John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from South Carolina and I be permitted to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. What does the Senator from South Carolina think that does to our reputation when we arm, train, and equip young men, send them in to fight, ostensibly against ISIS or Bashar Assad--although, in this case ISIS--and we stand by and watch the Russians slaughter them from the air?

Mr. McCAIN. The tragedy of all of this, I would say to my friend, is that when the United States of America was required to stand up because of the commitment of the President of the United States if the Bashar Assad regime had used chemical weapons and slaughtered--it is the gruesome pictures that you and I have seen--and then backed off, that was one of the seminal moments that American credibility disappeared. Here we are now still refusing to arm, train, and equip young men to fight against Bashar Assad and, in fact, making them pledge that they would only fight against ISIS. It is not ISIS that is barrel-bombing them. It is not ISIS that is dropping chemical weapons. It is not ISIS that has brought in thousands and tortured and beaten and killed. ISIS is our enemy. ISIS is evil. But to somehow excuse the behavior of Bashar Assad with the Russians' indiscriminate bombing is one of the most disgraceful chapters in American history in my view.

Mr. McCAIN. For the last 5 years, we have been writing a shameful chapter in American history. To sum all of this up, leading from behind doesn't work. If America leads from behind, somebody else is going to be in front. If the United States leaves conflicts and creates vacuums, then bad things happen. Look at a map of the Middle East in January of 2009, when this President came to the Presidency of the United States, and look at that map now--the way ISIS has metastasized, the way hundreds of thousands have been murdered and millions are on the march as refugees. We still have apologists for this leading from behind, a policy which is described as ``Don't do stupid stuff.'' This is the result of leadership that has left the scene in a way that we have not seen since the 1930s, in the days of Neville Chamberlain and ``peace in our time.'' I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, it has been 2 years since Nadiya Savchenko, the first female military pilot in post-Soviet Ukraine and an Iraq war veteran, was abducted from Ukrainian territory by pro- Russian separatists and smuggled across the border to Russia where she faces false charges and illegal imprisonment. She is accused by Russia of having directed artillery fire that killed two Russian state television journalists in Eastern Ukraine in June of 2014 and then illegally crossing into Russian territory without proper paperwork. This is despite clear evidence provided by her lawyers that she was captured by separatists before this incident occurred and then hauled across the border in handcuffs with a sack over her head. Following her capture, Nadiya has reportedly endured interrogations, solitary confinement, and was subjected to a psychiatric evaluation at the infamous Russian Serbsky Institute, where Soviet authorities were once known to torture political dissidents. Further media reports suggest that she is gravely ill and near death. There are international laws that govern treatment of prisoners of war, but Russia continues to deny it is fighting a war in Ukraine and is therefore treating Nadiya as a common criminal. While there are also international laws that govern the treatment of common criminals, Russia has shown as much regard for those laws as for Ukraine's sovereignty or the rights of Russians such as Boris Nemtsov. This is a picture of Nadiya standing trial in a cage. From her prison cell in Russia, Nadiya said: If I am found guilty, I will not appeal. I want the entire democratic world to understand that Russia is a Third World country with a totalitarian regime and a petty tyrant for a dictator and it spits on international law and human rights. In her last appearance in court, Ms. Savchenko said: The trial proves the guilt of Russian authorities; they are to blame for seizing Ukrainian lands, capturing Crimea and starting a war in the Donbass region. They are to blame for trying to establish--through their foul undeclared wars all over the world--a totalitarian regime dominated by Russia. She ended her court appearance by saying: Russia will return me to Ukraine yet. Whether I am dead or alive, it will return me. Nadiya's captivity represents just the latest example of Russia's brazen aggression and disregard for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Last summer another brave Ukrainian and film director from Crimea, Oleg Sentsov, faced a similar fate. A Russian court sentenced Mr. Sentsov to 20 years in prison based on charges that he was planning a terrorist attack against Russian forces after the peninsula was annexed by Russia. Despite strong evidence that Mr. Sentsov was innocent and despite international condemnation of his case, he remains in a Russian prison serving out his 20-year sentence. As Mr. Sentsov said in remarks following his sentence: ``A court of occupiers can never be just.'' Nadiya is just one of President Putin's countless victims. Her show trial--a throwback to the Stalinist Soviet era--is intended not to establish innocence or guilt, but to punish dissent, evoke fear, and remind citizens of what happens to people who dare defy the former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin. Her trial illustrates just how far President Putin is willing to go to humiliate Ukraine for its pursuit of freedom and punish Ukrainians for refusing to accept its illegal occupation. It is just one more way that Putin is trying to bully free peoples and free nations into submission. He is sending the message that anyone who dares to challenge him will end up in a cage just like her--or worse. Putin's