John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise to call attention, sadly, to the triumph of pork-barrel parochialism in this year's Omnibus appropriations bill--in particular, a policy provision that was airdropped into this bill, in direct contravention to the National Defense Authorization Act, which will have U.S. taxpayers subsidize Russian aggression and ``comrade'' capitalism. Nearly 2 years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin, furious that the Ukrainian people had ousted a pro-Moscow stooge, invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. It is the first time since the days of Hitler and Stalin that brute force has been projected across an internationally recognized border to dismember a sovereign state on the European Continent. More than 8,000 people have died in this conflict, including 298 innocent people aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 who were murdered by Vladimir Putin's loyal supporters with weapons that Vladimir Putin had supplied them. Putin's imperialist campaign in Eastern Europe forced a recognition, for anyone who was not yet convinced, that we are confronting a challenge that many had assumed was resigned to the history books: a strong, militarily capable Russian Government that is hostile to our interests and our values and seeks to challenge the international order that American leaders of both parties have sought to maintain since the end of World War II. That is why the Congress imposed tough sanctions against Russia, especially against Putin's cronies and their enormously corrupt business empire. As part of that effort, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2015, which restricted the Air Force from using Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines for national security space launches--engines that are manufactured by a Russian company controlled by some of Putin's top cronies. We did so not only because our Nation should not rely on Russia to access space but because it is simply immoral to help subsidize Russia's intervention in Ukraine and line the pockets of Putin's gang of thugs who profit from the sale of Russian rocket engines. Last year the Defense authorization bill exempted five of the engines that United Launch Alliance purchased before the invasion of Ukraine. This allowed ULA, the space launch company that for years has enjoyed a monopoly on launching military satellites, to use those Russian rocket engines if the Secretary of Defense determined it was necessitated by national security. Since the passage of the act in the Senate 89 to 11, Russia has continued--as we all know--to destabilize Ukraine and menace our NATO allies in Europe with aggressive military behavior. Putin has sent advanced weapons to Iran, violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty. In a profound echo of the Cold War, Russia has intervened militarily in Syria on behalf of the murderous regime of Bashar Assad. Clearly, Russian behavior has only gotten worse. That is why a few weeks ago Congress acted again and passed the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2016. The NDAA authorized $300 million in security assistance and intelligence support for Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. At the same time, the bill recognized that a small number of Russian engines could be needed-- could be needed to maintain competition in the National Security Space Launch Program and facilitate a smooth transition to rockets with engines made in the United States. Therefore, the legislation allowed ULA to use a total of nine Russian engines. The fiscal year 2016 Defense authorization bill, including its provision limiting the use of Russian rocket engines, was debated for months. For months the issue was debated. The Committee on Armed Services had a vigorous debate on this important issue. An amendment was offered to maintain the restriction on the Air Force's use of Russian rocket engines. In a positive vote of the committee, the amendment was adopted. We then considered hundreds of amendments to this bill on the Senate floor over a period of 2 weeks. For 2 weeks we literally considered hundreds of amendments, and we did so transparently, with an open process which was a credit, frankly, to both sides. There was not one amendment that was called up to change the provision of that authorization bill concerning the RD-180 rocket engines. The legislation passed with 71 votes. Then, because of a misguided Presidential veto, this defense legislation was actually considered a second time on the floor and it passed 91 to 3. I want to reemphasize, one of the things I was proud of for years is that we do debate the Senate Armed Services national defense authorization bill. We have done so every year for some 43 years, and passed it, and had the President sign it. We open it to all amendments, but there was no amendment on rocket engines proposed on the floor of the Senate. Why wasn't it? If there were Members of the Senate who did not like the provisions in the bill, we had an open process to amend it, but they didn't. They didn't because they knew they could not pass an amendment that would remove that provision in the Defense Authorization Act. So now in the dead of night we just found out, hours before we are supposed to vote, that they put in a restriction which dramatically changes that provision that was done in an open and transparent process. To their everlasting shame, in the dark of night, not a vote--not a vote--no one consulted on the Armed Services Committee. The fiscal year 2016 bill, including its provision limiting the use of Russian rocket engines, was debated for months. The committee had a vigorous debate, as I mentioned. Here is my point. The Senate had this debate. We had ample time and opportunity to have this debate. Through months of this fulsome debate, no Senator came to the Senate floor to make the case that we needed to buy more Russian rocket engines, no Senator introduced an amendment on the floor to lift the restriction on buying more Russian rocket engines. To the contrary, the Senate and the full Congress, including the House of Representatives, voted overwhelmingly and repeatedly to maintain this restriction. This is a policy issue, not a money issue--nowhere in the realm of the Appropriations Committee. It was resolved, as it should have been, on the defense policy bill. Here we stand with a 2,000-page Omnibus appropriations bill crafted in secret. Members outside of the Appropriations Committee were not brought into the formulation of this legislation. There was no debate. Most of us are seeing this bill for the first time this morning, and buried within it is a policy provision that would effectively allow unlimited purchases and use of--guess what--Russian rocket engines. What is going on here? ULA wants more Russian engines, plain and simple. That is why ULA recently asked the Defense Department to waive the NDAA's previous restriction on the basis of national security and let it use a Russian engine for the first competitive national security space launch. The Defense Department declined. So what did ULA do when it couldn't get its way? It manufactured a crisis. Though the Department of Defense is restricted in using these Russian rocket engines, there is no similar restriction on NASA or commercial space launches. So ULA rushed to assign the RD-180s--the rocket engines--that it had in its inventory to these nonnational security launches, despite the fact that there is no restriction on the use of Russian engines for those launches. This artificial crisis has now been seized on by ULA's Capitol Hill leading sponsors; namely, the senior Senator from Alabama, Senator Shelby, and the senior Senator from Illinois, Senator Durbin, to overturn the NDAA's restriction, and that is exactly what they have done--again, secretly, nontransparently, as part of this massive 2,000-page Omnibus appropriations bill. As I said, neither Senator Shelby nor Senator Durbin, nor any other Senator, raised objections to the provisions of the bill or offered any alternative during the authorization process on the Senate floor. That is a repudiation of the rights of every single Senator in this body who is not a Member of the Appropriations Committee. In fact, as I have said, when this issue was debated and voted on in the Committee on Armed Services, the authorizing committee of jurisdiction voted in favor of maintaining the restriction. Instead, my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee crafted a provision in secret, with no debate, to overturn the will of the Senate as expressed in two National Defense Authorization Acts. The result will enable a monopolistic corporation to send potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to Vladimir Putin and his corrupt cronies and deepen America's reliance on these thugs for our military's access to space. This is outrageous and it is shameful. It is the height of hypocrisy, especially from my colleagues who claim to care about the plight of Ukraine and the need to punish Russia for its aggression. How