John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 477 only, with no other executive business in order.

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I know of no further debate on the nomination.

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor a strategic leader and exceptional warrior of tremendous talent. After a lifetime of distinguished service to our Nation, GEN John F. Campbell is retiring from the U.S. Army. On this occasion, I believe it is fitting to recognize General Campbell's decades of dedicated service to our Nation. General Campbell graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1979 and commissioned in the U.S. Army infantry. During his more than 37 years of service, he has commanded units at every echelon from platoon leader, to four-star command, and in places such as Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Upon promotion to brigadier general in 2005, he was assigned as the deputy commanding general for Maneuver, 1st Calvary Division, deployed to Baghdad, and is widely credited with holding together the force during a very violent period leading up to the surge. His following assignment was the deputy director for regional operations at the Joint Staff. After being promoted to major general, he was named commander of the Screaming Eagles, 101st Airborne Division, and deployed to Afghanistan as commander, Regional Command East, International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, and commander, Combined Joint Task Force-101. He commanded of over 30,000 coalition servicemembers and 65,000 Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. The scope of his responsibility included the protection of 13 million people and the security of a 450-mile border with Pakistan. At Fort Campbell, KY, General Campbell cultivated lasting relationships within the community to support soldiers, civilians, and families. He installed programs to facilitate a comprehensive fitness program, develop soldier and family resiliency, and significantly decrease the suicide rate. As lieutenant general, he became the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Training. He was promoted to general and, in 2014, confirmed as the 34th U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff, where he promoted the physical, moral, and mental fitness required for improved readiness and resilience. He was an advocate for stopping sexual harassment and assault and supported Wounded Warrior programs. He was vital in updating Congress on the Army's path ahead for these and other key issues. In addition, he coordinated a restructure of posts and stations that helped decrease 17,500 personnel by fiscal year 2017 to meet mandated end strength goals. In 2014, General Campbell deployed to Afghanistan and took command of the NATO ISAF mission and United States Forces--Afghanistan. During his first 6 months, Afghanistan held an extended electoral process and installed a new President and Chief Executive as part of the National Unity Government. After this, General Campbell managed an over 90 percent drawdown of U.S. forces and installations; he transitioned the force from regional commands to train, advise, and assist commands. He helped transition ISAF to a functionally based security force assistance mission designated Resolute Support and became commander of both Resolute Support and United States Forces--Afghanistan for the next 14 months. He served as adviser to the President of Afghanistan, the Ministers of Defense and Interior, and the National Director of Security. His influence during the era of the National Unity Government will have long lasting strategic impacts in Afghanistan and the region. General Campbell is well known for his strategic brilliance and calm fortitude. He is the embodiment of all the values we expect in our most revered leaders: the rare tenacity to accomplish impossible missions; the selfless commitment to country, soldier, and family; and the composition of character that demonstrates only the highest moral and ethical values. He is known for telling his soldiers, ``Leadership makes a difference,'' yet it is his exemplary leadership that had made a difference to countless thousands both abroad and at home. I thank his wife, Ann; his daughter, Jennifer; and his son, John, Jr., who is also serving in the Army, for their years of dedication and support. As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and on behalf of those who serve beside me, let me express the deepest respect and gratitude to General Campbell for his remarkable service to our Nation. I wish you and your family all the best in beginning your new chapter of life together.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon with great regret, having to raise the issue of the pending nomination of the Secretary of the Army. Mr. Eric Fanning has been nominated to be the Secretary of the Army. We have held hearings in the Armed Services Committee, and his name has been on the calendar for confirmation. My friend from Kansas, who is on the floor with me--and he is my dear friend of many years, despite the branch in which he chose to serve in the military--has been objecting to the confirmation of Mr. Eric Fanning as the Secretary of the Army, which is his right. Mr. Fanning had a distinguished career. He served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense and White House Liaison. He served as Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy and Deputy Chief Management Officer of the Navy. The Senate confirmed him, and he served as Under Secretary of the Air Force, including 6 months as Acting Secretary of the Air Force. He served as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, Dr. Ash Carter. Later, he served as Acting Under Secretary and Acting Secretary of the Army. In 2016, he served as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense. He comes from a military family. He has two uncles who graduated from West Point and were career Army officers. He has another uncle who is a career Air Force officer. He has a cousin who flew helicopters in the Marine Corps and another cousin who was an Army Ranger. He has senior executive leadership experience in all three military departments and has pursued efficiencies and transformation in every part of the Department of Defense. His most recent experience as Acting Under Secretary and Secretary of the Army has given him a solid understanding of the challenges currently facing the Army and the need to sustain a ready Army that will, as he said at his confirmation hearing, deter enemies, assure allies, build partner capacity, and be ready to respond when the Nation calls. One of the obligations--in some respects--that we as Senators have is the role of advice and consent, and that is an important role. As Senators, we also understand that elections have consequences, and therefore--although it is not written down anywhere--when a President is selected by the American people, then that President should be given the benefit of the doubt as to the person or persons the President wants on his or her team. I believe it is then our job to make the decision on whether to confirm or deny confirmation based on our view of the qualifications but with the presumption that we would confirm someone rather than the presumption that we wouldn't confirm someone. When the American people choose their leader--the President of the United States--then it seems to me it is our obligation, unless there is a reason not to do so, to ensure that the President has a team around him he has selected. I am stating the obvious, and Mr. Fanning is clearly qualified. He has performed well in the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. My friend from Kansas has objected to Mr. Fanning being confirmed by the Senate, and I will let him describe his reasons for objecting