efforts are failing. The Ukrainian people have shown that they will not be intimidated, they will not be silenced, and they will not give into fear. They have shown that they will continue to fight for a free and democratic future for Ukraine with or without the international support they need and deserve. One of the more shameful chapters in American history will be the fact that we still refuse to give Ukrainians defensive weapons with which to defend themselves. This President has made a lot of grievous errors, but it is outrageous, as we watch Ukrainians slaughtered by Russian tanks, that we will not even give them the weapons to defend themselves. The Ukrainian Government has urged Moscow to release Nadiya in accordance with the Minsk II agreement that provides for the release of all illegally held persons. International leaders have echoed this call, but her illegal imprisonment continues. It is time to move past meaningless condemnations and expressions of concern and respond to Putin's shameful and blatant breach of international law by sanctioning--I emphasize sanctioning--those responsible for the kidnapping and illegal, unjust imprisonment of Ms. Savchenko, as well as the officials involved in the fabrication of false charges against her. A clear message must be sent to Moscow: Release Nadiya or face sanctions. Release her or face sanctions. The United States has a critical role to play in the preservation of freedom and democracy throughout the world, and it is a role that we suppress at our own peril. I know this is not a popular cause in the United States right now, but nothing will relieve us of the responsibility to stand up for those whose fundamental human rights are being violated and to defend the values that America and our allies have sacrificed so much to preserve. How we respond to each and every attempt by Putin to suppress democracy and freedom will have far-reaching repercussions. The United States and the entire international community must respond to this latest outrage in a way that demonstrates the inevitability of the values which Nadiya so clearly represents. Nadiya's fight--and that of all Ukrainians who rose up peacefully against tyranny in their quest for freedom--must also be the world's fight. We must continue to show Putin that he cannot halt the march to freedom and democracy. The Ukrainian people--and the Russian people, too--deserve no less. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, last night we saw another unusual election result. We see a ``businessman'' now in a very significant lead for the nomination of the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. As I watched the postmortems last night and this morning, we see again that many of those who voted cite as one of their primary--if not the primary--reasons distaste, anger, and frustration about Washington, DC, specifically the Congress of the United States, as well as the President. They believe they need somebody who is an outsider, someone who is not ``of the establishment.'' I guess that applies to anyone who is in elected office. Some of us have been surprised. Certainly no one predicted these outcomes, not only on the Republican side but on the Democratic side. We saw our colleague from Vermont engineer quite a stunning upset in the State of Michigan last night. But he also--even though a Member of the Senate, Senator Sanders clearly is speaking in opposition to the machine, the business as usual in Washington. Sometimes we ask ourselves why the American people give us such a low approval rating. I see polls show that the approval rating of Congress is 12 percent, 13 percent, 14 percent, sometimes as high as 15 percent. I would inform and remind my colleagues that it wasn't always like that. We didn't always have such a low approval rating in the Congress by the American people. I think it is worthy of note that in the last year since regaining the majority, we have enacted some legislation that I think we could be proud to go back and talk to our constituents about, whether it be education reform, where we did away with common core, or whether it be a highway bill that was much needed to provide infrastructure for our States, counties, and towns. We passed a budget. We passed a defense authorization bill that has some of the most significant reforms in history. But the fact is, those numbers haven't changed, and they haven't changed sometimes for good reason. That is why I come to the floor today, because I am ashamed and embarrassed, as a representative of the people of my State, to talk about billions of dollars of unnecessary wasteful spending of their taxpayer dollars, and it happened on the Omnibus appropriations bill-- omnibus. A lot of my constituents don't know what ``omnibus'' means. What it means is, we are required to take up 13 appropriations bills. We don't do it--and I would put the responsibility for that on the other side of the aisle, but it doesn't matter, really, because we end up, at the end of the year, with a massive, hundreds of billions of dollars bill that is about this high, that none of us have seen or read and there is no amendment to it, and we have approximately 48 to 72 hours in which to vote yes or no, with the option being the government not continuing to function. That is not the way to do business. That doesn't inspire any confidence in us on the part of the American people, and it is disgraceful. So the omnibus, again, was passed with votes from both sides, actually, but the fact is that our responsibility was to take up these bills one by one, to examine them, to have amendments, and to have the Congress--in this case, the Senate--work its will. We didn't do that. Here it was. We walked in, and here was this bill--not that size but this size--that no one had read, no one had a chance to peruse, and even if we had, we couldn't do anything about it because the bill was not amendable because if we amend it, then