John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Not only grounded but a lot of the air assets, I am to understand, such as Apache helicopters, are in the hands of ISIS.

Mr. McCAIN. That is why I was amused by various commentators who have been consistently wrong, including one in the New York Times today: All we need to do is have everybody sit down together--a total misreading of the situation.

Mr. McCAIN. I cannot. That is why he has to agree to a transition.

Mr. McCAIN. I am totally confident that they can. That is how the country was held together for long periods of time. Could I ask my colleague--I began before the Senator from South Carolina arrived talking about this business of the allegations that somehow it is the Iraqis' fault that we didn't leave a residual force in Iraq. I went through our meetings with Maliki, with Barzani, with Allawi, how they were all committed to maintaining residual force. Could the Senator from South Carolina for the Record recount the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing where he directly questioned General Dempsey about this entire issue, after we had withdrawn?

Mr. McCAIN. This was in a meeting in Baghdad?

Mr. McCAIN. Finally, could I--I see our colleague from Florida is waiting. I think I would like to have the Senator from South Carolina summarize. The cost of inaction, of doing nothing, is the greatest cost we can incur. The situation on the battlefield is not only terrible, but the polarization of the different groups in Iraq is growing worse by the hour. We are seeing the resurgence of the old Shia militias that, thanks to David Petraeus, we had put down before. Iraq is largely under control, thanks to David Petraeus, Ryan Crocker, and the surge in 2011. If we had left--and it is a fact--if we had left that residual force behind, history would be very different. I would add one other comment. We cannot ignore Syria in this situation. We have to understand Syria is now part of this huge area, the size of the State of Indiana, which is governed by ISIS. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I wish to offer my most heartfelt congratulations to Steve and Susan Duprey as they receive the Boy Scouts of America's New Hampshire Distinguished Citizens Award this evening. The Granite State is known for a straightforward and honest approach to politics and life, and a commitment to liberty summed up by its State motto, Live free or die.' Through their longtime dedication to community service and active engagement in the public life of their State and Nation, Steve and Susan embody the great spirit of their State and richly deserve this honor. Steve has been a leader in New Hampshire since he was first elected to the State legislature as a 19-year-old college student. He graduated from law school, built a highly successful real estate development and management company, and served as chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party for four terms. Susan, a land use attorney, has served in leadership positions at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and United Way, among other organizations, and has been involved in Presidential campaigns going back to 1979. Altogether, Steve and Susan have worked on more than 30 national and State Republican campaigns since the 1970s. Susan most recently served as an adviser to Ann Romney during the 2012 campaign. Steve currently serves as New Hampshire's Republican national committeeman where he promotes and protects the vital role of the Granite State's first in the Nation primary. Wherever one looks, the Dupreys are working to serve their State, country and community. In some of the darkest days of my Presidential run in 2007 and 2008-- when more than a few respected pundits declared my campaign over--I could always count on Steve and Susan to stand with me. Without their steadfast support and wise counsel, I don't know if I would have won the Republican nomination. During the general election, Steve traveled throughout the country with me, serving as a trusted adviser. Steve was officially designated as the `Secretary of Fun' on the campaign trail, and could always be counted on to lighten the mood in what can often be a tense and stressful experience. While we lost that campaign, I will always cherish the opportunity to travel this remarkable country and gain more than a few friends, few better than my fellow rebel-rouser Steve Duprey. Congratulations to Steve and Susan--you deserve this recognition. Enjoy the evening.