to the nomination, but as I understand it, the Senator from Kansas does not want the detainees from Guantanamo transferred to the State of Kansas. I have assured my dear friend from Kansas that the Armed Services Committee will not approve the transfer of detainees to the United States of America unless there is a plan that will assure the American people the circumstances surrounding that transfer, if it should ever take place, will be appropriate. The administration, after 7\1/2\ years that I have been dealing with them, has no plan. I can assure the Senator from Kansas that the Defense authorization bill, which I assume will be made into law, will again prohibit the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to the United States of America until there is a plan that is approved by the Congress of the United States. That is our obligation and our role. Now, add to that that Mr. Fanning has no role to play. He has no role to play in this decisionmaking as to whether we transfer detainees from Guantanamo to the United States of America. When we consider nominations, we should be considering the role, mission, and responsibilities of that nominee, and, frankly, I say to my dear friend from Kansas, he has no role to play in the whole scenario I described. I urge my friend, in the strongest possible way I can, to work together with me, as we have over the last 7\1/2\ years on this issue of Guantanamo, and give the benefit of the Senator's expertise as we bring the Defense authorization bill to the floor during the last week in May, which is when it is scheduled, and talk about Guantanamo. I am totally confident and can assure the Senator from Kansas that the overwhelming majority of the Armed Services Committee and I am sure a majority in the Senate--I am totally confident that the Defense authorization bill will have a prohibition on the transfer of detainees to the United States of America unless there is a plan that is approved by the Congress of the United States. Finally, I understand that the Senator from Kansas is very concerned about this issue and has been for a long time. No one understands better than he. He was a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps and is aware of the obligations to preserve the safety and security of this Nation. All I can say is that the U.S. Army needs this man, Mr. Eric Fanning's leadership. It is not fair to the men and women of the U.S. Army to be without the leadership of a Secretary of the Army. Mr. Fanning is eminently qualified to assume the role of Secretary of the Army. I urge my friend and colleague to not object to the unanimous consent request I am about to propound. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 477, the nomination of Eric Fanning to be Secretary of the Army; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, Mr. Fanning has nothing to do with the issue. We are shooting a hostage that has nothing to do with the decisionmaking process. If we inaugurate a practice here of holding nominees over an issue that is not related to those nominees, we are abusing our power and authority as U.S. Senators. Secondly, the Senator from Kansas knows he cannot have the President call him. If he did that, he would then have to call 99 other Senators who would then hold up nominees because they have not been assured that detainees will not be relocated to their States according to any plan that the President may come up with. What we are doing is telling a nominee who is totally and eminently qualified for the job that that person cannot fulfill those responsibilities and take on that very important leadership post because of an unrelated issue that has nothing to do with Mr. Fanning. That is not the appropriate use of senatorial privilege. What if we set this precedent and every Senator--100 Senators--adopts the practice of saying: I don't want the President to pursue a certain course of action, therefore I will hold his or her nominees hostage until they take a certain course of action. That is not the role of advice and consent. That is a distortion of advice and consent. Let me say, I will be coming back to the floor on Mr. Fanning's nomination. It is not fair to him. He is an American citizen. He has served for years in the service of his country, at least since 2009 that I can see. He shouldn't be held hostage to a policy decision that--the full Senate will act to prevent that action. I tell my colleague that the full Senate, as we have the last several years, will prohibit the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay until the President of the United States comes forward with a plan that is approved by the Senate. So if a plan came forward that contained movement of the detainees to Fort Leavenworth, as the Senator from Kansas is worried about, then the Senate would say no. We would say no. So, unfortunately, we have seen the Senator from Kansas take a nominee who is fully qualified in every aspect--he passed through the Senate Armed Services Committee by voice vote--and hold him hostage to an action that the nominee has no ability to take, has no ability to determine, nor is it in his area of responsibility as Secretary of the Army to determine a policy on Guantanamo. So if we are going to set a precedent here, I say to my friend from Kansas, that if we don't like a certain policy or anticipated action by the President of the United States in some area, we will therefore hold up a nominee for an office which they are not in any way related to-- that is not the way the Senate should behave.

Mr. McCAIN. Sure. I will be glad to yield to my friend.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, just quickly, facts are stubborn things, I say to my friend from Kansas. The reason there hasn't been movement of the detainees is because the action of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the authorization bill prohibited such a thing from happening. It has nothing to do with any hold or no hold that the Senator from Kansas has. Let's be very clear about that. And whether Eric Fanning is confirmed or not, it does not change the situation one iota--not one iota. I have assured the Senator from Kansas that the Senate Armed Services Committee--I know enough about my own committee to know that they will be passing again, as we have for the last several years, a prohibition on the movement of detainees until there is a plan. And in 2009 or whenever it was, I am sure they had no plan at that time because they came to see me and I told them to come up with a plan. So the Senator's actions have nothing to do with whether or not the President closes Guantanamo and transfers them, and the Senator's action right now has nothing to do with whether or not the President of the United States will decide to close Guantanamo by Executive order and move them to Leavenworth. There is nothing he is doing by withholding this nomination that would in any way inhibit the President from acting. The only thing that will inhibit the President from acting is the aye vote of Senator from Kansas on the Defense authorization bill which will be on the floor at the end of May and which will have a prohibition for the transfer of those detainees. So I would hope my dear friend from Kansas would understand that what we need to do is get a defense authorization to the floor, get it in conference with the House, and get it to the President's desk. That is the best way he can keep any movement of detainees to Kansas and to Fort Leavenworth. And at the same time, the President of the United States, despite your hold on Mr. Fanning, may act by Executive order. Nothing you are doing by prohibiting Mr. Fanning from being confirmed to a post he is well qualified for--to lead the U.S. Army--will have any effect whatsoever on an Executive order by the President of the United States.

Mr. McCAIN. Yes.