it bounces back to the other side of the Capitol, and we run out of time, and the government shuts down. That is the wrong way to do business. One of the major reasons for what happened is it is open to incredible abuse. I came to the floor today to talk about the abuse of the most sacred responsibility we have, which is the defense of this Nation. I am proud to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a post I aspired to for many years. We work hard on the Defense authorization bill. We work hard in the Senate Armed Services Committee. We work on a bipartisan basis. We have hearings, we examine the issues, and we examine the programs. We are talking about, again, hundreds of billions of dollars, of taxpayers' dollars, whether it be pay and benefits for the men and women who are serving or whether it be the equipment they need or many of the policies that govern the defense of this Nation. And I am proud of the work we do. So after producing a bill with an overwhelming majority vote--90-some votes--with the authorization for all of this to do with our Nation's defense, the Appropriations Committee decides to overrule what we have authorized, in violation not only of the way the Senate is supposed to function but in violation of a resolution adopted by the Republican conference, which I will read: Earmark Moratorium Resolved, that it is the policy of the Republican Conference that no Member shall request a congressionally directed spending item, limited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit, as such items are used. . . . Et cetera. So what was in this omnibus bill? Let me give you the best example: $225 million for a ship called a joint high-speed vessel, for a ship the Navy did not want. No one asked for this. We had hearings in the Armed Services Committee on shipbuilding. We examined all of the proposals. Some of them we didn't accept. Others we did. Others, through votes in the committee, debate, and discussion, came up with our shipbuilding authorization. So what was done in this Omnibus appropriations bill by the Appropriations Committee? For the second year in a row, $225 million the Navy did not request and did not need. By the way, my friends, I would not take too much time in the Senate, but building a ship is just the beginning of the expense. You have to man it, you have to put the ammunition on it, you have to put the equipment on it, and you have to operate it for as long as 30 years, and the Navy did not want it. The Navy has lots of unmet military requirements. So what was put in there and why? Because, frankly--and I use these words without reservation--it is made in Mobile, AL. It is made in Mobile, AL. It is blatant. It is blatant. And then, of course, there were so many other items in it. It is like any other evil. First you condemn things. Then you condone them. Then you embrace them. There is no better example of that than the so-called money for ``medical research.'' In fact, years ago somebody decided: Hey, we will spend some money for medical research on some of the illnesses that affect the men and women in the military. I don't take exception to that. But it grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. Now, in this bill, $1.2 billion extra--not million but billion dollars--is asked for. Let me give examples: $120 million for breast cancer, $12 million for lung cancer, $6 million for multiple sclerosis, $20 million for ovarian cancer, $7.5 million for epilepsy, $12.9 million for HIV/AIDS. My friends, all of those are worthy causes. All of those should probably be funded. We should do all those things, but not on the Defense bill. It was not authorized and was jammed in for the Willy Sutton syndrome. The Willy Sutton syndrome is about the famous bank robber who, when asked why he robbed banks, said: That is where the money is. Well, the defense appropriations is where the money is. So here we have, over the last 23 years, as it has grown and grown and grown, just $2.4 billion of the $10 billion spent on these congressionally directed medical research programs being relevant to the military. In other words, $7 billion went to research things such as osteoporosis and mad cow disease instead of training, equipment, and care for our troops and their families. We do not have enough money to care for the men and women in the military and take care of their families and take care of their medical needs. We don't have enough money for that as a result of sequestration. So what did they do? They put in $1.2 billion more in medical research. There are a few other examples. There is an additional $7 million in funding for a machine gun. These guns are made with a 500-percent increase. There is $750 million for a National Guard and Reserve equipment fund and $600 million in additional funding for DOD's science and technology budget. This is very interesting, my friends, this science and technology budget. Here is what happens. They put out $600 million, and it is supposed to be for ``scientific and technology research.'' But it doesn't say for what specific item. So what happens is the members of the Appropriations Committee then write to the Department of Defense and tell them to spend certain money on certain projects. That is the way of getting around the letter of the earmark ban if not the spirit of it. Then, of course, there is the Russian rocket. Today we are having to use for space launches Russian rocket engines. The company that makes these Russian rocket engines happens to be run by cronies of Vladimir Putin. In fact, two of the cronies of Vladimir Putin are such thugs and gangsters that they have been on our sanctions list. We have sanctioned them. Yet our friends on the Appropriations Committee, again, with ULA--the people who are buying these rocket engines--are based in Alabama and, of course, headquartered in Chicago, IL. The engines, as I mentioned, are manufactured by this Russian company that is controlled