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 to be recognized in morning business.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, when I first exercised congressional oversight of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program in 2010--at that time I was the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee--I saw a program in turmoil. Perhaps the most significant indication of that was that while the program had exploded from its original overly optimistic development cost estimates by more than $15 billion and was delayed by 5 years, without the prospect of delivering needed warfighting capability anywhere on the horizon, the program's prime contractor consistently received most of those award fees that were available to it under its contracts with the government. Let me repeat. The contractor continued to receive award fees that were supposed to be given in case of the program meeting certain milestones. In fact, it exceeded the cost estimates by $15 billion and was delayed by 5 years. Since 2010 major challenges have continued to arise. Just days ago the Department of Defense grounded the entire F-35 fleet because of an in-flight emergency involving a leak of engine oil. This is the second grounding of the F-35 fleet due to engine problems in the last 16 months. Much work remains to be done in the program, including validating design and operational performance; installing state-of-the-art flight and combat software programs--those programs are still being written-- and making the F-35 affordable, with life-cycle costs estimated at more than $1 trillion--the first weapons system in the history of this country that is estimated to cost $1 trillion. While the Government Accountability Office has said the program is ``moving in the right direction,'' this is clearly a program that has had and continues to have major problems. With this in mind, I was greatly concerned when I read an article last week entitled ``Carter: JSF Program Manager Based F-35 Award Fees on Desire to Protect Lockheed Exec.'' It was on InsideDefense.com. The article describes comments made by former Deputy Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter--a man I admire a great deal--in a speech at Harvard University on May 16, 2014. He revealed that while the Joint Strike Fighter Program was suffering from massive cost growth and scheduling delays, the government's program manager for JSF consistently awarded prime contractor Lockheed Martin most of its available award fees due to concern about the job security of his Lockheed Martin counterpart. Appropriately, the Department of Defense fired its program manager, a Marine Corps two-star general, in February 2010. While that official had been giving away millions of taxpayers' dollars to his friend in the industry, regardless of how exceedingly poor the Joint Strike Fighter Program was performing, independent cost estimates were briefing the Pentagon that the Joint Strike Fighter Program might exceed its original budget estimates by as much as $60 billion. To understand why the cost to procure these fighters exploded, then- Deputy Secretary of Defense Carter requested a breakdown of F-35 costs and challenged the program manager as to why he had been giving Lockheed Martin upward of 85 percent of the maximum award fee it could have earned. As Secretary Carter recounted, that official said: I like the program manager on the Lockheed Martin side that I work with. And he tells me that if he gets less than an 85- percent award fee, he is going to get fired. This is totally unacceptable. It is the kind of cronyism that should make us all vigilant against, as President Eisenhower warned us over 50 years ago, the ``military industrial complex.'' In this case, it appears taxpayers paid a massive premium for the friendship between the government's and the contractor's program managers. As disturbing as these recent revelations are, this incident also raises a few other questions. For example, why were award fee criteria that exposed those Joint Strike Fighter Program contracts to the risk of being abused in exactly this way originally negotiated into that contract? Why would the contract allow such a thing? Where was this program manager's superiors, the Service Acquisition Executive, and particularly on the Joint Strike Fighter Program the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics? What about his superiors. Were they not supposed to be overseeing how and why he was awarding Lockheed Martin fees throughout the relevant period? This whole episode underscores the importance of ethics in government contracting. If the program manager or the program executive officers, senior officials in the acquisition chain of command do not recognize the fiduciary responsibility they have to the taxpayer in their stewardship of defense dollars, any attempt to reform the defense procurement process or otherwise exercise vigilance vis-a-vis the military industrial complex will fail. This episode also emphasizes the importance of the trade craft of government procurement contracting. Those skills and judgment that comprise the trade craft of government procurement contracting provide government acquisition managers with the tools he or she needs to keep the ``unwarranted influence'' of the military industrial complex at bay and make sure the product or service to be delivered into his or her watch will be delivered on time, with the required capability, and at a reasonable cost. That starts with structuring government procurement contracts properly