Mr. McCAIN. May I just say, Mr. President, that I hope my dear friend from Kansas--we are about to go into a week-long recess--would do as he always does, and that is contemplate and communicate, as he does with the people of Kansas, who have honored him for so much time here in the Congress of the United States. Maybe hopefully we could work this out with the certain knowledge and my assurance that I am 100 percent confident that the Senate Armed Services Committee will report a bill that will become law that prohibits the transfer of the detainees from Guantanamo to anywhere in the United States of America until there is a plan that is approved by Congress, and I want to give him that confidence. His passion that he has displayed here is ample evidence for why the people of Kansas hold him with such affection and respect. He is fighting for what he believes is in the best interests of the people whom he represents so well and honorably. I hope he will have the opportunity, as we go into recess next week, to talk with his constituents and think about this and think about my assurance that we will not--we will not--approve of a transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay unless it is in compliance with the law that we will pass. I thank my colleague. I know the Senator from Tennessee is waiting. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, last week a story appeared on FOX News that captured a glimpse of the real damage being done to our military by years of senseless budget cuts known to many of us here as sequestration. I don't think there are 100 Americans who know what the word ``sequestration'' means. What it means is senseless budget cuts that have emasculated our military and dramatically harmed our ability to defend this Nation. This poses a risk to the lives of the men and women who are serving our Nation in uniform. In a story entitled ``Budget cuts leaving Marine Corps aircraft grounded,'' senior marine officers warn FOX News that the ``[Marine] Corps' aviation service is being stretched to the breaking point.'' I quote from the story: Today, the vast majority of Marine Corps aircraft can't fly. . . . Out of 276 F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters in the Marine Corps inventory, only about 30 percent are ready to fly. Similarly only 42 of 147 heavy-lift CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters are airworthy. In short, Marine Corps aviation is in a crisis and being left grounded. What is the cause of this crisis? According to dozens of marines interviewed by FOX News: The reason behind the grounding of these aircraft includes the toll of the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fight against ISIS, and budget cuts-- For example, sequestration-- precluding the purchase of the parts needed to fix an aging fleet. The report goes on to say: U.S. military spending declined from $691 billion to $560 billion in 2015. So, as the world has become more dangerous, as conflict has spread throughout the world, the cuts have taken place in an unscheduled, unplanned, and unorchestrated operation. The cuts came just as the planes are returning from 15 years of war, suffering from overuse and extreme wear and tear. . . . Lack of funds has forced the Marines to go outside the normal supply chain to procure desperately needed parts. Cannibalization, or taking parts from one multi- million dollar aircraft to get other multi-million dollar aircraft airborne, has become the norm. One marine likened the difficult job of maintaining this aircraft to ``taking a 1995 Cadillac and trying to make it a Ferrari.'' This job is only more difficult because 30,000 marines have been cut from the force as a result of sequestration and its misguided budget cuts. As Maj. Michael Malone put it: We don't have enough Marines to do the added work efficiently. We're making it a lot harder on the young Marines who are fixing our aircraft. Lt. Col. Matthew Brown added that this burden ``is coming on the backs of our young Marines. . . . They are the ones who are working 20 to 21 hours a day to get them ready to go on deployment.'' The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Robert Neller said, ``we don't have enough airplanes that we could call `ready basic aircraft,' '' and that aviation readiness is his No. 1 concern. It is no wonder, because this readiness crisis is literally putting the lives of our marines at risk. Lt. Col. Harry Thomas commands a squadron of Marine Corps F/A-18s. He told FOX News that last year he deployed to the Pacific with 10 jets, but only 7 made it. His own jet caught on fire in Guam. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas was able to land the aircraft safely, but the incident nearly cost taxpayers $29 million and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas his life. Now his squadron is getting ready to deploy in 3 months, but only 2 of his 14 Hornets can fly. The aircraft shortage also means training is suffering and our pilots could be losing their edge. As the FOX News report details: Ten years ago, Marine pilots averaged between 25 and 30 hours in the air each month. Today, in Lieutenant Colonel Thomas's squadron, the average flight time per pilot over the last month was just over 4 hours.'' I assure my colleagues, you cannot maintain readiness and capability in a modern-day fighter aircraft flying 4 hours a month. It can't be done. Super Stallion helicopters have flown thousands of marines into combat over the past three decades, but these aging aircraft, filled with a tangled web of hundreds of wires and fuel lines, present a daunting challenge for young marines assigned to inspect each and every one. As the FOX News report explained, ``One failure can be catastrophic, as happened in 2014 when [a Navy version of the aircraft] crashed off the coast of Virginia after a fire engulfed the aircraft due to faulty fuel lines.'' The bottom line is this: Years of budget cuts have left us with a Marine Corps that is too small and has too few aircraft. The aircraft it does have are too old and can barely fly and only by cannibalizing parts from other aircraft. Young marines are being asked to muddle through this crisis with shrinking resources, knowing that if they fail, their comrades flying and riding in those aircraft could pay a fatal price. The crisis in Marine Corps aviation would be shocking if it were not such a tragically common story throughout each of our military services. Arbitrary budget cuts and sequestration have shrunk the Army by nearly 100,000 soldiers since 2012, bringing the Army to a size that Army Chief of Staff GEN Mark Milley testified has put the Army at ``high military risk.'' These budget-driven reductions were decided before Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the rise of ISIL. As the force has shrunk, readiness has suffered. Just one-third of Army brigade combat teams are ready to deploy and operate decisively. Indeed, just 2--just 2--of the Army's 60 brigade combat teams are at the highest level of combat readiness. To buy readiness today, as lackluster as it is, the Army is being forced to mortgage its future readiness and capability by reducing end strength and delaying