by a guy name Chemezov and a guy named Rogozin, who have been sanctioned. Yet we are sending tens of millions of dollars to them. What we did was we restricted the cost and encouraged the competition, and we had hearings on it. It was a big issue. We had votes in the committee on it, we discussed it and we debated it. And so what did the appropriators do? They put a provision into this bill reversing what we authorizers did. That is in complete violation of the rules of the Republican conference. So I have talked very often with our twelve freshmen. I can't be more proud of what these freshmen Senators have brought to this conference. They have brought enthusiasm, they have brought knowledge, they have brought youth, they have brought military experience--people like Senator Ernst and Senator Cotton and others who bring their military experience. I am so proud to have many of them serving on the Armed Services Committee. I have asked them to get together and condemn this. I campaigned for almost all of them. They promised the people of their States, as I promised the people of my State, that I wouldn't allow this waste of billions of their tax dollars, that I would fight against it. So I am asking our freshmen Senators to join together--and I hope they will because I have had conversations with them--to reject this, and, if we go into another appropriations omnibus, that they will not allow this to happen. Why did I focus my comments on defense? It is for two reasons. No. 1 is obvious. I am chairman of the Committee on Armed Services. So I take strong exception when the men and women who are serving in the military are having to leave the military involuntarily because we don't have enough money, yet they are wasting billions--billions--of taxpayer dollars. Second of all, it is not right. It is not right. And thirdly, we authorize--we authorize--and our bill is passed by the Senate and the House, for 53 straight years, and signed by the President of the United States. This bill is important to defend the Nation. When our careful deliberations, our votes, our hearings, our debates day after day on the floor of the Senate as we consider the authorization bill is then overturned--overturned--and pork barrel projects such as a $225 million extra vessel the Navy neither needs nor wants are added to it, then, my friends, do not be surprised when we have an approval rating of 12 or 13 or 14 percent. The American people are smart. Our constituents are smart. When they see billions of dollars wasted in this fashion, it is no wonder we receive their condemnation and their sarcasm and their disapproval. So I am asking my freshmen colleagues to take the lead--to take the lead because they are the ones who are closest to the people--and to help me reject this corrupt process. And it is corrupt. I want to also assure all of my colleagues that if they try this again--if they try this again--I will do everything in my power-- everything in my power--to make sure it is reversed or that it never happens to start with. We owe the American people much better than the process I just described. Mr. President, I note the presence of the senior Senator from Texas, and 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, 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 in morning business and be allowed to complete my remarks, which won't be too long.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today is the 100th New Hampshire Presidential primary. Regardless of who wins, this is a celebration of our vibrant democracy of engaged citizens putting candidates to the test and demanding answers on the tough issues the next President will confront. It is also another important step in choosing our next Commander in Chief, and the stakes couldn't be higher. As we heard from the Director of National Intelligence this morning, the threats to our Nation are growing more diverse, more complex, and more dangerous. More than ever we need a Commander in Chief with a clear vision, a steady hand, sound judgment and confidence--not only in our Nation's power but in the values and ideals that generations of American heroes have fought for and died defending. That is why it has been so disappointing to see some Presidential candidates engaged in loose talk on the campaign trail about reviving waterboarding and other inhumane interrogation techniques. It might be easy to dismiss this bluster as cheap campaign rhetoric, but these statements must not go unanswered because they mislead the American people about the realities of interrogation, how to gather intelligence, what it takes to defend our security, and at the most fundamental level, what we are fighting for as a nation and what kind of a nation we are. It is important to remember the fact that these forms of torture not only failed their purpose to secure actionable intelligence to prevent further attacks on the United States and our allies, but they compromised our values, stained our national honor, and did little practical good. While some have shamefully sought to minimize the practice of waterboarding, it is clear to me that this practice, which is a simulated execution by drowning, amounts to torture as any reasonable person would define it and how the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war, of which we are signatories, define it. The use of these methods by the United States was shameful and unnecessary because the United States has tried, convicted, and executed foreign combatants who employed methods of torture, including waterboarding, against American prisoners of war. Following World War II, Japanese generals were tried, convicted, and hung. One of the charges against them was that they practiced waterboarding. Contrary to assertions made by some of the defenders, it provided little useful intelligence to help us track down the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks or to prevent new attacks and