so that given the nature of the work and the deliverables being placed on contract, one, exactly the kind of performance that is important to the government in a given program is being incentivized, and, two, the government is incentivizing its industry partner to render that performance effectively. If in a given program the performance that is important to us is cost control, as it should have been in the case of the Joint Strike Fighter Program development contracts, why were we even using an award fee as opposed to an incentive fee contract? By their very nature, incentive fee contracts provide that the cost of overruns be shared between industry and government and therefore incentivizes prime contractors to minimize them. This, of course, has not been a problem that has been limited to the Joint Strike Fighter Program. For years we have seen a widespread use of award fee contracts, including those that support major defense acquisition programs with subjective measures of award fees not clearly tied to cost control. Any internal Department of Defense guidance that simply prescribes the use of ``appropriate'' contract types that are not accompanied by effective guidance and training on exactly how contract types should be tailored to a given product or service should be viewed with skepticism. This matter, and indeed the broader possibility that the episode that Dr. Carter alluded to in his speech may be more pervasive throughout the whole of government than we realize and should concern all congressional committees of jurisdiction, inspectors general, and Americans who value how their taxpayer dollars are being used. I repeat: As a proud supporter of our Nation's defense, as an outspoken opponent of sequestration and the damage it is doing to our Nation and our ability to defend it, when we look at a program such as this, where it exceeded its original cost estimates by more than $15 billion and more than 5 years of delay and there are still problems with the most expensive weapons system in history, and the first time $1 trillion is being spent on one weapons system, we need to do a lot better. One of the actions that has to be taken, which has not been taken, is holding people accountable. I remember talking at a hearing and asking the Chief of Naval Operations about the USS Gerald R. Ford, their brandnew aircraft carrier. It had a $3 billion cost overrun. I asked the Chief of Naval Operations who was responsible. The Chief of Naval operations said he did not know. That is absolutely unacceptable. So what we are doing by these terrible cost overruns--and the list goes on and on. I will come to the floor one of these days with a long list of programs that did not even reach fruition, that were canceled, such as the Future Combat System Program that the Army was touting for many years, for which we got zero return at a cost, as I recall, of over $3 billion. Unless we fix this cost overrun problem, the American people will stop supporting spending money on defense. That is just a fact. It is time we in Congress exercised much greater oversight, much greater scrutiny, much greater questioning, both before, during, and after the acquisition process. I strongly recommend the work of inspectors general. I strongly recommend using the Government Accountability Office, which is one of our most important tools. I strongly recommend using committee staffs and sending them to the places where these weapons systems are being assembled to get detailed briefings because this has to stop. I am getting a little bit repetitious over the years saying it has to stop, but when we look at the strains and the challenges around this globe that are taking place now, from the China Sea to Iraq, we are going to have to have a strong national defense. We cannot have that with these outrageous and unacceptable cost overruns. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 Senator Graham be allowed to engage in a colloquy with me and that we may take such time as we may consume.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning with great sorrow and great concern and an even deep alarm about the events that are transpiring rapidly in Iraq. ISIS, the most extreme Islamist organization, radical terrorist organization, now controls at least one-third of Iraqi territory. It is rapidly gaining more. The areas of Fallujah, Mosul, Tikrit, they are on the outsides of Samarra. With these victories, ISIS controls a swath of territory that stretches from the Syrian-Turkish frontier in the north, down to the Euphrates River, all of the way down to the Iraqi city of Fallujah, just 40 miles west of Baghdad. Of course, hourly they are experiencing greater gains while the Iraqi military and police seem to be dissolving before our very eyes. ISIS social media published pictures of their fighters demolishing the sand berm which hitherto marked the border between Syria and Iraq, an interesting symbolic gesture. ISIS released footage of large numbers of weapons and armored military vehicles being received by members in eastern Syria, confirming fears that the looted weapons would fuel the insurgency on both sides, both Syria and Iraq. Sources in the Syrian city of Hasaka confirmed that large numbers of trucks, convoys of trucks, carrying weapons, arrived late on Tuesday and were met by a senior ISIS figure Omar al-Chechani. General Keane, the architect of the surge said: This organization [speaking of ISIS] has grown into a military organization that is no longer conducting terrorist activities exclusively but is conducting