modernization needed to meet future threats. The result of budget cuts, forced reductions, and declining readiness is clear: In an unforeseen contingency, General Milley testified this month before the Armed Services Committee that the Army ``risks not having ready forces available to provide flexible options to our national leadership . . . and most importantly, [risks] incurring significantly increased U.S. casualties. I repeat: ``significantly increased U.S. casualties.'' Likewise, by any measure, the Navy's fleet of 272 ships is too small to address critical security challenges. Even with recent shipbuilding increases, the Navy will not achieve its requirement of 308 ships until 2021. There is no plan to meet the bipartisan National Defense Panel's unanimous recommendation for a fleet of 325 to 346 ships. A shrinking fleet operating at high tempo has forced difficult tradeoffs. For example, the last five carrier strike group deployments have exceeded 8 months. Keeping sailors at sea for 8 months is damaging to morale and will sooner or later affect retention. It takes a toll on sailors, ships, and aircraft. Unable to continue years of deferred maintenance, the Navy is no longer able to provide constant carrier presence in the Middle East or the Western Pacific. The Air Force is the oldest and the smallest in its history. The combination of decades of relentless operational tempo and misguided reductions in defense spending in recent years has depleted readiness. Today, less than 50 percent of the Air Force's combat squadrons are ready for full-spectrum operations--well below the Air Force's stated requirement of 80 percent. The Air Force does not anticipate a return to full-spectrum readiness for another decade. In other words, after flying in uncontested skies over the Middle East for more than a quarter of a century, our Air Force is not ready for a high-end fight against a near-peer adversary. The truth is this: The ongoing war in Afghanistan, the rise of ISIL, Russia's aggression in Europe, and China's assertiveness in the Pacific have all increased the demands imposed upon our servicemembers and their families. But at the same time, the requirements of our military have continued to grow. For 5 years--5 years now--the Budget Control Act of 2011 has imposed caps on defense spending. Despite periodic relief from those caps, including the Bipartisan Budget Act passed last year, every one of our military services--the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and, yes, the Marine Corps--remains undersized, unready, and underfunded to meet current and future threats. Unfortunately, the President's defense budget request for the coming year does little to nothing to address this problem. Instead, it continues down the dangerous path of budgeting based not on what our military needs but on what arbitrary defense spending constraints allow. In order to strictly adhere to the defense spending floor in last year's Bipartisan Budget Act, the Department of Defense cut $17 billion from what it said it needed last year. Does anybody believe the situation in the world has improved to the point where you can reduce by $17 billion from what we paid last year, what we spent last year? Those are billions of dollars of cuts for things our military needs right now: Army helicopters, Air Force fighters, Navy ships, Marine Corps fighting vehicles, and critical training and maintenance across the services. The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN Martin Dempsey, described last year's budget as ``the lower ragged edge of manageable risk in our ability to execute the defense strategy.'' One year later, the President of the United States has sent us a budget request that is less in real dollars than last year and $17 billion less than what our military needed and planned for. The military service's unfunded requirements totaled nearly $23 billion for the coming fiscal year alone. Meanwhile, sequestration threatens to return in 2018, taking away another $100 billion from our military through 2021. I don't know what lies beneath ``the lower ragged edge of manageable risk,'' but this is what I fear it means; that our military is becoming less and less able to deter conflict. If, God forbid, deterrence does fail somewhere and we end up in conflict, our Nation will deploy young Americans into battle without sufficient training or equipment to fight a war that will take longer, be larger, cost more, and ultimately claim more young American lives than it would otherwise would have. If that comes to pass, who will be responsible, who is responsible for the military's readiness crisis? Who is to blame for the increasing risk to the lives of the men and women who volunteer to serve and defend our Nation? The answer is clear: We are--the White House, Congress, Democrats, and Republicans, every politician who designed, agreed to or went along with the Budget Control Act and the mindless mechanism of sequestration, and every politician who in the past 5 years has failed to realize our mistake or, perhaps having realized it, failed to do anything and everything possible to fix it. What is worse is the two-faced hypocrisy of it all: Democrats who will say they favor more funding for our military but only if they get dollar-for-dollar increases for their pet domestic programs first and Republicans who say they favor a strong defense, but when it comes time to do the hard work of funding it, are nowhere to be found. For 5 years, we have been playing politics with funding that our military servicemembers need and deserve. For 5 years, we have been playing a rigged game, where the politicians win and our military loses. This must all end before it is too late. We cannot continue to avert our eyes and ignore the grave impact budget cuts are having on our military. The warning signs are clear: a marine aircraft that can't fly, pilots who can't train, and young marines trying to hold it all together by stealing parts from one aging airplane to give to another. The potential consequences are clear. Our Nation could soon find itself in a position where it must either abandon an important national interest or send young Americans into a conflict for which they are not prepared. This is the reality our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are facing. It is our urgent and solemn task to confront it. This Congress can begin to chart a better course, one that is worthy of the service and sacrifice of those who volunteer to put themselves in harm's way on our behalf. I am committed to doing everything I can as chairman of the Armed Services Committee to accomplish this task, and I will work with any of my colleagues to find a solution. Despite the odds, I am ever hopeful we can live up to our highest constitutional duty and moral responsibility to provide for the common defense. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. McCAIN. Is the interest on the national debt included in that red line?

Mr. McCAIN. Obviously, it makes it much more compelling. Obviously, that all would be moved one way or another. Obviously, it is going to go up, but a return to inflation would dramatically increase that red line, would it not?

Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the urgent need for Congress to reform how the Department of Veterans Affairs delivers health care to our Nation's veterans. One of the great scandals and shameful aspects of the greatest Nation in the world is the way we treat our veterans. I believe important progress has been made since the scandal in which veterans died, waiting on nonexisting wait-lists for care at the Phoenix VA medical center and VA hospitals around the country, but we have a long way to go to fulfill our solemn promise to every veteran who has served and sacrificed. In the matter of that terrible scandal, I was proud that Congress quickly acted to pass the bipartisan Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act. That bill was an important first step--and I emphasize ``first step''--in reforming the gross mismanagement and lack of accountability at the VA. In my view, the hallmark of the bill is the Choice Card Program, which for the first time allows any veteran who is waiting more than 30 days for an appointment or who lives more than 40 miles from a VA health care facility to receive a Choice Card that they can use to visit a participating doctor in their community instead of being forced to wait with no recourse. So how is the VA Choice Card working? My colleagues in the Senate and I continue to hear from veterans in Arizona and across the country about their ongoing problems receiving care. Veterans find that VA staff don't know about the Choice Card or how to authorize care through it. Veterans are forced to wait on hold for hours with a call center in order to schedule an appointment. Community doctors and hospitals that volunteered to participate in the Choice Program are not getting paid for their services. Veterans who are able to use the Choice Card once and need to use it again have to start all over from scratch. Veterans still have to drive long distances to get prescription medications. There should be no doubt that the VA is failing to fully and effectively implement the Choice Card. In doing so, it is preventing our veterans from receiving the flexible care they have earned and deserve. We know that when implemented correctly, the Choice Card Program is improving care for our veterans. After an extremely difficult start, the VA Choice Card is now authorizing more than 110,000 appointments for veteran care per month--over 5,000 per workday. Each of these appointments represents a veteran's appointment that would otherwise be delayed and pending for months in the VA scheduling system. It also frees up appointments at the VA for veterans who do not use the Choice Card, helping countless veterans receive an appointment faster. We have also seen what can happen when the VA properly reimburses community doctors for their services. In the western region alone, community doctors participating in the VA Choice Program have increased from around 95,000 to nearly 160,000. More than 90 percent of all doctors are being paid within 30 days, and the vast majority of doctors are choosing to stay in the VA Choice Program--mainly because of their love of country--to treat our Nation's veterans. Moreover, we have seen that when the VA is equipped to handle the demand for Choice Program appointments made through call centers, veterans are getting their appointments faster. Recent openings of new call centers have greatly reduced wait and on-hold times among our veterans. Today, wait time averages for veterans calling into the western region call centers for Choice Card appointments are less than 1 minute. As a result of a positive VA policy change last year, contractors are now able to contact veterans and ensure that their authorizations for care are approved ahead of time so that appointments can be made much faster over the phone. While we are seeing important progress as a result of the Choice Card, far too many veterans are still experiencing long wait and on- hold times with call centers and confronting difficulties getting an appointment. Unfortunately, some veterans, veterans service organizations, and opponents of the VA Choice Card cite these shortcomings as evidence that the whole Choice Card Program is broken and needs to be eliminated. These opponents are wrong, and they know it. The problem isn't the Choice Card; it is that the VA refuses to implement it correctly. Instead of working to solve the problems at the VA head-on, the same bureaucrats who have completely bungled the implementation of the VA Choice Card are using their own failures as an excuse to shut down the entire program. Allowing them to do so would only send veterans back to the unacceptable status quo of never-ending wait times for appointments. Does anybody want to return to the status quo? I refuse to send our veterans back to the nonexistent wait-lists that led to the scandal of denied and delayed care in the first place. Every representative in Congress and every official at the VA should too. According to a poll recently released by Gallup, the American people overwhelmingly agree. Ninety-one percent of survey respondents believe that veterans should be allowed to get health care from any provider who accepts Medicare, not just the VA. This chart describes the main problems with VA health care before the Choice Program. Today, military and civilian retirees; Federal employees, including VA employees; ObamaCare enrollees; civilians on employer insurance plans; and refugees and illegal immigrants have the ability to choose their doctors. The only group of Americans who is still being denied universal choice in health care is disabled veterans. How is it that we have created a system where virtually everyone in America gets to choose their doctor except for our Nation's disabled veterans? Our veterans want and need the opportunity to choose the health care that works best for them. It is simply unacceptable that half a million veterans nationwide today are waiting for a medical appointment that is scheduled more than 30 days from now. We can address this crisis now by making simple changes to the law. Under the law, the VA Choice Card pilot program expires next year. We cannot and will not go back to the way our VA operated before the scandal. While some senior VA leaders are aggressively implementing the Choice Program, many others believe veterans should be forced to stay within the walls of the VA no matter what. Making the program permanent will send a clear message that we refuse to send veterans back to the days of denied and delayed care. That is why I introduced legislation to make the VA Choice Card permanent and universal. I believe every veteran--no matter where they live or how long they are waiting for an appointment--should have the ability to see a doctor of their choice in their community. Last week I held a townhall meeting with veterans in Phoenix, AZ, along with Mike Broomhead, a distinguished leader in our community. With tears in their eyes and frustration in their voices, veterans described the unending wait times for appointments and difficulty obtaining and using the Choice Card to receive the care they want and need. More than 2 years after the scandal in care first arose in Phoenix, AZ, and more than a year after reform legislation was signed into law, the VA is still failing our veterans. It doesn't have to be this way. There are additional steps we can take now to reform this broken health care system. That is why I recently announced my Care Veterans Deserve action plan. The elements of my plan address some of the most urgent problems still plaguing the VA. First, the action plan proposes keeping the VA open later during the week and opening the VA on weekends for local doctors and nurses to treat our veterans. This would address the most common complaint we hear that wait times for appointments are still too long. In Arizona, wait times have gotten worse--not better--over the last year, with more than 10 percent of all the Arizona veterans having to wait more than 30 days for care at the VA. Despite these long wait times, veterans are