can our government tell European countries and governments that they need to hold the line on maintaining sanctions on Russia, which is far harder for them to do than for us, when we are getting our own policy in this way? We are gutting our own policy. How can we tell our French allies, in particular, that they should not sell Vladimir Putin amphibious assault ships, as we have, and then turn around and try to buy rocket engines from Putin's cronies? Again, this is the height of hypocrisy. Since March of 2014, my colleagues in the Senate have tried to do everything we can to give our friends in Ukraine the tools they need to defend themselves and their country from Russian aggression. Rather than furthering that noble cause, Senator Shelby and Senator Durbin have chosen to reward Vladimir Putin and his cronies with a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. A rocket factory in Alabama may benefit from this provision. Boeing, headquartered in Illinois, may benefit from this decision. But have no doubt, the real winners today are Vladimir Putin and his gang of thugs running the Russian military industrial complex. I wish that Senator Shelby and Senator Durbin would explain to the American taxpayer exactly whom we are doing business with. They will not. But my colleagues need to know. Let me explain. At least one news organization has investigated how much the Air Force pays for these RD-180 rocket engines, how much the Russians receive, and whether members of the elite in Putin's Russia have secretly profited by inflating the price. In an investigative series entitled ``Comrade Capitalism,'' Reuters exposed the role that senior Russian politicians and Putin's close friends, including persons sanctioned over Ukraine, have played in the company called NPO Energomash, which manufactures the RD-180. According to Reuters, a Russian audit of that company found that it had been operating at a loss because funds were, ``being captured by unnamed offshore intermediary companies.'' In addition, the Reuters investigation also reported that NPO Energomash sells its rocket engines to ULA through another company called RD Amross, a tiny five-person outfit that stood to collect about $93 million in cost markups under a multiyear deal to supply these engines. The Defense Contract Management Agency found that in one contract alone, RD Amross did ``no or negligible'' work but still collected $80 million in ``unallowable excessive pass-through charges.'' Now, remember my friends, that is a five-person outfit--five persons. The Defense Contract Management Agency found that in one contract they collected $80 million in unallowable, excessive passthrough charges. My friends, thanks to this amendment, that is who is going to continue to receive this money. According to University of Baltimore School of Law professor Charles Tiefer, who reviewed Reuters documents, ``The bottom line is that the joint venture between the Russians and Americans is taking us to the cleaners.'' He said that he had reviewed Pentagon audits critical of Iraq war contracts, but those ``didn't come anywhere near to how strongly negative'' the RD Amross audit was. My colleagues, we have to do better. We have to do better than this. Some may say that we need to buy rocket engines from Putin's cronies in Russia. In particular, they will cite a letter from the Department of Defense, in response to a list of leading questions from the Appropriations Committee just a few days ago, which they will claim as confirmation that the Department believes the United States will not have a domestically manufactured replacement engine for defense space launches before 2022. Of course, that is nonsense. When the Department of Defense starts making predictions beyond its 5-year budget plan, what I hear is ``This isn't a priority'' or ``We don't really know.'' Either way, this is unacceptable. Both the authorizers and the appropriators have ramped up funding for the development of a new domestically manufactured engine. The Pentagon needs to do what it has failed to do for 8 years: Make this a priority. Indeed, American companies have already said that they could have a replacement engine ready before 2022. Our money and attention should be focused on meeting this goal, not on subsidizing Putin's defense industry. Proponents of more Russian rocket engines will also cite claims by the Air Force that ULA needs at least 18 RD-180 engines to create a bridge between now and 2022 when a domestically manufactured engine becomes available. This, too, is false. Today, we have two space launch providers--ULA and SpaceX--that, no matter what happens with the Russian RD-180, will be able to provide fully redundant capabilities with ULA's Delta IV and SpaceX's Falcon 9 and, eventually, the Falcon Heavy space launch vehicles. There will be no capability gap. The Atlas V is not going anywhere anytime soon. ULA has enough Atlas Vs to get them through at least 2019, if not later. As I alluded a moment ago, the Pentagon agrees that no action is required today to address a risk for assured access to space. In declining ULA's recent request for a waiver from the Defense authorization bill's restriction, the Deputy Secretary of Defense concluded that they ``do not believe any immediate action is required to address the further risk of having only one source of space launch services.'' Indeed, in its recent letter, the Department of Defense even confirmed that ULA has enough engines to compete for each of the nine upcoming competitions and that the number they will pursue is ``dependent upon ULA's business management strategy.'' So I ask Senator Shelby and Senator Durbin: What are your priorities? As we speak, Ukrainians are resisting Russian aggression and fighting to keep their country whole and free. Yet this Omnibus appropriations bill sends hundreds of millions of dollars to Vladimir Putin, his cronies, and Russia's military industrial base as Russia continues to occupy Crimea and to destabilize Ukraine and their neighbors in the region. What kind of message does that send to Ukrainians who have been fighting and dying to protect their country? How can we do this when Putin is menacing our NATO allies in Europe? How can we do this when Russia continues to send weapons to Iran? How can we do this when Putin continues to violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty? How can we do this when Putin is bombing U.S.-backed forces in Syria fighting the murderous Assad regime? I understand that some constituents of Senator Shelby and Senator Durbin believe they would benefit from this provision, but as the New York Times editorial board stated earlier this year: When sanctions are necessary, the countries that impose them must be willing to pay a cost, too. After leaning on France to cancel the sale of two ships to Russia because of the invasion of Ukraine, the United States can hardly insist on continuing to buy national security hardware from one of Mr. Putin's cronies. I repeat; that is from the New York Times, an editorial dated June 5, 2015, titled ``Don't Back Down on Russian Sanctions.'' I also refer to an article from Reuters, dated November 18, 2014, titled ``In murky Pentagon deal with Russia, big profit for a tiny Florida firm.'' On the record, I make this promise: If this language undermining the National Defense Authorization Act is not removed from the omnibus, I assure my colleagues that this issue will not go unaddressed in the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Up to this point, we have sought to manage this issue on an annual basis. We have always maintained that if a genuine crisis emerged, we would not compromise our national security interests in space. We have sought to be flexible and open to new information. But if this is how our efforts are repaid, then perhaps we need to look at a complete and indefinite restriction on Putin's rocket engine. I take no pleasure in saying that. I believe that avoiding the year- over-year conflict over this matter between our authorizing and Appropriations Committees is in our Nation's best interests. Such back- and-forth only delays our shared desire to end our reliance on Russian technology from our space launch supply chain, while injecting instability into our national security space launch program. That instability threatens the reliable launch of our most sensitive national security satellites and the stability of the fragile industrial base that supports them. But I cannot allow--I cannot allow the Appropriations Committee or any other Member of this body to craft a ``take it or leave it'' omnibus spending bill that allows a monopolistic corporation to do business with Russia's oligarchs to buy overpriced rocket engines that fund Russia's belligerence in Crimea and Ukraine, its support for Assad in Syria, and its neoimperial ambitions. I would like to address this issue in a larger context. The way the Congress is supposed to work is that authorizing committees authorize, whether it be in domestic or international or, in this case, defense programs. The responsibility of the authorizing