conventional military operations. They are attacking Iraqi military positions with company--and battalion--size formations. And in the face of that the Iraqi security forces have not been able to stand up to it. The most frightening part is that ISIS's strength will only grow after today. It will use the cash reserves from Mosul's banks, the military equipment seized from military and police bases, and the release of 3,000 fighters from local jails to bolster its military and financial capacity. ISIS has now become the richest terror group ever, even after looting $429 million from Mosul's central bank. The governor confirmed Kurdish television reports that ISIS militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. Most disturbing is as the Iraqi security forces are collapsing, Kurdish and Shia militias are, to some degree, filling the vacuum. The story goes on and on, including the fact that the International Organization for Migration says that as many as 500,000 citizens have fled Mosul. There are reports of tens of thousands of citizens forced from their homes in other areas as fighting escalates across northern and central Iraq. Then the question arises: Could all of this have been avoided? The answer is absolutely yes--absolutely yes. I think it is probably the height of ego to quote one's self, but I think it is important to have again on the record what I said during this whole process when the only goal of the President of the United States was to leave Iraq and Afghanistan--and he is about to make the same mistake in Afghanistan that he did in Iraq. Those of us who knew Iraq, who knew Al Qaeda, who knew how vital and how fragile the Iraqi Government is--the day the President announced that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year, I said on October 21, 2011: Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world. I respectfully disagree with the President: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East. . . . Nearly 4,500 Americans have given their lives for our mission in Iraq. Countless more have been wounded. I fear that all of the gains made possible by these brave Americans in Iraq at such grave cost are now at risk. On November 15, 2011, in the Senate Armed Services Committee, when Ambassador Crocker said it was a mistake, I said--and I will not give the whole statement, but I said: We cannot avoid the fact that Iraq's progress is now at greater risk than at any time since the dark days before the surge, and that it did not have to be this way. Finally, on December 14, 2011, the day the President triumphed, visited Fort Bragg to mark the end--in his view, the end of the Iraq war--I said: Over 4,000 brave young Americans gave their lives in this conflict. I pray that their sacrifice is not in vain. . . . Unfortunately, it is clear that this decision of a complete pullout of United States troops from Iraq was dictated by politics, and not our national security interests. I believe that history will judge this President's leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves. Of course, we know the United States rebuffed, according to the New York Times today, in an article by Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt, the United States refused Maliki's request to strike against the militants' strategic disaster, assisted by withdrawal from Iraq. Iraq's terrorists are becoming a full-blown army. One of the smartest guys I have encountered, a man named Dexter Filkins, has great experience. He has an article in the New Yorker, ``In Extremists' Iraq Rise, America's Legacy.'' When the Americans invaded, in March, 2003, they destroyed the Iraqi state. He continues: The negotiations between Obama and Maliki fell apart, in no small measure because of a lack of engagement by the White House. Today, many Iraqis, including some close to Maliki, say that a small force of American soldiers--working in non- combat roles--would have provided a crucial stabilizing factor that is now missing from Iraq. Sami al-Askari, a Maliki confidant, told me for my article this spring, ``If you had a few hundred here, not even a few thousand, they would be cooperating with you, and they would become your partners.'' President Obama wanted the Americans to come home, and Maliki didn't particularly want them the to stay. The trouble is, as the events of this week show, what the Americans left behind was an Iraqi state that was not able to stand on its own. What we built is now coming apart. This is the real legacy of America's war in Iraq. If I sound angry, it is because I am angry, because during this whole period of time, for example, the Washington Post, in an editorial this morning called ``The Iraq success.'' Denis McDonough, then deputy national security adviser and now White House chief of staff, told reporters in 2011 that Mr. Obama ``said what we are looking for is an Iraq that's secure, stable and self-reliant, and that's exactly what we got here. So there's no question this is a success.'' Sometime we are going to hold people responsible for their policies as well as their words. To declare that a conflict is over does not mean it necessarily is over. There is a great piece by Daniel Henninger this morning in the Wall Street Journal entitled, ``While Obama Fiddles.'' Meanwhile, Iraq may be transforming into (a) a second Syria or (b) a restored caliphate. Past some point, the world's wildfires are going to consume the Obama legacy. And leave his successor a nightmare. What needs to be done now? Every hour the options become fewer and fewer as