John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question, just one question?

Mr. McCAIN. Isn't it true that the people with whom the conference would be held on the other side of the Capitol happen to be a majority of our party? So we don't trust the majority party on the other side of the aisle to come to conference and not hold to the fiscal discipline we want to see happen; isn't that a little bit bizarre?

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, today I honor a superb leader, scholar, and warrior. After a lifetime of service to our Nation, ADM James G. Stavridis is retiring from the U.S. Navy and his position as Commander of the United States European Command. On this occasion, I believe it is fitting to recognize Admiral Stavridis' years of distinguished uniformed service to our Nation. The admiral is a 1976 distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He has led at every level from command-at-sea to theater command. Admiral Stavridis has also served as a strategic planner for the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as the senior military assistant to the Secretary of Defense. Prior to assuming command of the United States European Command, he commanded the U.S. Southern Command, focused on Latin America and the Caribbean. Admiral Stavridis assumed command of European Command on June 30, 2009, the first naval officer to hold this command. Admiral Stavridis' contributions to scholarship are also notable. He has graduated with distinction from the Naval Academy, the Naval War College, the National War College, and the Fletcher School at Tufts University, where he earned a doctorate of philosophy in international relations. He has been frequently published by many publications, including Foreign Affairs, and the United States Naval Institute's Proceedings. Admiral Stavridis was even featured in a 2012 TED Global where he spoke about the future of global security. His leadership has been consistently recognized formally and informally, to include the Battenberg Cup for the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet, and the John Paul Jones Award for inspirational leadership. Admiral Stavridis' impact on the sailors and the fleet has been indelible. He is the author or coauthor of seminal works on naval leadership, including ``Command At Sea.'' His impact on soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines will continue well into the future. Our Navy and our Nation will feel his absence. I join many past and present members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in my gratitude to ADM James Stavridis for his outstanding leadership and his unwavering support of servicemembers. I wish him and his wife Laura ``fair winds and following seas.''

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up the Feinstein-McCain amendment No. 923 and make it pending.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, if I heard the Senator correctly, she committed to a vote on this amendment, correct?

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. McCAIN. Does that mean we would vote on this early on?

Mr. McCAIN. I thank the distinguished manager. Since I have the floor, I would like to make a brief statement about the amendment. I understand the objection, and I would rely on the good offices of the manager of the bill, as well as the ranking member, that we would have a vote early on in regard to this amendment and not at the last minute when we are trying to complete the votes on the amendments to the bill. The amendment by Senator Feinstein and me would eliminate taxpayer- subsidized crop insurance for tobacco. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this amendment would save taxpayers $333 million. Again, that is the estimate of the Congressional Budget Office. It might surprise Americans to know that despite efforts to end traditional farm subsidies for tobacco producers, government handouts for tobacco lives on in the form of highly subsidized crop insurance. Since 2004 we have spent more than $276 million on insurance subsidies for tobacco. This is in addition to the $10 billion financed under the tobacco buyout law the Congress passed a decade ago. That law was paid for by assessments on cigarette manufacturers, and it was meant to wean tobacco growers from farm subsidies by buying out their growing quotas. Well, it turns out that Joe Camel's nose has been under the tent all this time in the form of these hidden crop insurance subsidies. As my colleagues know, crop insurance in general has a dubious reputation as a ``safety net'' for farmers because it largely insures against revenue loss instead of crop loss due to weather or pests. According to the Congressional Research Service, taxpayers spend about $14 billion a year to subsidize about 60 percent of the cost of crop insurance premiums. The Federal Government also reimburses private crop insurance companies for about 25 percent of their ``administrative and operating'' costs. We have identified eight types of tobacco that are eligible for crop insurance: tobacco Maryland, tobacco flue cured, tobacco fire cured, tobacco dark air, tobacco cigar wrapper, tobacco cigar filler, tobacco cigar binder, and tobacco burley. All of these crops remain extremely profitable even without their old farm subsidies. According to reports by the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, tobacco is 10 times more profitable than corn and most American tobacco is exported. In fact, the value of American tobacco is at a 10-year high since Congress ended traditional tobacco subsidies. It makes no sense to subsidize tobacco insurance considering how well the free market system is working for tobacco producers. I will have a longer statement on this, Mr. President. Last year the eight separate tobacco insurance products cost $34.7 million in taxpayer subsidies. The USDA--Department of Agriculture-- data shows that more than $276 million in taxpayer subsidies has been spent on this tobacco subsidy program since 2004. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking adds $96 billion to domestic health care expenses and costs the American economy $97 billion in loss productivity annually. Secondhand smoke adds another $10 billion in health care costs and lost productivity. Clearly, we should be doing nothing to subsidize production of tobacco. I am not saying we should ban the growth of tobacco in America; that is a decision farmers and the market make. But for us to continue to subsidize when these enormous costs are borne by the American people in terms of our health and our economy--it is time we ended it. I thank the distinguished manager and ranking member for their commitment to having an up-or-down vote on this amendment. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I honor an outstanding leader and public servant. After over 30 years of service to our Nation both in and out of uniform, Secretary Michael Donley is retiring from his current position as Secretary of the U.S. Air Force. On this occasion, I believe it is fitting to recognize Secretary Donley's years of service to our great Nation. Mr. Donley has over 30 years of experience in the national security community, including service in the Senate, White House, and the Pentagon, as well as in the private sector. Mr. Donley served in the U.S. Army from 1972 to 1975 with the XVIIIth Airborne Corps and 5th Special Forces Group, Airborne. He was also a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mr. Donley supported two Presidents and five National Security Advisers during his service at the National Security Council from 1984 to 1989. He conceived and organized the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, coordinated White House policy on the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986, and wrote the national security strategy for President Reagan's second term. Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Donley served as the Director of Administration and Management in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley will retire from public service June 21, after nearly 5 years in the position. Prior to his confirmation as the Secretary of the Air Force, he served as Acting Secretary--making him the longest serving Secretary of the Air Force in the service's history. Secretary Michael Donley's leadership will be missed throughout the government. I join many past and present members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in my gratitude to Secretary Donley for his outstanding leadership and his unwavering support of servicemembers. Secretary Donley's service has enabled the Air Force to continue to fly, fight, and win in air, space, and cyberspace. I wish him fair winds and following seas.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I and my colleagues are here to speak about Syria. The strategic and humanitarian costs of this conflict continue to be devastating, not just for the people of Syria but for vital American interests. As today's Washington Post editorial makes clear, nearly all of the terrible consequences that those opposed to intervention predicted would happen if we intervened in Syria have happened because we have not. There is mounting evidence that chemical weapons have been used by the Asad regime. As many of our colleagues have noted--including Senator Feinstein, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee-- President Obama's redline on Syria has been crossed. But instead of acting, the Obama administration has called for additional evidence to be collected by U.N. investigators who have not yet set foot in Syria and probably never will. In the absence of more robust action, I fear it will not be long before Asad takes this delay as an invitation to use chemical weapons again on an even larger scale. Moreover, as I have said before, by drawing a redline on chemical weapons, the President actually gave the Asad regime a green light to use every other weapon in his arsenal with impunity. More than 70,000 Syrians have been killed indiscriminately with snipers, artillery, helicopter gunships, fighter jets, and even ballistic missiles. Indeed, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, more than 4,300 civilians have been killed by Syria's airstrikes alone since July 2012. At the same time, Iran and its proxy Hezbollah are building a network of militias inside Syria and the al-Qaida-aligned al-Nusra Front has gained unprecedented strength on the ground. According to estimates published in the media, some believe there were no more than a few hundred al-Nusra fighters in Syria last year, but today it is widely believed there could be thousands of extremist fighters inside Syria. They are gaining strength by the day because they are the best, most experienced fighters. They are well-funded and are providing humanitarian assistance in the parts of Syria where people need it most. At the same time, this conflict is having increasingly devastating consequences to the security and stability of our allies and partners in Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Lebanon. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has characterized the situation in Syria as an ``existential threat'' for Lebanon, where the government estimates that 1 million Syrians have entered the country--1 million Syrians have entered the country of Lebanon--which has a population of just over 4 million. Similarly, over the past 2 years, more than 500,000 Syrians have flooded into Jordan, a country of only 6 million people. Consider for a moment that in proportional terms this would be equivalent to 26 million refugees, or the entire population of Texas, suddenly crossing our own borders. In short, Syria is becoming a failed state in the heart of the Middle East overrun by thousands of al-Qaida-affiliated fighters, with possibly tons of chemical weapons, and poised to ignite a wider sectarian conflict that could profoundly destabilize the region. Yesterday brought news that the administration plans to organize, together with Russia, an international peace conference later this month to seek a negotiated settlement to the war in Syria. All of us-- all of us--are in favor of such a political resolution to this conflict. No one wants to see this conflict turn into a fight to the death and total victory for one side or the other. We all want to work toward a political settlement that forms a new governing structure in Syria reflective of the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people. But let's be realistic. One of the lessons of the past 2 years is that such a negotiated settlement will not be possible in Syria until the balance of power shifts more decisively against Asad and those around him. Until Asad, as well as his Iranian, Hezbollah, and Russian backers no longer believe they are winning, what incentive do they have to come to the table and make a deal? This is what two well-meaning United Nations senior envoys have already learned. Yes, Syrian opposition forces are gaining strength and territory on the ground. But Asad still has air power--a decisive factor in that climate, in that terrain--ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, and a host of other advanced weaponry, and he is using all of it. Furthermore, today's news reports that Russia has agreed to sell an advanced air defense system to the Asad regime should lead us once again to ask ourselves whether the path to peace in Syria runs through Moscow. I know Americans are war-weary and eager to focus on our domestic and economic problems and not foreign affairs. I also know the situation in Syria is complex and there are no ideal options. But the basic choice we face is not complicated: Do the costs of inaction outweigh the costs of action? I believe they do. No one should think the United States has to act alone, put boots on the ground, or destroy every Syrian air defense system to make a difference for the better in Syria. We have more limited options at our disposal, including limited military options, that can make a positive impact on this crisis. We could, for example, organize an overt and large-scale operation to train and arm well-vetted Syrian opposition forces--a course of action that was recommended last year by President Obama's entire national security team. I am encouraged that Senator Menendez, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has introduced legislation this week on this very issue and that he is speaking out about the need for more robust action in Syria, including addressing Asad's air power. As several key leaders in our own military have pointed out in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee over the past several months--from Gen. James Mattis to ADM James Stavridis--we have the capacity--we have the capacity--to significantly weaken both the Asad regime's air power and its increasing use of ballistic missiles, which pose significant risks as delivery vehicles for chemical weapons. To address this threat, we could use our precision strike capabilities to target Asad's aircraft and Scud missile launchers on the ground without our pilots having to fly into the teeth of Syria's air defenses. Similar weapons could be used to selectively destroy artillery pieces and make Asad's forces think twice about remaining at their posts. We could use the Patriot missile batteries outside of Syria to help protect safe zones inside Syria from Asad's aerial bombing and missile attacks. Would any of these options immediately end the conflict? Probably not. But they could save innocent lives in Syria. They could give the moderate opposition a better chance to succeed in marginalizing radical actors and eventually provide security and responsible governance in Syria after Asad falls. However, the longer we wait, the worse the situation gets and the tougher it will be to confront, as we will inevitably be forced to do sooner or later. I am encouraged that a consensus is emerging and many of our colleagues--Democrats and Republicans alike--share this view. I note the leadership of Senator Levin, the chairman of our Armed Services Committee, whom I joined in writing a letter to President Obama urging him to take more active steps in Syria. I also note the important voice Senator Bob Casey has lent to this debate and ask unanimous consent that his op-ed printed last week in the Huffington Post, ``Time to Act in Syria''--which calls for consideration of more options, including cruise missile strikes to neutralize the Syrian Air Force--be printed in the Record.