still not allowed to make appointments past 3 p.m. during the week and have very few appointment options on weekends. VA employees abruptly close clinics no matter what a veteran needs at the end of the day. By keeping the VA open later and adding hours on weekends, we can address these unacceptably high wait times and maximize the use of our VA facilities. I have also proposed in the Care Veterans Deserve action plan that the VA allow community walk-in clinics to treat veterans for minor injuries and illnesses such as a cold, the flu, allergies, sinus infections, immunizations, vaccines, sore throats, and minor headaches. Again, this would greatly reduce the need for veterans to visit VA emergency rooms after hours and would free up appointments for everyone waiting for care at the VA. The plan also proposes that we require VA pharmacies to stay open until 8 p.m. during the week and for at least 8 hours on Saturday and Sundays. This would tackle a common complaint among our working veterans who cannot visit VA pharmacies during their limited workday hours to obtain a prescription. It is absurd that a civilian can go to a pharmacy 24 hours a day in most cities in America, but VA pharmacies close early on weekdays and completely on the weekends. I also propose in this action plan that individual VA hospitals undergo peer review from the best in health care: Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic--there is a long line of them--and other top-tier health care networks. I was disappointed that the independent review required by the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act only resulted in a high-level review of the VA health care system. Its findings were so broad and general that they provided Congress with very little guidance on what is happening at individual VA hospitals in our States. By requiring the VA to undergo peer reviews from the best in health care, we will have better insight into how to fully reform the VA health care system. I intend to include the elements of that action plan in a bill I will introduce in this Congress. By enacting legislation as soon as possible, we can fix the serious inequity in veterans health care. It is absurd to me and many others that virtually every American receives Federal subsidies for choice and freedom in health care while veterans are forced to wait in line and ask permission from a VA bureaucrat before getting access to care. I thank my colleagues for working with me on these and other measures that will help finish the work we started nearly 2 years ago with the Veteran Access, Choice and Accountability Act and urge passage of my commonsense reforms as soon as possible. Before I close, I want to take a moment to applaud the efforts of my friend from Georgia, the chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, Johnny Isakson, for his leadership, particularly on the issue of accountability at the VA. One of the most disgraceful aspects of the scandal at the VA is that only a small number of senior VA executives responsible for the wait-time scandal were fired. This was despite the fact that Congress provided the VA Secretary broad authority to hold corrupt executives accountable for wrongdoing. I look forward to working with Chairman Isakson and my colleagues in the Senate to pass legislation that would ensure we hold all those responsible for denied and delayed care, even the deaths of some, accountable. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and ranking member of the Commerce Committee for all their hard work on this FAA reauthorization bill. The Commerce Committee has done very hard work on it. I am especially pleased the committee included a provision that directly affects my home State and the city in which I live, Phoenix, AZ. Since September of 2014, residents in Arizona around the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport have had their daily lives impacted by changes to flight paths. These changes were made without formal notification to the airport or community engagement before the changes were implemented. These flight changes in Phoenix were made as part of the Federal Aviation Administration's ongoing implementation of NextGen. I support the aims of NextGen to improve the safety and efficiency of air travel and modernize our Nation's air space. We will all benefit from the improvements that come from NextGen, and this provision is not intended to undermine those efforts or diminish the efficiencies that have already been achieved through NextGen. However, the experience my constituents have gone through in Arizona demonstrates that improvements need to be made to the process surrounding the implementation of NextGen. The airport and affected community must be part of the process before these changes are made. It is important that those on the ground--the individuals who have their daily lives impacted the most by this process--have an opportunity to be heard. Input from local stakeholders is necessary to ensure that community planning and noise mitigation efforts that have been underway for decades are now taken into full account. The language in this bill would require the FAA to review certain past decisions and take steps to mitigate impacts when flight path changes have a significant impact on affected communities, and that is certainly the case in my home city of Phoenix, AZ. Importantly, this provision would also require the FAA to notify and consult with those communities before making significant changes to flight paths moving forward, as has happened, which has caused so much difficulty and so many ill effects on the citizens of Phoenix, AZ-- indeed, the entire valley. The FAA has acknowledged the need to improve community outreach and is undertaking efforts to update their community outreach manual, but more needs to be done to guarantee this outreach takes place. The Senate had previously agreed unanimously to this language as an amendment to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. However, that bill did not advance in the Senate. Also, the FAA reauthorization bill that passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee earlier this year also included similar language at the request of myself and my colleague Senator Flake. This legislation is necessary to create a long-awaited, much needed opportunity for residents around Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport negatively impacted by flight noise to have their voices heard by the FAA. It is important that the process surrounding changes to flight paths include the local officials, airport representatives, and residents--most of all, residents--who know the issues best, both around Sky Harbor and in communities across the country. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I also thank my colleague Senator Flake for working hard on this reauthorization and this provision that is in this bill. He and I both have been contacted by literally thousands of our fellow citizens and the people we represent in Phoenix, AZ, concerning the noise problems around Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. It didn't have to happen this way. I hope the FAA will go back and meet with the people and hear the complaints, hear their problems, and fix them. I thank my colleague Senator Flake for his hard work on this issue. Again, I appreciate the Commerce Committee and its chairman and ranking member for including this language in this legislation that is so important to our community.