ISIS, the most radical Islamist terrorist group alive, sweeps across Iraq and now, according to the latest reports, is even threatening Baghdad, that there are signs of further deterioration of the Iraqi military. What do we need to do now? Obviously, the first thing I think we need to do is call together the people who succeeded in Iraq, those who have been retired, and get together that group and place them in positions of responsibility so they can develop a policy to reverse this tide of radical Islamist extremism, which directly threatens the security of the United States of America, and it is time the President got a new national security team. It is time he got a group of people together who know what it is to succeed in conflict. I would say the leader of that would be General Petraeus. I would say General Mattis is one. I would say General Keane is another one. I would say Bob Kagan is another one. There is a group of people, along with myself and the Senator from South Carolina, who predicted every single one of these events because of an American lack of reliability and American weakness--and the President of the United States declaring that conflicts are at an end when they are not--an exit from Iraq and now an exit from Afghanistan without a strategy and without victory. So drastic measures need to be taken. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is one who has gone along with this policy for a long time. We need a new Chairman. We need a new National Security Adviser. We need a new team. We need a new team that knows what America's national security interests are and are more interested in national security than they are in politics. I come to this floor with great sadness because all of this could have been avoided. There is no inevitability about what is taking place in Iraq. Iraq is a faraway place, but ask any intelligence leader in this country and that leader will tell you this poses--a takeover of Iraq in the Iraq-Syria area--which is now the largest concentration of Al Qaeda in history--is a direct threat to the United States of America. Our Director of National Intelligence, General Clapper, has said in open testimony that this concentration of Al Qaeda-oriented and Al Qaeda-affiliated groups will be planning attacks on the United States of America. The saddest part about all of this to me is the fact that 4,400 young Americans lost their lives, thousands lost their limbs. Thousands are scarred for life because of the experience they had serving in Iraq. They had it won. In the words of General Petraeus: We won the war and lost the peace. That is a direct responsibility of the President of the United States, who is the Commander in Chief. But I grieve for those families who lost their loved ones, who fought so bravely, and made such sacrifices. To see all of that, all of that success, where the surge succeeded, thanks to one of the finest generals in history, GEN David Petraeus, we see this all now torn asunder because of a policy of withdrawal without victory. When those withdrawals and that policy were being orchestrated, the Senator from South Carolina, I, and others, stood and said: Please don't do this. Please leave a small force behind in Iraq. We are begging now, please leave a small force in Afghanistan. The Afghans have no air capabilities. The Taliban will come back and all of the sacrifice in Afghanistan will be made in vain. So at least take immediate action to try to break the advance of ISIS across Iraq today but also revisit the decision to completely withdraw from Afghanistan because the Taliban is still alive and well. Because the President of the United States declares a conflict is over does not mean, in the eyes of the enemy, it is over. Conflicts end when the enemy is defeated. The Iraq war did not end because the forces within Iraq were still undefeated. The conflict in Afghanistan will not be over 2 years from now in 2017, when the final American is scheduled to leave Afghanistan. Please learn the lessons. I say to the President of the United States: Get a new national security team in place. You have been ill-served by the national security team and the decisions that you have in place now and the decisions that you made, and have that new national security team come up with a strategy, a strategy to do whatever we can to prevent this direct threat to the national security of this Nation, the security of this Nation. Of all the visits the former Senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and I made every Fourth of July, two or three times a year, traveling the country, and having been in the company of not just great leaders such as General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker but the young men and women: the privates, the corporals, especially the sergeants--these brave men and women who were serving and who were willing to sacrifice on behalf of somebody else's freedom they believe they had won, the surge succeeded. Any military expert will tell us the surge succeeded. But it was won at great sacrifice. Among other cities, the black flags of Al Qaeda fly over the city of Fallujah today. Ninety-six brave soldiers and marines were killed and 600 wounded. What do we tell their families? What do we tell their mothers? So it is not too late. America is still the most powerful nation on earth. We still have the finest and strongest military ever. We have the finest young men and women who are serving in it ever. It is not too late. But we have to have a dramatic reversal of course before the situation gets to the point where, as the Director of National Intelligence has stated, this will be an area where attacks on the United States of America will be orchestrated. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the referenced articles be printed in the Record.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I am pleased to join Senator Levin today in calling on the Senate to take up and pass by unanimous consent the Swiss tax protocol and other tax treaties pending before the Senate. The importance of these treaties cannot be overstated. They would aid U.S. companies by allowing for certainty in tax treatment when those companies engage in international commerce and trade by preventing double taxation and ensuring they have the backing of the Treasury Department in the case of conflicts with foreign tax authorities. Furthermore, they would allow our government to be on stronger footing in holding tax cheats accountable, an issue Senator Levin and I are particularly familiar with given our recent investigation, as chairman and ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, into offshore tax schemes carried out by Credit Suisse. On the heels of that investigation, Credit Suisse recently paid a $2.6 billion fine and pled guilty to criminal charges, admitting to facilitating tax evasion for their U.S. clients. Taking advantage of Switzerland's opaque banking practices, Credit Suisse became a safe haven for tax evasion. The clients seeking these services and the bank itself believed that they were, and would remain, outside the reach of U.S. tax authorities. The recent guilty plea proves that this belief was at least partly mistaken. This criminal penalty was a welcome development, but it was also lacking in several ways, including that, as part of the agreement, the U.S. government did not require the bank to turn over the names of the U.S. clients holding secret bank accounts with Credit Suisse. With more than 20,000 unidentified Americans having held accounts at Credit Suisse in Switzerland during the relevant period (most of whom never disclosed their accounts as required by U.S. law) this agreement provided no direct accountability for those taxes owed. We need to ensure this does not happen again. The Swiss tax protocol we are discussing today would make it easier to get those names and account information. Working under the assumption that the United States would be unable to pierce the veil of Swiss bank secrecy, U.S. persons have secreted their money away in countries such as Switzerland for far too long. Passing this treaty is necessary to prove this assumption wrong and to deter future attempts at tax evasion. It will send a strong message to those who would consider violating U.S. tax laws that we enforce our laws, fairly and uniformly, and we have the tools at our disposal to do so. At the Credit Suisse hearing, the bank's CEO, Brady Dougan, said, ``Credit Suisse is ready, at this moment, to provide the additional information about Swiss accounts requested by U.S. authorities but has been unable to do so because the U.S. Senate has not yet ratified the protocol.'' Let's call his bluff and remove anything that may stand in the way of allowing the bank to provide U.S. authorities with information about those accounts. These routine and important tax treaties were reported out favorably by the Foreign Relations Committee on April 1. For all of these reasons, I urge the Senate to consider and pass these treaties.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, we have not completed this legislation, and we may be subject to a budget point of order. It is not clear yet whether there will be one, but according to this unanimous consent agreement, there will be no amendments filed prior to a vote on final passage either with or without a budget point of order being considered by the body. We will have time between now and then to have an indepth discussion of the provisions of this legislation. In the meantime, I thank the Senator from Vermont for his willingness to make very difficult compromises. I also thank many of my colleagues who have forgone the amending process in order that we may expedite this legislation, which if there is a definition for emergency, I would say this legislation fits that appellation. It is an emergency. What is happening to our veterans and the men and women who have served this country needs to be addressed, and we need to pass this legislation and get it to conference with the House as soon as possible. I especially mention two people who are really responsible for this legislation, and I say--with not typical modesty--that they were the ones who were really responsible for the provisions of this bill; that is, Senator Burr, ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and Senator Coburn, whom I view, in many respects, as the conscience of the Senate. Those two individuals were largely responsible for this legislation, and I am obviously very proud to be a part of it. Again, we will have time to discuss this legislation, but I extend my appreciation to the Senator from Vermont whose chairmanship of the Veterans' Affairs Committee has been conducted with patriotism and with the needs of our veterans uppermost in his priorities. I thank the Senator from Vermont, and I look forward to our passing this legislation and getting it to conference in as short a period of time as is possible so we can bring it back to this body and then to the President's desk for signature. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time is on both sides?

