recognize the achievements of this great man who is dear to my heart. Elder Oaks was born in Provo, UT in 1932. He spent his youth in Utah Valley and Vernal, and he started working from a very young age to support his two younger siblings and widowed mother. Elder Oaks remembers that his mother was ``an extraordinary mother,'' who gave him ``a great deal of responsibility and freedom'' and ``encouraged [him] to have a job.'' He graduated from Brigham Young High School in 1950, where he was the senior class president and played on the football team. He also became a licensed first-class radiotelephone operator in his teenage years. Elder Oaks was a member of the National Guard from 1949 to 1954. During this period, he met his wife June Dixon, and they were married in 1952. They raised six beautiful children together. After more than 45 years of marriage, June, stricken with cancer, passed from this mortal existence. Elder Oaks' extraordinary faith and trust in God's plan during this time of trial was an example for all of us who have lost a loved one to cancer. Elder Oaks has worked tirelessly to lift those around him and to achieve greatness throughout his life. After graduating from Brigham Young University, BYU, with a bachelor's degree in accounting, Oaks went on to law school at the University of Chicago. His hard work at Chicago led him to the tremendous opportunity of clerking at the Supreme Court for Chief Justice Warren. He subsequently returned to Chicago to go into private practice, and eventually joined the faculty at the University of Chicago. It was during this time that my parents moved to Chicago so that my father could earn his law degree at the University of Chicago. Elder Oaks and June kindly welcomed them, and they became lifelong friends. While in Chicago, Elder Oaks also had the opportunity to serve as assistant state's attorney for Cook County, a position in which he excelled. After years of extraordinary work and service in Chicago, the Oaks family was called home to Utah Valley, as Elder Oaks was appointed president of BYU in 1971. He was a brilliant leader, who inspired the students to learn as much as possible and to be advocates for virtue and goodness throughout the world. He also set a high bar for his successors, one of whom was my father, who praised Elder Oaks as a man of great humility and wisdom. After 9 years as president, he was nominated and confirmed as a justice of the Utah Supreme Court. Before and during his service as a justice, Elder Oaks was on multiple short lists for nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. He served with distinction on the Utah Supreme Court from 1980 to 1984, when he resigned to answer a call to serve in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Placing his faith above worldly success, Elder Oaks has travelled the world, bearing testimony of Jesus Christ and strengthening the faith of millions. He has been an ardent defender of religious liberty, and continually works to bring members of all faiths together to accomplish good. Elder Oaks has been an inspiration to millions of individuals all over the world. I congratulate him and his wife Kristen on their many wonderful accomplishments over the last 14 years together. Elder Oaks is not only an example of a genius legal mind to which all jurists, including myself, aspire, but also a tireless advocate for truth, virtue, freedom, and goodness throughout the world. I am proud to say that I know such an individual, and I believe that our world would be a much better place if more men strived to emulate his virtues.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this particular bill has not been examined in committee--not in the Senate, not even in the House. It was rushed to the floor of the House without amendment, and it is rushed to the floor here without amendment. This is not how the legislative process is supposed to work--especially not here in the Senate. My opponents may say we already had our chance to impact this policy, but what we have before us now is a different bill--a bill which we have never seen before. This bill is not a conference report. It takes zero cues from the Senate bill. Not a single representative of the American people has been given the opportunity to offer even a single amendment to this legislation. All I have been asking for is a vote on an amendment which eliminates certain insurance rebates for second homes. My amendment would not change homeowners' flood insurance policies or even reduce the new taxpayer subsidy we are going to give them. It simply removes a retroactive reimbursement for second homes. Essentially we ask that working families around the country, including taxpayers in my State, not have to cut an additional check to the owners of coastal vacation houses. I know of no one who objects to my provision on policy grounds. Let me repeat that. I don't know of anyone, not one person who has raised a policy objection to the amendment I have offered. It is an objective improvement to the underlying policy and this is what the Senate is supposed to do. Yet the supporters of the bill have been blocking any amendments that may garner bipartisan support to hold together a deal that has been negotiated in a backroom, written in secret by only a few Members, perhaps with the influence of a few people who may be interested in that. These ``masters of the universe'' as my friend Senator Sessions has sometimes referred to them, are shutting the American people out of the process. I asked for 10 minutes and a vote on a single unobjectionable germane amendment to a bill the public has never before seen, but it seems this may be a bridge too far for the ``masters of the universe,'' as my friend from Alabama likes to call them. So in an effort hopefully to change one of the more offensive policies in the bill, one that provides a refund of premiums paid under the law to homeowners of second vacation homes from a program that is already $24 billion in the hole, I agree to a vote on my amendment as a stand-alone bill. I have assurances from the House majority leader that he will work to get the policy considered in the House and I take him at his word. I urge my colleagues to support my bill to protect the American people from being asked to fund--to refund premiums paid under current law to owners of second homes and vacation homes.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I am pleased to have the nomination of Judge Carolyn McHugh before the Senate today. Throughout her life Judge McHugh has demonstrated a commitment to the highest standards of academic excellence, professional distinction, and public service. Judge McHugh graduated magna cum laude from the University of Utah, where she later earned her jurist doctorate, graduating Order of the Coif and serving as the editor on the Utah Law Review. After excelling in law school, Judge McHugh clerked for the Honorable Bruce Jenkins of the District of Utah. She then spent more than 20 years in private practice, where she excelled, focusing on complex commercial litigation. Throughout her career in private practice, Judge McHugh has demonstrated a strong commitment to pro bono work. She has been awarded several honors for her work to advance women in the legal profession. In 1996 the Utah State Bar recognized her with a Distinguished Committee Award from the Needs of Children Committee. It was nearly 10 years ago when I first met Judge McHugh when I was working for then-Governor Jon Huntsman. During his first year as Governor, it was time for him to appoint someone to the Utah Court of Appeals. At that point the nominating commissions began their work, and shortly after their work concluded, the Governor's staff started interviewing various applicants, various people who had been considered by the nominating commission. It soon became apparent that there was a real standout in this very impressive group of candidates for this court of appeals position, and Judge McHugh's name rose to the top of the list. During discussions I had with her and with my colleagues, as well as with Governor Huntsman, I found her to possess a keenly insightful legal mind, and I found her to be someone who really understands the role of judges--the necessarily limited role--and the crucial function of the judge in our system. She has served with great distinction on the Utah Court of Appeals during those intervening years. For that reason I am confident, based on the knowledge she has acquired, the skills she has developed and honed over the years, and the commitment to public service she has displayed up to this point in her career, Judge McHugh will, in fact, excel as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. I strongly urge my colleagues to support her confirmation. Thank you, Madam President.