atrocities. This Senator knows from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers will want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know that the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies--our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights that are protected by international conventions the United States not only joined but for the most part authored. I understand that in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attacks on our homeland, those who approved harsh interrogation methods and those who used them were sincerely dedicated to securing justice for the victims of terrorist attacks and protecting Americans from further harm. I know that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, many Americans feel again the grave urgency that we felt 15 years ago. But I dispute wholeheartedly that it was right for our Nation to use these interrogation methods then or that it is right for our Nation to use them now. Waterboarding, as well as any other form of torture, is not in the best interest of justice, security or the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend. It is the knowledge of torture's dubious efficacy and the strong moral objections to the abuse of prisoners that have forged broad bipartisan agreement on this issue. Last year, the Senate passed in an overwhelming vote of 91 to 3 the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2016, legislation that took a historic step forward to ban torture once and for all by limiting U.S. Government interrogation techniques to those in the Army Field Manual. That vote was 91 to 3. There was debate and discussion about it in the Armed Services Committee and on the floor of this Senate. The vote was 91 to 3. Now candidates are saying they will disregard the law. I thought that was our complaint--Republicans' complaint--with the present President of the United States. The U.S. military has successfully interrogated more foreign terrorist detainees than any other agency of our government. The Army Field Manual, in its current form, has worked for the U.S. military-- including on high-value terrorist detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere--and it reflects current best thinking and practices on interrogation. Moreover, the Army Field Manual embodies the values Americans have embraced for generations, preserving the ability of our interrogators to extract critical intelligence from our adversaries while recognizing that torture and cruel treatment are ineffective interrogation methods. Some of the Nation's most respected leaders from the U.S. military, CIA, and FBI supported this legislation, as well as numerous human rights organizations and faith groups, including the National Association of Evangelicals and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. GEN David Petraeus, a military leader whom I admire more than literally any living military leader, said he supported the use of the Army Field Manual because ``our Nation has paid a high price in recent decades for the information gained by the use of techniques beyond those in the field manual--and, in my view, that price far outweighed the value of the information gained through the use of techniques beyond those in the manual.'' Obviously, that includes waterboarding. Why don't we listen to people like GEN David Petraeus, who has had vast experience in Iraq and Afghanistan with detainees, the information we have gotten from them, and our practices. If General Petraeus were here, he would tell you the most effective method of gaining information is establishing a friendly relationship with the detainee. Obviously, we need intelligence to defeat our enemies, but we need reliable intelligence. Torture produces more misleading information than actionable intelligence. What the advocates of harsh and cruel interrogation methods have never established is that we couldn't have gathered as good or more reliable intelligence from using humane methods. The most important lead we got in the search for bin Laden came from using conventional interrogation methods. I think it is an insult to many of the intelligence officers who have acquired good intelligence without hurting or degrading prisoners to assert that we cannot win this war on terrorism without such methods. Yes, we can and we will. In the end, torture's failure to serve its intended purpose isn't the main reason to oppose its use. I have often said and will always maintain that this question isn't about our enemies, it is about us. It is about who we were, who we are, and whom we aspire to be. It is about how we represent ourselves to the world. We have made our way in this often dangerous and cruel world, not by just strictly pursuing our geopolitical interests but by exemplifying our political values and influencing other nations to embrace them. When we fight to defend our security, we fight also for an idea that all men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that is, all men and women. How much safer the world would be if all nations believed the same. How much more dangerous it can become when we forget it ourselves, even momentarily, as we learned from Abu Ghraib. Our enemies act without conscience. We must not. It isn't necessary, and it isn't even helpful in winning this strange and long war we are fighting. Our Nation needs a Commander in Chief who understands and affirms this basic truth. Our Nation needs a Commander in Chief who will make clear to those who fight on our behalf that they are defending this sacred ideal and that sacrificing our national honor and our respect for human dignity will make it harder, not easier, to prevail in this war. Our Nation needs a Commander in Chief who reminds us that in the worst of times, through the chaos and terror of war, when facing cruelty, suffering, and loss, that we are always Americans--different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business.