committee is to make sure, in the case of defense--the training, equipping, the authorizing, the funding, the policies--that all falls under the Armed Services Committee. The Appropriations Committee is required in their responsibilities to decide the funding for these programs. It is within their authority to zero out a program if they do not think the funding is called for or necessary. They can add funding if they want to for various programs. But this--this is a complete violation, a complete and total violation. This issue was raised in the subcommittee and addressed in the subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. It was in the full committee. It was addressed on the floor where there were hundreds of amendments that were proposed. Yet what was decided by the Armed Services Committee remained intact until, in the dark of the night, until 10 or 11 or 12 or whatever time it was this morning, up pops a direct contradiction, a direct dismembering, a direct cancellation of a provision in the law where we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that have no bearing whatsoever on the authority and responsibility of the Appropriations Committee. So there are two problems here: One, it was done in the dark of night--in the middle of the night. No one knew. Second of all, it is in direct violation of the relationship between the authorizing committees and the Appropriations Committee. So I say to my colleagues who are not on the Appropriations Committee: If you let this go, then maybe you are next. Maybe it is an amendment or a program that you have supported through debate and discussion and authorizing the committee and votes on amendments on the floor of the Senate. Then in the middle of the night, in December, when we are going out of session in 48 hours or so--or 72 hours--then up pops a provision that negates the entire work of the authorizing committee over days and weeks and months. I say to my colleagues: You could be next. You could be next. That is why this in itself--subsidizing Vladimir Putin--is outrageous enough. But if we are going to allow this kind of middle-of-the-night airdropping, fundamental changes in programs and proposals and policies that have been debated in the open, that have been voted on in the open, completely negated, then we are destroying the very fundamental structure of how the Senate and the Congress are supposed to work. I ask unanimous consent that a letter I sent to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, dated November 19, 2015, be printed in the Record.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the service of RADM Christopher J. Paul, Deputy Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, who is retiring from the United States Navy after more than 38 years of faithful service to our Nation. Having enlisted in the Navy in 1977, Rear Admiral Paul went on to attend the U.S. Naval Academy Preparatory School and U.S. Naval Academy, where he distinguished himself as a valued leader of the varsity cross country, indoor, and outdoor Track teams under famed coach Al Cantello and a 10-time letterman. After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physical science, RADM Paul served on USS KIDD, DDG 993, a destroyer homeported in Norfolk, VA, until 1987 and qualified as a surface warfare officer during deployments to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans; the Mediterranean, Black, North, Baltic, Red, and Caribbean Seas; and the Arabian Gulf. Rear Admiral Paul's Pentagon staff assignments included service on the Joint Staff as an action officer in the Operations Directorate J-3 and U.S. Senate liaison officer and assistant surface warfare program officer in the Secretary of the Navy's Office of legislative affairs from 1987 to 1991. During that assignment, Rear Admiral Paul had the opportunity to work on behalf of Members of Congress on the Senate Armed Services Committee and was subsequently assigned to serve in my office to help write a $600 million package of veterans benefits for servicemembers and veterans of Operation Desert Storm. While working on that legislative matter, I had the privilege of promoting then Lieutenant Paul to the grade of lieutenant commander, when he transitioned to the Navy Reserve, which allowed him to continue to serve on my staff in Washington, DC, while also serving at the Pentagon's Navy Command Center as assistant operations department head. Rear Admiral Paul went on to faithfully serve on my Senate legislative staff for a total of 16 years, followed by 6 years as a professional staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, while simultaneously serving in numerous Navy positions of increasing responsibility over the course of more than 22 years. Those assignments included serving on the Chief of Naval Operations staff as executive officer of Reserve Component Augment Units to the director of Surface Warfare OPNAV N86 and the director of Expeditionary Warfare OPNAV N85 between 1997 and 1999. Rear Admiral Paul's Navy Reserve unit command assignments included CVNE-0109, from 1999 to 2001, supporting AIRLANT aircraft carriers, during which he was recognized with the Commander Naval Air Force Reserve Robert I. Barto Award; Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head, from 2001 to 2003; and, rapid response to full unit-mobilization in support of Operation Noble Eagle, which was recognized by the Secretary of the Navy with the Meritorious Unit Commendation. His command assignments also included Navy Region, Mid-Atlantic, from 2003 to 2005, where he was mobilized in support of Joint Task Force Katrina as chief of staff, Joint Force Maritime Component Commander; U.S. Forces, Japan from 2005 to 2007, where the unit received the Joint Meritorious Unit Award for its contingency and exercise support that greatly enhanced the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance; and deputy regional commander to Commandant, Naval District Washington, from 2007 to 2008, supporting the Navy Total Force in the national capital area. During Rear Admiral Paul's flag officer assignments, he led several type commands responsible for manning, training, and equipping naval warships and expeditionary forces. In his first flag assignment, Rear Admiral Paul served as deputy commander, Navy Expeditionary Combat Command from 2008 to 2011, receiving the Navy Unit Commendation for its outstanding success in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom; deputy commander, Naval Surface Forces Atlantic from 2011 to 2012; and deputy commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet from 2012 to 2015, where he culminated his Navy career. During his flag officer positions, Rear Admiral Paul distinguished himself in the performance of his duties while demonstrating a uniquely comprehensive knowledge of manpower, personnel, training, enlisted personnel distribution, and surface warfare officer career management issues. His effective leadership and initiatives helped transform how surface forces are trained and prepared to fight in naval warships during a vital period of change in the surface warfare community. As a loyal and dedicated member of my staff for over 22 years, Rear Admiral Paul worked tirelessly as a valued legislative aide to me in my U.S. Senate office and on the professional staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In that capacity, Rear Admiral Paul played an important role in policy matters affecting our Nation and the U.S. military, helping to advance countless legislative initiatives enacted into law that will have a lasting impact on U.S. policy, including the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits the inhumane treatment of prisoners of the United States; legislation that reauthorized the FAA in 1996, which is still recognized as the largest aviation reform law since the deregulation act of 1977; laws that help improve the lives of our servicemembers, veterans, and military families; and numerous provisions that have improved the ability of the military to procure needed combat capability, enhanced the readiness of ships, submarines, and aircraft, and maintained global superiority--all while ensuring that the Department of Defense acts as a responsible steward of diminishing defense dollars. As a determined Reserve Component surface warfare leader and dedicated public servant, it is fitting that we honor Rear Admiral Paul's service during the centennial of the U.S. Navy Reserve. Rear Admiral Paul embodies the moral character and dedication of our Nation's citizen-sailors who bring unique skill sets through their military and civilian training and serve our country honorably by the core values of the United States of America. I heartily thank Rear Admiral Paul; his wife, Shannon; daughter, Catherine; and son, Christopher, for their honorable service to our Nation and the U.S. Navy; and wish Rear Admiral Paul fair winds and following seas as he concludes a career in the U.S. Navy exemplary in honor and distinction. Thank you.

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. For how long?