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to help tackle the challenging problem of fixing our broken education system on Indian reservations. The bill, known as the Native American Education Opportunity Act, would expand the education opportunities of Native American student living on reservations by allowing their parents to take full advantage of Education Savings Account which would be funded by the Bureau of Indian Education, BIE. Under this bill, eligible students could apply for up to 90 percent of the per pupil expenditure that BIE would spend on them at a BIE school and use those funds to pay for private school tuition, tutors, online curriculum courses, special needs services, and other K-12 education needs. This funding would be provided through the use of Education Savings Accounts, or ESA's, which are established State- administered programs in the States of Arizona, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and Nevada. Across the Nation, there is a growing interest in State legislatures in enacting ESA's because of the freedom and opportunity they give to families, but in particular low-income students. My home State of Arizona is at the forefront of this revolutionary approach of empowering parents-To customize their child's education. I believe that families living on Indian reservations in my state and elsewhere should reap the benefits of ESA's too. As my colleagues know, the need to improve Indian County is a crisis issue. I'm of course referring to the broken Bureau of Indian Education system which consists of 185 schools and 41,000 students. By some estimates, the BIE's average per pupil spending is $15,000--higher than the national average. Less than 7 percent of all Native American students attend a BIE school, but the performance disparity between BIE students and Native American students attending non-BIB schools is staggering. Almost half of BIE students do not graduate from high school. Their test scores trail by double digits compared to their peers. Some BIB schools have facilities that are unsuitable as a learning environment. A series of recent reports by the Government Accountability Office, GAO, have focused on the disrepair of schools and bureaucratic mismanagement. Some schools desks, school supplies, and even heat. I wholeheartedly agree that Congress must intervene and implement administrative reforms and maintenance improvements. But, let us consider that market competition could be a powerful tool for improving teacher retention, diversifying education options, and improving test scores and graduation rates in Indian Country more so than any 5-year BIB plan developed in Washington. This bill is particularly useful for rural Indian reservations with large land bases where children living on the reservation have little choice but to attend a BIB school. Take for example the Navajo Nation where non-BIB public schools can be over 50 miles away, and private school options are few and far between. It is unconscionable to leave students stranded in failing schools when we can create the option of expanding their educational opportunities in even the most remote parts of Indian County. We can and should do more to create a market that attracts private schools and other education services willing to open shop on remote Indian reservations. School choice initiatives, while still relatively new, are building a track record of success. One example is a Federal program set up 12 years ago to address the beleaguered public school system in our Nation's capital, Washington, D.C. Congress established the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program which at one time provided up to $20 million in scholarships to low income families to pull their children out of a failing DC public schools and place them in a private school. The DC program transformed the future of thousands of children in the District. In 2011, a U.S. Department of Education study found that graduation rates, particularly among minority students jumped by as much as 20 percent for the kids who participated in the program. The situation in the BIE school system is failing, and it is a reflection of our failure in our solemn obligation to meet certain needs of Native Americans living on Indian reservations. I believe that opening up education opportunism beyond BIE schools for Native American families can prove to be one of the most effective agents for change for education in Indian Country. I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to help tackle the challenging problem of fixing our broken education system on Indian reservations. The bill, known as the Native American Education Opportunity Act, would expand the education opportunities of Native American student living on reservations by allowing their parents to take full advantage of Education Savings Account which would be funded by the Bureau of Indian Education, BIE. Under this bill, eligible students could apply for up to 90 percent of the per pupil expenditure that BIE would spend on them at a BIE school and use those funds to pay for private school tuition, tutors, online curriculum courses, special needs services, and other K-12 education needs. This funding would be provided through the use of Education Savings Accounts, or ESA's, which are established State- administered programs in the States of Arizona, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and Nevada. Across the Nation, there is a growing interest in State legislatures in enacting ESA's because of the freedom and opportunity they give to families, but in particular low-income students. My home State of Arizona is at the forefront of this revolutionary approach of empowering parents-To customize their child's education. I believe that families living on Indian reservations in my state and elsewhere should reap the benefits of ESA's too. As my colleagues know, the need to improve Indian County is a crisis issue. I'm of course referring to the broken Bureau of Indian Education system which consists of 185 schools and 41,000 students. By some estimates, the BIE's average per pupil spending is $15,000--higher than the national average. Less than 7 percent of all Native American students attend a BIE school, but the performance disparity between BIE students and Native American students attending non-BIB schools is staggering. Almost half of BIE students do not graduate from high school. Their test scores trail by double digits compared to their peers. Some BIB schools have facilities that are unsuitable as a learning environment. A series of recent reports by the Government Accountability Office, GAO, have focused on the disrepair of schools and bureaucratic mismanagement. Some schools desks, school supplies, and even heat. I wholeheartedly agree that Congress must intervene and implement administrative reforms and maintenance improvements. But, let us consider that market competition could be a powerful tool for improving teacher retention, diversifying education options, and improving test scores and graduation rates in Indian Country more so than any 5-year BIB plan developed in Washington. This bill is particularly useful for rural Indian reservations with large land bases where children living on the reservation have little choice but to attend a BIB school. Take for example the Navajo Nation where non-BIB public schools can be over 50 miles away, and private school options are few and far between. It is unconscionable to leave students stranded in failing schools when we can create the option of expanding their educational opportunities in even the most remote parts of Indian County. We can and should do more to create a market that attracts private schools and other education services willing to open shop on remote Indian reservations. School choice initiatives, while still relatively new, are building a track record of success. One example is a Federal program set up 12 years ago to address the beleaguered public school system in our Nation's capital, Washington, D.C. Congress established the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program which at one time provided up to $20 million in scholarships to low income families to pull their children out of a failing DC public schools and place them in a private school. The DC program transformed the future of thousands of children in the District. In 2011, a U.S. Department of Education study found that graduation rates, particularly among minority students jumped by as much as 20 percent for the kids who participated in the program. The situation in the BIE school system is failing, and it is a reflection of our failure in our