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

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

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, it has been more than 5 years since ObamaCare was signed into law. Since then, the American people have only seen higher health care costs, less access, decreased quality of care, and fewer choices. Every day I hear from Arizonans who have been forced to give up the health insurance plans they liked and now face skyrocketing monthly premiums and never-ending wait times for appointments. Moreover, I have spoken with small business owners across my State who have been forced to choose between complying with costly government mandates, laying off employees or, worse, closing their doors. For 5 long years, the American people have been unfairly burdened by this failed law, and the negative effects are only expected to grow. According to the Department of Health and Human Service's own data, 24 insurance plans in the ObamaCare exchanges were expected to see double- digit rate hikes in 2016, while residents of Phoenix, AZ, were expected to see their premiums increase by roughly 19 percent. The highest average premium increase in Arizona was projected to reach a whopping 78 percent. ObamaCare's numerous failures are well established. Take, for example, the President's broken promise that Americans who liked their health care plans and doctors could keep them; skyrocketing premiums and deductibles; 21 tax increases that both the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation predict would be passed on to the consumer; over $1 billion wasted on failed ObamaCare-established health care co-ops; and an estimated 2 million full-time equivalent workers expected to lose their jobs by 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For these reasons, a majority of Americans today oppose the President's failed health care law. They are counting on us, their elected representatives in Congress, to fight to fully repeal and replace it. That is why I was proud to partner with my Republican colleagues in sending the first ObamaCare repeal to the President's desk. That is also why I am proud to stand before the Congress today to reintroduce the Empowering Patients First Act along with my friend, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Perdue, to replace the President's failed law with health care reform that puts patients and physicians back in charge of their health care decisions. The Empowering Patients First Act is companion legislation to a bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Tom Price that would fully repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with solutions that put patients, families, and doctors back in charge of their medical decisions--not Washington bureaucrats. It is past time for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to wake up to the reality that ObamaCare is the wrong solution to health care reform. Just consider a recent report by the Galen Institute which notes that since the President's health care law was passed in 2010, it has undergone 70 significant changes through either acts of Congress, administrative actions, or the U.S. Supreme Court. Let me repeat that. ObamaCare has been changed a total of 70 times--in many cases through unilateral action--in order to protect the American people from its damaging effects. I am as convinced today as I was 7 years ago when I stood on this floor to propose the first Republican amendment to ObamaCare that this law is the wrong approach to health care reform. The bill I am reintroducing today would create policies that empower patients and doctors to take charge of their health care decisions, including by ensuring no one is priced out of the market, including individuals with preexisting conditions; building on and expanding health savings accounts and other models to drive down costs; establishing age-adjusted tax credits for health insurance; equalizing tax treatment of employer-sponsored plans and plans purchased by individuals by letting individuals buy health insurance with pretax dollars; enhancing coverage options by letting small business owners band together across State lines through association health plans to create more affordable and comprehensive health care; letting consumers buy insurance across State lines; curbing defensive medicine and lawsuit abuse through tort reform; and making coverage more affordable by enabling individuals to own their insurance, like a 401(k) plan, so they can take it with them across State lines and if they change jobs. That only makes sense. Americans deserve an alternative to the mandates, high costs, and bureaucratic mess that have been created by ObamaCare. The Empowering Patients First Act would repeal ObamaCare once and for all and replace it with health care reform that gives patients, families, and doctors the power to make medical decisions--not bureaucrats in Washington.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, it has been more than 5 years since ObamaCare was signed into law. Since then, the American people have only seen higher health care costs, less access, decreased quality of care, and fewer choices. Every day I hear from Arizonans who have been forced to give up the health insurance plans they liked and now face skyrocketing monthly premiums and never-ending wait times for appointments. Moreover, I have spoken with small business owners across my State who have been forced to choose between complying with costly government mandates, laying off employees or, worse, closing their doors. For 5 long years, the American people have been unfairly burdened by this failed law, and the negative effects are only expected to grow. According to the Department of Health and Human Service's own data, 24 insurance plans in the ObamaCare exchanges were expected to see double- digit rate hikes in 2016, while residents of Phoenix, AZ, were expected to see their premiums increase by roughly 19 percent. The highest average premium increase in Arizona was projected to reach a whopping 78 percent. ObamaCare's numerous failures are well established. Take, for example, the President's broken promise that Americans who liked their health care plans and doctors could keep them; skyrocketing