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, it has now been over 5 years since President Obama signed into law this so-called Affordable Care Act, a sweeping health care overhaul that had passed this Chamber without a single Republican vote. While legislation as important as this should have been held to the highest standard and included broad bipartisan support, President Obama and then the 60-vote congressional Democrats relied on fuzzy math and false promises to jam through this enormous, unwieldy health care measure that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. Such unilateral action has become President Obama's signature domestic policy legacy, but today all that bullying and brinkmanship comes to a screeching halt. The legislation we will vote on today takes a critical step forward in lifting the burden that ObamaCare has placed on hard-working citizens across the country who have been saddled by rising premiums, increased health care costs, and reduced access to doctors and hospitals. It continues our long fight to repeal this harmful law and build a bridge to health care solutions that work. Since ObamaCare's enactment, Americans have been left wondering what happened to all the promises: the promise to remove obstacles to obtaining coverage, the President's promise to reduce yearly premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family, his promise to maintain existing providers. Remember, if you like your doctor you can keep him, his promise to prevent any form of new tax increases, and a promise to increase competition and provide greater choice. Despite all of the President's assurances, ObamaCare has been full of empty promises that have made our Nation's health care problems worse. One of the reasons I voted against ObamaCare was because despite being portrayed as affordable, there were numerous predictions that Americans across the country would be faced with increased health care costs. Guess what. Such predictions have become reality. Just as recently as this past summer, the President promised that under ObamaCare health insurance premium increases would be ``modest.'' This is despite the fact that the State insurance regulators and actuaries were predicting the exact opposite outcome. Let's take a look at how modest these cost increases will be for my home State of Arizona. Data released last month by the Department of Health and Human Services shows that Americans enrolled in the Federal marketplace will see an average premium increase of at least 7.5 percent with the second lowest so-called silver plans known as benchmark plans. In Arizona, 24 exchange plans will see double-digit rate hikes in 2016. In Phoenix, premium increases are projected to top 19 percent. The highest average premium increase in my home State is projected to reach a whopping 78 percent. My constituents in Arizona call and write me daily, begging and pleading that something be done to alleviate the financial hardship of ObamaCare. Thomas from Flagstaff wrote to me and said his monthly premiums jumped from $200 to $600 a month. Jim, a resident of Arizona for over 25 years, will soon pay an additional $160 per week. It goes on and on and on. Stories such as these are unacceptable. While the President and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to describe ObamaCare as a success, families, patients, doctors, and small businesses across America continue to suffer from the disastrous effects of the President's failed health care law. Today I am proud to once again stand with my Republican colleagues as we continue the fight to repeal and replace ObamaCare. From the start, I opposed this sweeping scope of the health care law and proudly proposed the first Republican amendment to ObamaCare in 2009 which would have prevented the President from slashing Medicare by half a trillion dollars. Since then, I have continued my efforts by sponsoring numerous other pieces of legislation that would lift the burden that has been placed on individuals and small businesses alike. Most recently, I introduced the Obamacare Opt-Out Act with Senator Barrasso in this Congress, which would give Americans the freedom to opt-out of the individual mandate for health insurance coverage required by ObamaCare. It is critical that we eliminate this costly mandate which is estimated to cost Americans who decide not to enroll in ObamaCare roughly $695 per adult and $347 per child in 2016 and even more in the years ahead. This legislation we will vote on today takes an even bigger step forward in freeing Americans from the harmful effects of this law. It provides relief to individuals and employers alike by eliminating costly penalties for those who fail to comply with ObamaCare's mandate. It repeals draconian tax increases--such as the medical device tax and the Cadillac tax--that have made health care more expensive and driven innovative companies to move critical operations and research and development overseas. It ensures that Americans will not experience any disruption in their health care coverage by delaying the implementation date by 2 years. Most importantly, it gets the government out of the way and puts patients in charge of their health care decisions and needs. The fact is, we can repeal and replace ObamaCare with health care policies that work. For years I have underscored commonsense policy alternatives, such as providing Americans with a direct, refundable tax credit to help them pay for private health care, expanding the benefits of health savings accounts, passing medical liability reform, or ``tort reform,'' and extending the freedom to purchase health care across State lines. These are proposals that would provide immediate relief to Americans and my fellow Arizonans who have been left to choose between buying groceries or paying for health insurance under ObamaCare. Perhaps the greatest flaw in President Obama's health care law is that it has severely limited consumers' access to quality care. Today, limited access is now commonplace, costs are increasing, and government bureaucrats remain at the center of an individual's health care decisions. It is clear that any serious attempt to improve our health care system must begin with full repeal and replacement of ObamaCare--a mission I remain fully committed to fighting on behalf of the people of Arizona. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this critically important bill today. It will build a bridge from the President's broken promises to a better health care system for hard-working families in Arizona and across the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2884.

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to pay attention to the following: For a drug called Glumetza, the price in Canada is $157 for 90 tablets; the price in the United States is $4,643 for 90 tablets. Edecrin in Canada costs $607 per vial; in the United States, it costs $4,600 per vial. Biltricide costs $10.50 per tablet in Canada and $81 in the United States. The list goes on and on. My dear friends, let our citizens go to Canada and buy their prescription drugs. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with allowing them to be able to spend $157 for 90 tablets in Canada instead of $4,643 for 90 tablets? I will tell my colleagues what it is. It is the power of the pharmaceutical companies that will prevent us from letting Americans go to Canada and get those pharmaceuticals at a reasonable price.

Mr. McCAIN. Tragically, because this will be subject to a 60-vote threshold----

Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McCAIN. Tragically, some stooge of the pharmaceutical company will object on a budget point of order, so I will withdraw the amendment. But, my friends, you have not heard the last of this wonderful issue that I am having so much fun with but which is important to all of our constituents who are paying outrageous prices to the pharmaceutical companies.

Mr. McCAIN. I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 3, 2015, at 9 a.m., to conduct a closed briefing entitled ``The U.S. Role in the Middle East.''