Mr. McCAIN. Let me conclude with one final thought. For America, our interests are our values and our values are our interests. The moral dimension cannot be lost from our foreign policy. If ever a case should remind us of this, it is Syria. Leon Wieseltier captured this point powerfully in the New Republic this week: Seventy thousand people have died in the Syrian war, most of them at the hands of their ruler. Since this number has appeared in the papers for many months, the actual number must be much higher. The slaughter is unceasing. But the debate about American intervention is increasingly conducted in ``realist'' terms: the threat to American interests posed by jihadism in Syria, the intrigues of Iran and Hezbollah, the rattling of Israel, the ruination of Jordan and Lebanon and Iraq. They are all good reasons for the president of the United States to act like the president of the United States. But wouldn't the prevention of ethnic cleansing and genocidal war be reason enough? Is the death of scores and even hundreds of thousands, and the displacement of millions, less significant for American policy, and less quickening? The moral dimension must be restored to our deliberations, the moral sting, or else Obama, for all his talk about conscience, will have presided over a terrible mutilation of American discourse: the severance of conscience from action. Nearly two decades ago, I worked with Democratic and Republican colleagues in Congress to support President Clinton as he led America to do the right thing in stopping mass atrocities in Bosnia. The question for another President today, and for all Americans, is whether we will again answer the desperate pleas for rescue that are made uniquely to us, as the United States of America. I, first, would ask both of my colleagues one question, if it would be all right. There is news today that the Secretary of State wants to convene a conference, including the Russians, in order to try to bring about a resolution at the same time we read reports that the Russians are selling Syria the most advanced weapons. I guess I would ask my colleague from South Carolina and then Senator Levin because I know he has a statement.

Mr. McCAIN. I thank the distinguished chairman. May I say, it has been a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity to serve on the Foreign Relations Committee, of which Senator Menendez is the chairman. I think his stewardship of that committee has been outstanding. I appreciate the very articulate argument the chairman just presented, including the strategic dimension of this whole issue which sometimes in our--particularly, when you focus so much on the humanitarian side, the strategic interest of the fall of Bashar Al-Asad is something which I think adds another dimension. I thank the Senator and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. McCAIN. Can I just ask one question of my colleague? I understand recently he made a trip to the Middle East. There is nothing like seeing the terrible consequences of war. I understand the Senator visited a refugee camp. Maybe for the benefit of our colleagues the Senator could take a minute to describe the horrible conditions people who have now been made refugees have been subjected to and their failure to understand why we won't be able to be of more assistance to them.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a Washington Post editorial entitled ``Repercussions Of Inaction,'' a Wall Street Journal article, ``U.S. Is Warned Russia Plans Syria Arms Sale,'' and, finally, a piece by Leon Wieseltier that is in the Washington Diarist.

Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleagues. I yield.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that myself, Senator Levin, Senator Menendez, and Senator Graham be permitted to participate in a colloquy for up to 40 minutes.

Mr. McCAIN. If it is agreeable to Senator Levin, I say to my friend from South Carolina, we could each make a brief opening statement, maybe a 6-, 7-minute opening statement, and then maybe have a colloquy amongst us. Is that agreeable to the Senator from Michigan?

Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleagues. I wish to thank my dear friend from South Carolina whose efforts on another issue in Benghazi have brought the attention of the American people to a tragic situation that happened there. We need to place responsibility for it, and if it had not been for his tenacity and effort on this issue, I do not believe it would have been brought to the attention of the American people yesterday. So I wish to thank him for his usual and unusual continuation of efforts on behalf of the families who were killed.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, before the Senator from Pennsylvania leaves the floor, I would like to thank him for his forthright and courageous statement on the situation in Syria. I thank him for his involvement and his commitment to the freedom of the people of Syria. (The remarks of Mr. McCain pertaining to the introduction of S. 912 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Today I am introducing the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013. The legislation has three principal objectives: One, encourage the wholesale and retail unbundling of programming by distributors and programmers. Allow the consumer, the television viewer who subscribes to cable, to have a la carte capability--in other words, not be required to buy a whole bunch of channels that consumer may not wish to subscribe to--in order words, a la carte. If you want to watch one television program, you can watch it. If you do not, you do not have to. The situation today obviously is far different from that. It would also establish consequences if broadcasters choose to downgrade their over-the-air service. Three, it eliminates the sports blackout rule for events that are held in publicly financed stadiums. For over 15 years, I have supported