premiums and deductibles; 21 tax increases that both the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation predict would be passed on to the consumer; over $1 billion wasted on failed ObamaCare-established health care co-ops; and an estimated 2 million full-time equivalent workers expected to lose their jobs by 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For these reasons, a majority of Americans today oppose the President's failed health care law. They are counting on us, their elected representatives in Congress, to fight to fully repeal and replace it. That is why I was proud to partner with my Republican colleagues in sending the first ObamaCare repeal to the President's desk. That is also why I am proud to stand before the Congress today to reintroduce the Empowering Patients First Act along with my friend, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Perdue, to replace the President's failed law with health care reform that puts patients and physicians back in charge of their health care decisions. The Empowering Patients First Act is companion legislation to a bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Tom Price that would fully repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with solutions that put patients, families, and doctors back in charge of their medical decisions--not Washington bureaucrats. It is past time for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to wake up to the reality that ObamaCare is the wrong solution to health care reform. Just consider a recent report by the Galen Institute which notes that since the President's health care law was passed in 2010, it has undergone 70 significant changes through either acts of Congress, administrative actions, or the U.S. Supreme Court. Let me repeat that. ObamaCare has been changed a total of 70 times--in many cases through unilateral action--in order to protect the American people from its damaging effects. I am as convinced today as I was 7 years ago when I stood on this floor to propose the first Republican amendment to ObamaCare that this law is the wrong approach to health care reform. The bill I am reintroducing today would create policies that empower patients and doctors to take charge of their health care decisions, including by ensuring no one is priced out of the market, including individuals with preexisting conditions; building on and expanding health savings accounts and other models to drive down costs; establishing age-adjusted tax credits for health insurance; equalizing tax treatment of employer-sponsored plans and plans purchased by individuals by letting individuals buy health insurance with pretax dollars; enhancing coverage options by letting small business owners band together across State lines through association health plans to create more affordable and comprehensive health care; letting consumers buy insurance across State lines; curbing defensive medicine and lawsuit abuse through tort reform; and making coverage more affordable by enabling individuals to own their insurance, like a 401(k) plan, so they can take it with them across State lines and if they change jobs. That only makes sense. Americans deserve an alternative to the mandates, high costs, and bureaucratic mess that have been created by ObamaCare. The Empowering Patients First Act would repeal ObamaCare once and for all and replace it with health care reform that gives patients, families, and doctors the power to make medical decisions--not bureaucrats in Washington.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate in morning business and to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Graham.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, not surprisingly, the talks that are commonly known as Geneva III, in an effort to stop the ongoing genocide taking place in Syria, have now been ``suspended.'' I quote from this morning's Washington Post: ``Syrian peace talks are suspended before they even really begin.'' That should surprise no one. The fact is that the situation on the ground, thanks to our total lack of a coherent strategy or even a serious effort, has resulted in Russian airstrikes, ensuring Bashar al- Assad's continued strength. Along with the Iranians, along with Hezbollah that the Iranians have brought in from Lebanon--they all have given the overwhelming majority position to Bashar Assad, who is not about to leave office with the advantage he has now obtained on the battlefield, to a large degree because of Russian airstrikes that are relentless and that have mostly targeted the Western-backed opposition to Bashar Assad's rule. Those airstrikes, according to the Washington Post, have proven sufficient to push beyond doubt any likelihood that Assad will be removed from power by the nearly 5-year-old revolt against his rule. The gains on the ground are also calling into question whether there can be meaningful negotiations to end the conflict Assad and his allies now seem convinced they can win. Let's go back about 4 years. Bashar Assad was about to fall. The President of the United States said that it is not a matter of whether Bashar Assad will fall, it is a matter of when. All the momentum was on their side. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, the Secretary of Defense--then Leon Panetta--said that the departure of Bashar Assad was ``inevitable.'' And then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it was inevitable that Bashar Assad will leave. So a policy which was doomed to failure--rejecting a no-fly zone, rejecting robust training and equipping of those who were seeking to stop the slaughter--has now resulted in what many now view as an international crisis; that is, the refugee problem where millions of refugees are flowing into European countries not just from Syria but primarily from Syria, Iraq, and other countries as far away as Afghanistan. So everyone--especially our European friends--is moaning, and their hearts go out and they are trying to accommodate this. This is not the cause of the problem; this is the result of a failure of American leadership, a feckless American leadership, and a Secretary of State--this Geneva Convention is not the first or the second but the third time--this is the third time our Secretary