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 3, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 3, 2015, at 10 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, today I wish to honor a fellow veteran and colleague, Senator Joni Ernst, on her retirement from the Iowa National Guard as a lieutenant colonel after 23 years of distinguished service to our Nation. Senator Ernst joined the U.S. Army Reserves as a second lieutenant upon her graduation from Iowa State University. After 9 years in the Army Reserves, she transitioned to the Iowa National Guard to continue her dedicated service to this Nation. As a logistics specialist, Senator Ernst has held numerous positions of authority throughout her career, culminating in command of the 185th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, the largest in the Iowa National Guard. On February 10, 2003, while serving as commander of the Iowa National Guard's 1168th Transportation Company, Senator Ernst was called to Active Duty and deployed to Kuwait and Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. For 14 months, Senator Ernst and her fellow Guard members delivered vital supplies to coalition forces in support of the war effort. Her combat service was a key element in enabling a highly mobile allied force to sustain combat operations. While this chapter of her career has come to a close, Senator Ernst continues her dedication to service. As the first woman elected to Congress from Iowa and the first female combat veteran in the Senate, Senator Ernst has fought tenaciously for our military and veterans through her work on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on legislation she has authored and sponsored over this past year. I have no doubt that she will continue to be a strong voice for servicemembers, veterans, and their families in the years ahead. Today I honor Lieutenant Colonel Ernst for her 23 years of dedicated service to the U.S. Army Reserve and the Iowa National Guard. Her service in support of this Nation has been exemplary--and her mission continues. I look forward to working with Senator Ernst for years to come as we tackle the many challenges ahead.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, over the last month, in a series of terrorist attacks around the globe that have killed hundreds of people, ISIL has commenced a new phase in its war on the civilized world. We have seen attacks in Ankara, Beirut, and Baghdad, the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt, and, of course, the horrific scenes last Friday in Paris, where ISIL gunmen wearing suicide belts attacked innocent civilians at restaurants, bars, a soccer stadium, and a concert hall, killing, as we know, 129 people and wounding 352 others. This evolution in ISIL operations further highlights the threat that they pose to countries beyond the Middle East, including the United States of America. We cannot and should not wait for ISIL to attack the United States before we finally, finally, finally acknowledge that we are a nation at war and that we must adopt a new strategy to destroy ISIL. What we must also acknowledge is that while the threat posed by ISIL and our other adversaries is growing, our national security budgets are increasingly disconnected from our national security requirements. Regardless of what ISIL will do next or how the United States will decide to act, our national security budgets through fiscal year 2021 have been arbitrarily--I emphasize ``arbitrarily''--capped by the Budget Control Act. To be sure, the recently passed Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 provides important relief from the sequester-level budget caps for fiscal year 2016 and 2017, and I am grateful to the Republican majority leader for leading that effort. Our national defense would be in far worse shape without that legislation. At the same time, that agreement is less optimal for next year and obviously does not seek to address the budget caps that continue for the next 4 years. Indeed, under the revised Budget Control Act, in constant dollars, we are actually on track to spend less on defense next year than this year. It has not taken long for world events, yet again, to show the inadequacy of this exercise. At roughly the same time we were locking in next year's defense budget caps, ISIL began demonstrating its capability to strike targets outside of Iraq and Syria and now at the very center of the western world. Indeed, since the Budget Control Act of 2011 capped defense and other discretionary spending for the subsequent 10 years, absent any consideration of changing global threats or national requirements, let's consider what has transpired since 2011. Any semblance of order in the Middle East has collapsed. We are all tragically familiar with the carnage in Syria and Iraq, but Libya has also deteriorated into anarchy and safe havens for ISIL and its affiliates. Yemen has become the scene of a proxy war between Iran and the gulf Arab nations. General David Petraeus testified to the Armed Services Committee: ``Almost every Middle Eastern country is now a battleground or a combatant in one or more wars.'' From the outset, the Obama administration's policy was to withdraw from the Middle East. The President pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq and put us on the path to do the same in Afghanistan, but as we expected, and as I predicted, evil forces have moved in to fill the vacuums that we have left behind. ISIL has captured large swaths of territories in Syria and Iraq and has spread across the region to Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, and other countries. As a result, we now have thousands of troops back in Iraq. The U.S. military has conducted over 6,000 airstrikes in Syria and Iraq to combat ISIL. We are increasing counterterrorism operations in North Africa and providing military assistance to Saudi Arabia and our gulf partners fighting in Yemen. The situation in Afghanistan has driven the President to further delay the drawdown of U.S. troops. The effectiveness of these policies is questionable, but their cost is not. In Europe, we have seen Russian forces invade Crimea and intervene militarily in Ukraine. This is the first time since World War II that one government has invaded and sought to annex the territory of another sovereign territory in Europe. Since then, Vladimir Putin has grown bolder. He continues to modernize Russia's military. And most recently, of course, he has deployed Russian forces into Syria to prop up the Assad regime, even firing cruise missiles into the region from outside of it, as far away as nearly 1,000 miles. Russia's actions have now forced the administration to bring back to Europe on a rotational basis one of the two brigade combat teams that it withdrew. As Russia continues its aggression in Europe and increases its involvement in the Middle East, the Secretary of Defense acknowledges that we need an entirely new strategy to counter Russia. All of this requires proper funding--all of it. All of it requires proper funding levels, but our defense agencies have not gotten that, even as they have been asked to do more to counter Russia. The situation isn't limited to Russia and Europe. China is growing more assertive as well. It has built several land features in the South China Sea, equipped with military buildings, fort facilities, and even runways, all in an effort to expand Chinese territorial claims in the area. In addition to harassing other regional states, five Chinese navy ships were spotted in the Bering Sea off of Alaska during President Obama's recent trip to Alaska. Meanwhile, hackers in China continue to conduct cyber espionage and cyber attacks against our government and critical sectors of our economy. Russia, Iran, and North Korea are doing so as well, all in the past year. Again and again, national security requirements have materialized after the Budget Control Act was passed, but we forced our military to tackle a growing set of missions with arbitrary and insufficient budget levels, revised periodically with whatever additional resources the Congress is able to scare up. The results speak for themselves. Since 2011, as worldwide threats have been increasing, we have cut our defense spending by almost 25 percent in annual spending. Not only has annual spending decreased, but so have the long-term budget plans of the Department of Defense. Each year the Department releases a 5-year budget. However, each year it has reduced its 5-year plan in an effort to closer align its spending to the Budget Control Act. As a result, while the short-term effects of these arbitrary budget caps are bad enough, the long-term harm they are doing is arguably worse. Our military is raiding its own future readiness, modernization, and research and development spending to pay its present bills and meet present needs. We are not making the kinds of investments in our future warfighting capability to remain technologically superior to adversaries that are closing the gap with us. What is even more troubling is that even as we made these reductions, our national security and defense strategies have stayed essentially