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Senator from Alabama to have 6 minutes, and I ask unanimous consent for 4 additional minutes for this side, following the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. McCAIN. Does the Senator from Vermont want to go ahead?

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I wish to thank a lot of people, including the staffs of the committees, Senator Sanders' staff, Dahlia Melendez and Travis Murphy; Senator Burr's staff, Natasha Hickman, Maureen O'Neill, Anna Abram, and Victoria Lee; Senator Coburn's staff, Jabari White; my own staff, Elizabeth Lopez, Jeremy Hayes, and Joe Donoghue, and all the hard work that has gone into this legislation. I think it is well known to my colleagues that this is an unprecedented piece of legislation in that for the first time it is going to provide our veterans with a choice. There are many other provisions I would like to discuss also but have been, and I am sure my colleague from Vermont will be addressing those. There are, according to a recent VA audit, over 57,000 veterans who have been waiting for an appointment for over 3 months to see a physician at the VA. Over 63,000 veterans over the past 10 years have never been able to get an appointment at all. There are allegations in the Phoenix VA hospital that 40 veterans have died. Today, June 11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a criminal investigation into allegedly misleading scheduling practices at the Department of Veterans Affairs that may have concealed how long veterans had to wait for appointments to see a doctor. ``Our Phoenix office has opened a criminal investigation,'' FBI Director James Comey said in response to a lawmaker's question at a hearing Wednesday. If that is not an emergency, I do not know what is. If it is not an emergency that the very lives of the men and women who have served our country with honor and distinction are being either jeopardized or allegations of absolutely being lost through malpractice and malfeasance, if that is not an emergency, I have never seen one before this body. I urge my colleagues to vote this for what it is, this budget point of order. This is an emergency. If it is not an emergency that we have neglected the brave men and women who have served this country and keep us free, than I do not know what an emergency is. Hard work has been done on this legislation, hard work and a lot of compromises. I am happy to see that the majority of the veterans service organizations are now in support of it. Is it a perfect piece of legislation? No. Is it exactly what I wanted? No. Is it exactly what the Senator from Vermont wanted? Absolutely not. But this is an emergency. I tell my colleagues, if it is not an emergency of how we care for those who have served on the field of battle, then nothing else is before this body. It breaks our hearts. It breaks American's hearts when they hear and see these stories of those brave men and women and the neglect they have suffered, the lack of a fulfillment of an obligation we made to them. I hope we will vote against this budget point of order. I hope we will vote unanimously, 100 to 0, to pass this legislation, send it to the House, go to conference, get it to the President's desk, and start healing the wounds that have been inflicted on these men and women. There is no way we can ever compensate for those who have gone without the treatment they have earned, but at least we can expeditiously fix this problem to the best of our ability. Is this the ultimate and final solution to those problems that have been uncovered? No, but it is a beginning. It is not the end of the beginning, it is a beginning. There will be more proposals before us. There will be more efforts to fix this gaping wound in America's conscience. I urge my colleagues to vote to waive the budget point of order. This is an emergency. I urge my colleagues to vote for the bill. Again, I thank everyone for their involvement, especially Senator Burr and Senator Coburn.

Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent for 5 minutes for Dr. Coburn.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN. I apologize if I am being redundant here, but how does the Senator from Texas explain to the American people how we have gone from, in 2011, when we start this chart, from 6,000, to now the projection, 3 years later, of over 60,000 and some say as many as 90,000? But let's say it is 60,000. Does this not have to be some kind of orchestrated, organized effort to account for this dramatic increase? If it is, who is doing it?

Mr. McCAIN. Additionally, though, these children--when you are saying especially the very young ones, there has to be some kind of organized effort that is bringing them. The average 5-year-old or 6-year-old does not decide to leave home one day and come across the U.S.-Mexican border.