giving consumers the ability to buy cable channels individually, which is known as a la carte, to provide consumers more control over viewing options in their homes and, as a result, their monthly cable bills. The video industry--principally cable companies and satellite companies and the programmers that sell channels, such as NBC and Disney-ABC--continues to give consumers two options when buying TV programming: first, to purchase a package of channels whether they watch them all or not or, second, not purchase any cable programming at all. There are two choices: You can either buy one of their packages or not watch it at all. That is unfair and wrong, especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of industry against the American consumer. It is clear when one looks at how cable prices have gone up over the last 15 years, which was brought to the light by the most recent Federal Communications Commission pricing survey. In the FCC survey, the average monthly price of expanded basic service--basic service--for all communities surveyed increased 5.4 percent over the 12 months ending January 1, 2011, or to $54.46, compared to an increase of 1.6 percent in the Consumer Price Index. In other words, the cost of cable went up nearly four times the consumer prices people pay for everything else. You can only do that when you have a monopoly. Over the last 15 years, this rise in cost has become even more evident. According to the FCC, the price of expanded basic cable has gone up at a compound average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent during the period from 1995 to 2011. This means that the average annual cable price has gone up about $25 a month from 1995, to over $54 today. That is a 100-percent price increase. People are on fixed incomes. People are hurting. Why in the world should they have a 100-percent cost increase? The only way it can be done is through monopolies. Those that provide video directly to consumers, such as cable and satellite companies, are not solely to blame for the high prices consumers face today. Many articles have been written about the packages of channels--commonly called bundles--that are sold to cable and satellite companies by video programmers such as Comcast, NBC, Time Warner, Viacom, and the Walt Disney Company, which owns 80 percent of ESPN. The worldwide leader in sports, as ESPN calls itself, thrives because of the advertising revenue it is able to generate and large subscriber fees. According to a January 2012 Newsweek article, ESPN charges $4.69 per household per month, citing a research company. By comparison, the next costliest national network, TNT, costs $1.16. Again, $4.69 for ESPN and the next most expensive one is $1.16 for TNT. Whether or not you watch ESPN--and I do all the time--all cable subscribers are forced to absorb this cost. Not every American watches ESPN. Not every American should be forced to watch ESPN and pay $4.69 per household per month in order to have it carried into their homes when they do not view it. Because these channels are bundled into packages, all cable consumers, whether they watch sports or not, are paying for them anyway. Cable and satellite carriers that consider dropping ESPN must also contemplate losing other channels in the bundle, such as the Disney Channel. Some have described this as ``a tax on every American household.'' Others, like the CEO of the American Cable Association, have said: My next-door neighbor is 74, a widow. She says to me, ``Why do I have to get all that sports programming?'' She has no idea that in the course of a year, for just ESPN and ESPN2, she is sending a check to Disney for about $70. She would be apoplectic if she knew . . . Ultimately there is going to be a revolt over the cost. Or policymakers will get involved because the cost of these things are so out of line with the cost of living that someone's going to put up a stop sign. Today we are putting up a stop sign. We are going to find out how powerful these companies are, as opposed to clearly correcting an injustice that is being inflicted on the American people. This legislation would eliminate regulatory barriers to a la carte by freeing up multichannel video programming distributors, such as cable, satellite, and others offering video services, to offer any video programming service on an a la carte basis. But if they want to keep bundling, they can do that too. They can make both offers to the American subscriber. In order to give these companies an incentive to offer programming on an a la carte basis, the legislation links the availability of the compulsory copyright license to the voluntary offering of a la carte service by the MVPD. In other words, if these companies do not offer a broadcast station and any other channels owned by the broadcaster on an a la carte basis, then that company cannot rely on the compulsory license to carry those broadcast stations. The compulsory license is a benefit conferred on these corporations, so it is reasonable to ask the recipients of that benefit to provide consumers with an a la carte option. I emphasize ``an option.'' To address the notion that a la carte options are being denied distributors, the legislation conditions important regulatory benefits such as network nonduplication, syndicated exclusivity, blackout rights, and retransmission consent option on the programmers, allowing MVPDs to sell their channels on an a la carte basis. It is time that the consumers got something in return, other than a higher bill at the end of the month. Furthermore, because not all programmers also own broadcast stations, the bill contains a provision that would create a wholesale a la carte market by allowing programmers to bundle their services in a package only if they also offer these services for the MVPDs to purchase on an individual channel basis. If a cable operator does not want to carry channels like MTV, it would have the option of not doing so and