the same. Day-to-day requirements for the military have not been reduced to match declining budgets. Independent analysis by defense experts at places such as the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and the RAND Corporation have all pointed out that current budget levels and even the President's budget are insufficient to pay for our national security strategy given the current threat environment. All of this applies equally to our other national security agencies beyond the Department of Defense. Protecting our Nation is not just the job of the U.S. military; it also depends on a strong and properly resourced intelligence community, Federal law enforcement, and homeland security agencies, and a diplomatic presence overseas that can project American leadership and resolve problems before they become threats to our people and our interests. Yet these other national security agencies have been dealing with the same fiscal challenges under the same worsening threat environment and with the same effects as our military. Not just our military, but the NSA, the CIA, the State Department, FBI--all of these agencies are unable to function effectively because of the effects of these budget cuts. To continue on this way, especially after Paris, is not only absurd, it is dangerous. If we are serious about national security, if we are serious about meeting our highest constitutional responsibility of providing for the common defense, and if we are serious about heeding the frequent and urgent warnings of our Nation's most respected national security and foreign policy leaders, then we must change course immediately. We cannot continue to prioritize deficit reduction over national defense, allowing arbitrary budget caps to determine our national security needs. This process ought to be simple. We must identify what we need to be safe, define those requirements clearly, and provide budgets to resource them. The two can't be disconnected. If we choose not to fight ISIL or deter Russian aggression in Europe or uphold freedom of the seas in Asia, then we can justify the cuts to the budget. But neither the Congress nor the administration wants to do that, nor should we. The only responsible thing to do, then, is to spend the money that is necessary to meet the national security requirements we have set for ourselves. And with the threats to our homeland growing closer, we can't afford to delay any longer. That is why I have introduced commonsense legislation that is long overdue. Its goal is simple: to exempt national security spending from sequestration under the Budget Control Act. This exemption would not just apply to the Department of Defense; it would also include the security-related functions of our intelligence agencies, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the National Nuclear Security Administration. By doing so, we will enable the President and Congress to build national security budgets based on national security requirements instead of arbitrary caps that entail greater risk to our Nation. I know that some will express concern about the impact of this legislation on national deficits and the debt. I will match my record as a fiscal conservative with anybody's. I have spent decades targeting wasteful government spending, and I believe we must tackle our debt problem before it overwhelms generations. But we cannot afford to put the lives of our men and women in uniform as well as those of our citizens at greater risk, which everyone--all of our senior military leaders--has said we are doing. By holding to these budget caps, we are putting the lives of the men and women serving in the military today at greater risk. Don't we have an obligation to these young men and women who are serving in the military in uniform? Just because of arbitrary caps, are we going to put their lives in greater danger? Of course the world has become more dangerous. Of course there have been tremendous upheavals. And we are asking them to do the job with less than they need in order to do it most effectively and at the very risk of their own lives. This is disgraceful. This is disgraceful, that we should neglect the view of every national security expert and every one of our uniformed leaders. They have all said the same thing in testimony before the Armed Services Committee. I have asked them: Does sequestration and the effects of sequestration put the lives of our young men and women in uniform at greater risk? Answer: Yes. History does not repeat itself, but I do remember in the 1970s when we slashed defense spending and the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army came over and said we had a hollow Army. We are now not approaching the hollow Army, but we certainly are approaching a point where we are unable to meet the new challenges that I just articulated in these comments, and we are putting the lives of the men and women in the military in greater danger. That is not what we are supposed to be all about. We can't persist with the illusion that we will somehow balance the Federal budget and meaningfully cut the debt on the back of discretionary spending alone. Our defense and national security budgets are not the root of our spending problem. The real problem is rising entitlement costs and mandatory spending. A Heritage Foundation report found that 85 percent of projected growth and spending is due to entitlement programs and interest on the debt. Reducing our debt will only be possible with real entitlement reform. Cuts to discretionary spending will not have a major long-term impact, but for years we have gone to that well because it is politically easier than reforming entitlement programs. So the major sources of the debt are three: Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt. That is the problem we face. So we enacted arbitrary cuts on our Nation's national security capabilities in somehow trying to convince people that therefore we will reduce the debt. That is a lie. We don't have the guts to stand up here and do the right thing, which is entitlement reform. Instead, we continue on this mindless sequestration--mindless because it is a meat ax. I am happy to say that we have identified $11 billion in this National Defense Authorization Act. As chairman of the committee, I have worked with Members on both sides of the aisle. We have identified $11 billion in savings and lots more to come. We can trim from the defense budget a lot of the waste and inefficiencies that are there, but to do it with a meat ax is the wrong way to do it. I encourage other committees to use their authorization processes to reform government and eliminate wasteful spending. However, to purposefully shortchange our national security agencies is obviously penny-wise and pound-foolish. Just last week, all of us went home and celebrated Veterans Day. There is probably not an event that is quite like it in all of the things we do in this Nation. To spend time with our veterans and to see our Nation honor them is a remarkable experience and incredibly uplifting. It seems to me that year after year, there are more and more Americans who are applauding and appreciating the service and sacrifice of our veterans. We are reminded that what makes America great is the men and women who serve it, and those who have served we honor. These volunteers sacrifice their personal comfort, their families, and sometimes their lives for this country. They always put the mission first, and it is time we do the same. We must fully resource national security so that those who work to keep us safe day in and day out have what they need to accomplish what we have asked of them. If their mission is worth the ultimate sacrifice, what other policy agenda could be more important? These young men and women are putting their lives on the line as we speak, and what are we doing? We are mindlessly cutting defense and their ability to defend this Nation and themselves. It is a shameful chapter. It is a shameful chapter and an abrogation of our responsibilities to these men and women. So the next time Members are home in their home States and they meet these men and women in uniform and they support the sequestration, look the other way because they are not taking care of those men and women who are willing to sacrifice. I am sorry if my words sound harsh, but in this world we are in today, to continue this mindless sequestration is an abrogation of our responsibility as their elected leaders. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Budget be discharged from further consideration of S. 2303 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; I further ask consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. What this is, for the benefit of my colleagues, is the elimination of sequestration for not only defense but all of our national security requirements and agencies of government that are suffering under this mindless sequestration. I see my colleague from Rhode Island is going to object. All I can say to my colleague from Rhode Island is I am deeply, deeply, deeply disappointed in his objecting to doing the right thing for the men and women who are serving in the military.