of State has convened a whole bunch of people in five-star hotels in Geneva, where, of course, the result has been nonexistent because the facts on the ground favor Bashar Assad, the Russians, and Hezbollah. So what has happened? Now, for the first time since 1973, when Anwar Sadat threw the Russians out of Egypt, the Russians now have a major role to play in the Middle East. They now have protected their base at Latakia. They now are conducting airstrikes in an indiscriminate fashion against--guess who--not ISIS but against the moderates who were fighting to overthrow Bashar Assad, while our Secretary of State calls him up, has conversations with him, begs them to start peace talks, et cetera. And it goes on. I think sometimes we all get a little numb, but we shouldn't be numb. We shouldn't be numb to 250,000 killed and slaughtered, chemical attacks that indiscriminately kill men, women, and children. These Russian airstrikes are pervasive in the areas where the moderate opposition exists, and they are using what we call dumb bombs--not the precision bombs--slaughtering hundreds of innocent men, women, and children. Places are surrounded where people are starving to death, and our Secretary of State calls for another meeting in Geneva. It is absolutely remarkable. I wish to point out again that according to the Washington Post story, Secretary of State John F. Kerry scrambled to rearrange his Thursday schedule after de Mistura--that is the U.N. guy--decided to delay the talks. The article states: ``The continued assault by Syrian regime forces--enabled by Russian airstrikes--against opposition-held areas, as well as regime and allied militias' continued besiegement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, have clearly signaled the intention to seek a military solution rather than enable a political one,''. . . . Kerry repeated demands made by the opposition groups as preconditions for negotiations. . . . [but] both the opposition and human rights organizations have cited an increase in Russian bombing over the past several days that they said has targeted civilian areas, including camps for displaced persons in the western part of the country. Russia maintains that it is only bombing ``terrorists,'' but its definition of that word includes parts of the opposition that has been fighting a civil war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for more than four years, whose representatives are among those on the opposition negotiating team in Geneva. How can we expect them to negotiate while the Russian airstrikes are intensified? How can we possibly expect something positive to happen, when clearly the momentum and the strength is on the side of the Russians, the Iranians, and Bashar Assad? Friends, this is another chapter in American history of humiliation and a failure of leadership. Of course, all of that is no better epitomized and symbolized than by what happened when the Iranians captured two American vessels that happened to stray into their territorial waters. Everybody should know that when a ship goes into another country's territorial waters, the first thing to be done is to go out and guide them out of it. It is against international law to take them at gunpoint all over the world but particularly--all over the Middle East is the picture of American servicemen and one woman on their knees with Iranian Revolutionary Guards holding their automatic weapons on them. This is an incredible act of arrogance and a humiliation for our American sailors. What is the most aggravating is the response by the administration after this totally unlawful action and humiliation of American servicemembers and sailors. The response by the administration was--and I am not making this up--White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the sailors were offered ``the proper courtesy that you would expect.'' Being held at gunpoint on their knees with their hands behind their neck is, in the words of the White House Press Secretary, ``the proper courtesy that you would expect.'' The Secretary of State, John Kerry, offered his ``gratitude to Iranian authorities for their cooperation in swiftly resolving this matter.'' That is the American Secretary of State after a gross violation of international law. Our American servicemen are put on their knees by a bunch of two-bit Iranians. Vice President Joe Biden described the incident as ``standard nautical practice.'' The Vice President of the United States says that when you put Americans on their knees and point weapons at them with evil intention, that is standard nautical practice. What planet has the Vice President of the United States been on? Now, to cap it all off, this week the Iranian Ayatollah Khamenei pinned the Order of Fat'h Medal to the chests of those who mistreated and humiliated American personnel. These people were given awards and medals by the Ayatollah Khamenei. The Obama administration has still failed to condemn Iran's behavior for what it was, a violation of international law and centuries of maritime tradition. According to a recent article in the Navy Times, legal experts all agree that this hostile incident represents a gross violation of international law. So I ask my friend from South Carolina: Is there any explanation that could possibly be understood about this act, a violation of international law and the humiliation of American servicemembers? There is only one reason; that is, they don't want to upset the Iranians. They don't want to disturb the $100 billion or so that is going to the Iranians as we speak while they buy weapons and toys all over Europe. So here we have now seen American service personnel put on their knees with guns to their heads, and the most important people in our government praised the Iranians for their actions. I would ask my friend, how else could you explain--not passivity, but--the absolute endorsement by the Vice President of the United States and the Secretary of State for this kind of humiliating behavior?

Mr. McCAIN. Could I remind our colleague that some of our colleagues recall that the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States, the hostages that were being held from our Embassy in Iran came home.

Mr. McCAIN. Or that they can intimidate the United States----