solemn obligation to meet certain needs of Native Americans living on Indian reservations. I believe that opening up education opportunism beyond BIE schools for Native American families can prove to be one of the most effective agents for change for education in Indian Country. I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to support S. Res. 377, a resolution to enforce a subpoena of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations against backpage.com and Carl Ferrer, the company's chief executive officer. This action comes as part of the subcommittee's ongoing investigation into the sex trafficking of minors and the unfortunate and increasing role of the Internet in facilitating this horrific crime. Before I go much further, I would like to express my deep appreciation to the chairman. Senator Portman has been tenacious. He is committed. He is forcing us as a body to address an issue that is so unpleasant that many times we shy away from it because we would rather talk about more pleasant subjects and issues that are less emotional. But it is what is happening in America and in the world, and thanks to the leadership of Senator Portman, it is being addressed in a forthright manner that alerts all of us and, indeed, alerts the world. I very much appreciate the great work he has done on this issue. I know he remains committed for as long as he is a Member of this body, and we are incredibly grateful for his friendship and his leadership. This marks the first time in 20 years that the Senate has been required to enforce a subpoena in court. I have been in Congress for a long time, and I have never seen anything quite like it. As part of the subcommittee's fair and deliberative investigation into human trafficking and child exploitation on the Internet, we have encountered a company that, instead of doing everything in its power to assist in protecting the most vulnerable in our society, has decided to focus its energies on stonewalling congressional efforts to do so. Let me be clear. As is always the case in this unsavory underside of society, it is about money. Backpage.com is the market leader in commercial sex advertising. It was valued at over $600 million in 2015, with over $130 million in annual revenue, and their business model is dependent on the revenue generated from this part of its Web site. Backpage claims to be a leading partner in the fight to combat child sex trafficking by screening advertisements for evidence of trafficking and taking deliberate steps from preventing illegal activity from appearing on its Web site. But the company has refused to produce documents that could verify this claim, and the facts gathered by the subcommittee from other sources indicate this is not the case. As Senator Portman has indicated, backpage has been linked to hundreds of human trafficking cases, including those of children. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has gathered data that indicates that the vast majority of suspected child trafficking reports it receives from the public include postings made on backpage. Identifying what screening procedures are in place and the effectiveness of these efforts in curbing trafficking are an important part of this investigation. Thanks to the leadership from the Senator from Ohio, it is hard to think of a more worthy use of the Senate's investigative authority than examining the methods used to facilitate the buying and selling of children for sexual exploitation. This investigation is designed to guide Congress as we consider ways to combat human trafficking and identify what can be done to protect children and eliminate this crime. Enforcement of this subpoena is necessary to accomplish that goal and to protect the prerogative of the Senate to investigate matters of consequence to our national interest. I appreciate Senators Portman and McCaskill's truly bipartisan efforts to investigate matters of consequence to our national interest. I appreciate their efforts to shed light on this difficult issue, and I appreciate their commitment to defending the Senate's role in addressing it. I hope and believe that vote will be 100 to 0, as we strongly support Chairman Portman's right to obtain the information he believes is necessary to the subcommittee's investigation concerning human trafficking. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this important resolution. I know that my friend and colleague Senator Portman knows that one of the areas where human trafficking is most intense are those States that are on the border, and our southern border is obviously penetrated regularly by these human traffickers. I would like, as a representative of the people of my State of Arizona, where this issue is of particular importance, to thank Senator Portman and Senator McCaskill for their unending worthy and important efforts on this issue. By passing this legislation, we will send a message to others. We will send a message to others, I say to my colleague from Ohio, that they can run but they can't hide. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, briefly, the Senator from South Carolina and I discussed this announcement that Russia will begin withdrawing some military forces from Syria. It obviously signals Vladimir Putin's belief that he has bombed and killed enough of the opponents of the murderous Assad regime to assure Assad's survival. For 4 years, this administration--this President--stood by as the Assad regime slaughtered nearly half a million people in Syria. Then, when Assad appeared weak, it watched as Putin intervened militarily and protected his brutal regime, in a move that the President described as Putin going into a ``quagmire.'' Well, apparently now Vladimir Putin is leaving that ``quagmire,'' and he is leaving a solid Bashar Assad in a position of strength. He is leaving thousands of dead moderate opposition that he has indiscriminately bombed, and the United States has their begging bowl out, asking and pleading that they somehow reach some agreement again in Geneva. It is really embarrassing to watch this President and this Secretary of State as they continue to beg Vladimir Putin and his stooge Lavrov as they continue to place Russia in a position of influence they have not had since Anwar Sadat threw them out of Egypt in 1973. They now have a major role to play in the Middle East. They have a military base. They have a naval base. They have upgraded airfields, and they have now solidified Bashar Assad's position in power. Is there anybody who believes that Russia will agree to an arrangement that Bashar Assad or his stooge doesn't remain in power? Of course not. Aren't we tired of begging Vladimir Putin? Aren't we tired of watching the United States and the young men we trained and equipped being bombed by Vladimir Putin and killed and murdered? Don't we sometimes grow a little tired of that? It is no wonder that the United States of America has no standing and no influence in the region. I don't often quote from the New York Times. I would ask my colleague if he has seen this: The Russian move may . . . be a reflection that Mr. Putin is now supremely confident in Mr. Assad's renewed stability and can afford to step back a bit and play statesman. Mr. Putin has achieved many of his main goals: bringing Russia back to center stage as a global power; preventing, on principle, regime change by outside powers, particularly Western ones; gaining a stronger foothold in Syria; picking off Russian jihadists on the Syrian battlefield; and strengthening Mr. Assad. I wish to ask my friend from South Carolina: Isn't it obvious what is going to happen next; and that is, an increase in fighting in eastern Ukraine, more Ukrainians slaughtered while we refuse to give them defensive weapons, but just sufficient amount of violence and killing to prevent the United States of America or the Europeans from taking any significant action? Indeed, won't there now be pressure on the part of the special interests and the industrialists, particularly in Germany, to lift the sanctions on Vladimir Putin?