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, it has been more than 1 year since President Obama spoke to the Nation about the threat posed by ISIL and escalated U.S. military operations against it. The goal at that time, the President said, was to degrade and destroy ISIL. One year ago, the goal was to degrade and destroy ISIL. It is impossible to look at where we are today and claim that the President's strategy is succeeding or that it is likely to succeed on anything approaching an acceptable timetable and level of risk. No one should take this as a criticism of the men and women in uniform, as well as their civilian counterparts in the field, who are doing the best they can under the strategic and operational constraints they face, especially in the face of the White House's desire to revisit the Vietnam war tactics and to micromanage the military's campaign. It is not that we have done nothing against ISIL; it is that there is no compelling reason to believe anything we are doing will be sufficient to destroy ISIL. Thousands of airstrikes against ISIL's targets have conjured the illusion of progress, but they have produced little in the way of decisive battlefield effects. I noted with some interest that we provided some targeting for the French, who carried out airstrikes. I wonder why we hadn't done any of that in the last year. ISIL continues to dominate Sunni Arab areas in the world, in both Iraq and Syria, and efforts to reclaim major population centers in those areas, such as Mosul, have stalled, to say the least. Meanwhile, ISIL continues to expand globally. It is now operating in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, and Egypt, and other radical Islamist groups, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia, have pledged allegiance to ISIL. This appearance of success only enhances ISIL's ability to radicalize, recruit, and grow. In the past month, ISIL has commenced a new stage in its war on the civilized world by unleashing a wave of terrorist attacks around the globe. In Ankara, ISIL detonated two bombs outside a train station, killing 102 people and injuring over 400 more. In the skies over Egypt, ISIL destroyed a Russian civilian airliner with a bomb that killed all 224 passengers aboard. In Beirut, ISIL conducted 2 suicide bombings that killed 43 people and injured 239 more. In Baghdad, ISIL bombs killed 26 people and wounded more than 60 others. Finally, in the streets of Paris last week, as we all know, gunmen wearing suicide belts attacked innocent civilians at restaurants, bars, a soccer stadium, and a concert hall, killing at least 129 and wounding 352 other people. The American people have experienced this kind of terror before, and we stand together with the people of Turkey, Russia, Lebanon, Iraq, France, and nearly 20 other nations whose citizens were murdered by these brutal atrocity committers. These attacks reveal nothing new about ISIL's character. ISIL is the face of evil in our world today. It has crucified its enemies, beheaded innocent journalists, burned a Muslim pilot alive in a cage, and it has condemned women and children and girls to slavery and torture and unspeakable sexual abuse. And when waging war on the living has failed to satisfy its savagery, ISIL has desecrated and destroyed many of the monuments to civilization that remain across the Middle East. ISIL's latest attacks also reveal nothing new about its intentions. Everything that ISIL is doing is what their leaders have long said they would do. They have stated their aims explicitly and clearly. All we have to do is listen to their words. Indeed, as one author put it, ISIL has ``toiled mightily to make their projects knowable.'' What these attacks have demonstrated and what now should be clear is that ISIL is at war with us whether or not we admit we are at war with them. What should now be clear is that ISIL is determined to attack the heart of the civilized world--Europe and the United States--that it has the intent to attack us, the capabilities to attack us, and the sanctuary from which to plan those attacks. What should now be clear is that our people and our allies will not be safe until ISIL is destroyed--not just degraded but destroyed, and not eventually but as soon as possible. Unfortunately--unfortunately-- almost tragically, President Obama remains as ideologically committed as ever to staying the course he is on and impervious to new information that would suggest otherwise, as he made quite clear during his incredible press conference yesterday in Turkey. According to the President of the United States, anyone who disagrees with him is ``popping off''--popping off. I guess Michael Morell, former Deputy Secretary of the CIA, was just ``popping off'' when he said recently that ``the downing of the Russian airliner, only the third such attack in 25 years, and the attacks in Paris, the largest in Europe since the Madrid bombings in 2004, make it crystal clear that our ISIS strategy is not working.'' That comes from Michael Morell, the former deputy head of the CIA under this President. I guess Senator Dianne Feinstein, vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was just ``popping off'' when she said that ``ISIL is not contained, ISIL is expanding'' and that we need new military strategy and tactics. I guess GEN Jack Keane, one of my heroes and architect of the successful surge strategy in Iraq, was just ``popping off'' when he said, ``We are, in fact, losing this war. Moreover, I can say with certainty that this strategy will not defeat ISIS.'' This strategy will not defeat ISIS. That comes from the author of the surge which succeeded, which the President, by withdrawing all troops, allowed to go completely to waste, and the lives of brave young Americans were wasted. I guess Hillary Clinton, the President's former Secretary of State and desired successor, was just ``popping off'' when she declared her support for a no-fly zone in Syria to ``stop the carnage on the ground and from the air.'' I guess GEN David Petraeus was just ``popping off'' when he testified to the Committee on Armed Services that the President's strategy has failed to create the military conditions to end the conflict in Syria and that ISIL will not be defeated until we do so. I guess James Jeffrey, a career foreign officer and the President's Ambassador to Iraq, was just ``popping off'' when he wrote in the Washington Post today that the President needs to send thousands of ground troops to destroy ISIL. What all of these national security leaders recognize is the reality that is staring us right in the face. It is the President who is once again failing to grasp it. He fails to understand even now that wars don't end just because he says they are over, that our terrorist enemies are not defeated just because he says they are, that the threat posed by ISIL is not contained because he desires it to be so, and that maybe, just maybe, the growing group of his bipartisan critics might just be right. And why won't he listen to them? Why won't he listen to these people of experience and knowledge and background? Whom does he listen to? Whom does the President listen to? He couldn't be listening to anybody knowledgeable and then make the comments he made at that press conference. The President has had to go back on everything he said he would not do to combat the threats now emanating from Syria and Iraq. He said he would not arm moderate Syrian rebels because that would militarize the conflict. He was wrong. He said he would not intervene militarily in Iraq or Syria. He was wrong. He said he would not put boots on the ground in Syria. He was wrong. Now he says that his strategy is working, that all it needs is time, and that no further changes are required despite ISIL's campaign of terror. Now, get this straight. After the bombing in Paris, after the Russian airliner, after the other acts of terror, he needs time--he needs time--and no further changes are required. Does anybody believe him anymore? What the President has failed to understand for nearly 5 years is that unless and until he leads an international effort to end the conflict in Syria and Iraq, the costs of this conflict will continue to mount. Those consequences have grown steadily, from mass atrocities and hundreds of thousands of dead in Syria, to the repeated use of weapons of mass destruction, to the rise of the world's largest terrorist army and its rampage across Syria and Iraq, to destabilizing refugee flows that have shaken the stability of Syria's neighbors and are now potentially changing the character of European society. Now we see the latest manifestation of this threat: global terrorist attacks directed and inspired by ISIL that killed hundreds around the world. The Paris attacks, obviously, should be a wake-up call for all Americans, most of all for the President. If we stay the course, if we don't change our strategy now, we will be attacked. I don't know where, when, or how, but it will happen. Do we need to wait for more innocent people to die before we address the reality that is right before us? ISIL has said it intends to attack Washington, DC. Do we not take them at their word? Do we think they are not capable of it? Do we think time is on our side? It is not. Time is not on our side. The lesson of the September 11 attack was that mass murderers cannot be permitted safe havens. They cannot be permitted safe havens from which to plot our destruction. Do we really have to pay that price again through the blood of our citizens? For nearly 5 years, we have been told there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria and Iraq, as if anyone believes there is. In fact, one of the things that is most frustrating about the President's rhetoric is that he sets up straw men. He says we either should do nothing or the Republicans or critics--now Democrats as well--are wanting to send in 100,000 troops. We do not. We do not. We believe and I am convinced that we can send in a force composed of Sunni Arabs, of Egyptians, of Turks, and Americans--about 10,000--establish the no-fly zone, allow the refugees a sanctuary, and make sure that no barrel bombing will be allowed in those areas. We can succeed. ISIS is not invincible. The United States of America and our allies are far stronger. We are the strongest Nation on Earth. To say we can't defeat ISIL--it is a matter of will, not a matter of whether or not it is a capability. So I say to my colleagues and the American people, we can defeat ISIS and we can wipe them off the face of the Earth, but we have to have a strategy, and this President has never had a strategy. For nearly 5 years we have been told that there is no military solution; that there are no good options; that our influence is limited, as if that is not always the case; that we won't succeed overnight, as if our problem is one of time, not policy; and that we can't solve every problem in the Middle East, as if that absolves us of our responsibility to make the situation better where we can. This isn't a question of our capacity, our capabilities, or our options. We have always had options to address this growing threat. But the longer we wait, the difficulty and risk and cost increase. Four years ago, Lindsey Graham and I came to this floor and said: We need to have a no-fly zone and we need to arm and train the Free Syrian Army, once Bashar al-Assad crossed the redline. We could have done it then, and it would have been one heck of a lot easier. But this President didn't want to do it, and we are faced with a more complex situation. Tens of thousands or a couple hundred thousand Syrians dead and millions of refugees later, the President of the United States still won't act. He still believes, as he stated in his press conference yesterday, that, somehow, everything is going fine--what delusion. After the attack on France, article 5 of NATO's founding treaty should be invoked, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all. That is what we did after 9/11. The United States should work with our NATO allies and our Arab partners to assemble a coalition that will take the fight to ISIL from the air and on the ground. My friends, air attacks only will not succeed. It will not succeed. I am sorry to tell you. I apologize ahead of time. We need boots on the ground--not 100,000 but about 10,000, with the capabilities that are unique to American service men and women. We can defeat ISIL. We have to step up the air campaign by easing overly restrictive rules of engagement. At the same time, we have to recognize that ISIL will only be defeated by ground combat forces. Those don't exist today. We must recognize that our indirect efforts to support our partners on the ground--the Iraqi Security Forces, the moderate Syrian opposition force, the Kurdish Peshmerga, and the Sunni tribal forces--are insufficient to outpace the growing threat we face. As I mentioned, the United States must therefore work to assemble a coalition and ground force with a commitment on the order of 10,000 U.S. troops. In Syria, we must hasten the end of the civil war. We must accept that Russia and Iran are not interested in a negotiated solution that favors U.S. interests. Russia and Iran have entirely different goals than the United States of America in Syria. Russia wants to keep Bashar Assad or his stooge in power, they want to keep their major influence in the region, and they want to protect their base there. The United States of America has none of those interests. They want to prop up the guy who has killed 240,000. I appreciate the outpouring of concern of all my colleagues and all Americans about these refugees. The refugees are the result of a failure of Presidential and American leadership. They are not the cause of it. The cause of these hundreds of thousands or millions of refugees is because our policy failed. Bashar al-Assad slaughtered them with barrel bombs, and we are now faced with the threat, in some respects, of a possibility that one or more of these refugees, having gone through Greece, now are or possibly could be--as the Director of the CIA said yesterday--in ongoing operations to try to orchestrate attacks on America. It is often said that America doesn't go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. But that doesn't mean there are no monsters in the world that seek to destroy us. The longer we wait to accept this reality, the greater is the cost we will pay. One of my great heroes and role models, as is the case with many of our colleagues, is Winston Churchill. I would never compare myself to Winston Churchill in any possible way, except that I do sometimes have empathy with Winston Churchill, who, during the 1930s, came to the floor of the Parliament and made comments and speeches that were very, very moving, but no one paid any attention to him. In fact, he was ridiculed. In fact, Lindsey Graham and I have been ridiculed from time to time because of our assessment of the situation and what needed to be done. Winston Churchill, after the crisis had been resolved to some degree and the people of Britain and the world had awakened, said--and there is a parallel between the situation 4 years ago and what Winston Churchill had to say: When the situation was manageable, it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline Books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self- preservation strikes its jarring gong--these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history. I say to my colleagues, we are observing the endless repetition of history--what once upon a time was a manageable situation. When the President of the United States said that it is not a matter of when Bashar al-Assad leaves but it is a matter of when, when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then-Secretary of Defense testified before our committee that it is inevitable that Bashar Assad will go, when the President of the United States continuously said time after time that we have a strategy and it is not anything to worry about, when we get out of Iraq and we draw redlines in Syria and don't do it, when we don't take any action after the redline is crossed, when his national security team, composed of Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense Panetta, and then-Director of CIA David Petraeus all recommended training and arming the Free Syrian Army, he rejected it. So now we find ourselves with 240 thousand dead in Syria and more Syrian children in school in Lebanon than Lebanese children. Jordan, one of our best friends, has their very fabric threatened and unstable because of the huge number of refugees. We find a very unstable Middle East, and we find ISIL spread now to Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, and other nations. ISIL has now even established a foothold in Afghanistan, and the Iranians are doing the same. It is not too late. It is not too late. We have to take up arms. We have to tell the American people what is at stake here. We have to inform the American people that what happened in Paris can happen here. Mr. Baghdadi, who was once in our prison camp at Camp Bucca for 4 years in Iraq, when he left said: ``I'll see you guys in New York.'' He was not kidding. There is no doubt that what ISIL has just proved is that contrary to what this President believed, contrary even to what our intelligence told us, they have a reach. They have had a reach to make sure that a Russian airliner was destroyed. They have a reach to Paris. They have a reach to Beirut. They have a reach in northern Africa and other places in the world. There is no reason why we should not suspect that they have a reach to the United States of America. It is time we acted. It is time the United States of America, acting with our allies, takes out ISIL. We must go both to Iraq and to Syria and take them out. Their total defeat is the only thing that will eliminate this threat to the United States of America. Yes, after they are destroyed there is a lot to do. Yes, there are things such as building economies and free societies and all of that. But there is only one thing that Mr. Baghdadi and his legions understand, and that is that we kill them and that we counter with everything we can this spread of this perverted form of an honorable religion called Islam. This is radical Islamic terrorism, whether the President ever wants to say it or not. There is one additional point. The refugees are a huge problem. Obviously, we have to pause until we are sure that nobody is doing exactly what--apparently, at least--one of the terrorists who attacked Paris did, and that is, to go through Greece and into France. But at the same time, we need to understand that the refugee problem is an effect of a failed policy, not the cause of it. Finally, I would say the President should do two things: One, call together the smartest people that we know. I named some of them: General Petraeus, General Keane. There are a number of people. There is General Maddox, General Kelly, Bob Kagan. The names are familiar to many of us who follow national security. These people are the ones who made the surge succeed. Call them together over at the White House and say: Give me your advice. He must do that. What he has been listening to and what he is doing is failing. I know that my friend and partner, Lindsey Graham, knows more about these issues than any other Member of this body--certainly anybody who is running for President of the United States. We will go over. We would be glad to go over and sit with the President. I want to cooperate with him. I want to work with him. We need to do that. I offer up my services and my advice and counsel, and anybody else on this side of the aisle. This is a threat to the lives of the men and women who are living in this Nation. They deserve our protection, and they deserve a bipartisan approach and a bipartisan action in order to stop that. So I stand ready. But right now, I have not been more concerned. I leave my colleagues with two fundamental facts: No. 1, there are now more refugees in the world than at any time since the end of World War II. No. 2, there are now more crises in the world than at any time since the end of World War II. We cannot sustain the failed policies that have led us to the situation that America and the world are in today. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business and that I be allowed to speak without a time limit.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate proceeds to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 90, as under the previous order, it be in order for me to offer an amendment to the resolution; further, that the amendment be agreed to and all other provisions under the previous order remain in effect.

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I move to concur in the House amendment to S. 1356.