only buying and carrying the channels it thinks its consumers want to watch. Finally, the bill provides that if the parties cannot agree to the terms of a carriage agreement, the final offer made by each side must be disclosed to the FCC. The second section of the bill responds to statements by broadcast executives that they may downgrade the content of their over-the-air signals or pull them altogether so that the program received by MVPD customers is preferable to that available over the air. Our country is facing a spectrum crunch. If broadcasters that are using the public airwaves in return for meeting certain public interest obligations are going to deviate from those obligations, it is my view that we should consider whether that is the most efficient use of our country's spectrum. It would be a distortion of this basic social compact if over-the-air viewers were treated as second-class citizens. This bill provides a legislative response if broadcasters either downgrade their signal or pull it altogether. The bill provides that a broadcaster will lose its spectrum allocation and that spectrum will be auctioned by the FCC if the broadcaster does not provide the same content over the air as it provides through MVPDs. Finally, my bill touches on sports blackout rules that can limit the ability of subscribers to see sporting events when they take place in their local community but are not broadcast on a local station. When the venues in which these sporting events take place have been the beneficiary of taxpayer funding, it is unconscionable to deny those taxpayers who paid for it the ability to watch the games on television when they would otherwise be available. Therefore, the bill proposes to repeal the sports blackout rules so far as they apply to events taking place in publicly financed venues and/or involve a publicly financed local sports team. In the end, this Television Consumer Freedom Act is about giving the consumer more choices when watching television. It is time for us to help shift the landscape to benefit television consumers. I know the broadcasters and cable companies are likely to suggest that the government should not micromanage how they offer their product to customers and that bundling can promote diverse offerings. What those interests fail to mention is that the government has already entered the marketplace and conferred certain rights and privileges, such as a compulsory license, network nonduplication, syndicated exclusivity, and retransmission consent, which stack the deck in favor of everyone but the American consumer. I hope the introduction of this act furthers the debate on issues such as a la carte channel selection. I look forward to the Chamber's consideration of the bill.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Today I am introducing the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013. The legislation has three principal objectives: One, encourage the wholesale and retail unbundling of programming by distributors and programmers. Allow the consumer, the television viewer who subscribes to cable, to have a la carte capability--in other words, not be required to buy a whole bunch of channels that consumer may not wish to subscribe to--in order words, a la carte. If you want to watch one television program, you can watch it. If you do not, you do not have to. The situation today obviously is far different from that. It would also establish consequences if broadcasters choose to downgrade their over-the-air service. Three, it eliminates the sports blackout rule for events that are held in publicly financed stadiums. For over 15 years, I have supported giving consumers the ability to buy cable channels individually, which is known as a la carte, to provide consumers more control over viewing options in their homes and, as a result, their monthly cable bills. The video industry--principally cable companies and satellite companies and the programmers that sell channels, such as NBC and Disney-ABC--continues to give consumers two options when buying TV programming: first, to purchase a package of channels whether they watch them all or not or, second, not purchase any cable programming at all. There are two choices: You can either buy one of their packages or not watch it at all. That is unfair and wrong, especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of industry against the American consumer. It is clear when one looks at how cable prices have gone up over the last 15 years, which was brought to the light by the most recent Federal Communications Commission pricing survey. In the FCC survey, the average monthly price of expanded basic service--basic service--for all communities surveyed increased 5.4 percent over the 12 months ending January 1, 2011, or to $54.46, compared to an increase of 1.6 percent in the Consumer Price Index. In other words, the cost of cable went up nearly four times the consumer prices people pay for everything else. You can only do that when you have a monopoly. Over the last 15 years, this rise in cost has become even more evident. According to the FCC, the price of expanded basic cable has gone up at a compound average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent during the period from 1995 to 2011. This means that the average annual cable price has gone up about $25 a month from 1995, to over $54 today. That is a 100-percent price increase. People are on fixed incomes. People are hurting. Why in the world should they have a 100-percent cost increase? The only way it can be done is through monopolies. Those that provide video directly to consumers, such as cable and satellite companies, are not solely to blame for the high prices consumers face today. Many articles have been written about the packages of channels--commonly called bundles--that are sold to cable and satellite companies by video programmers such as Comcast, NBC, Time Warner, Viacom, and the Walt Disney Company, which owns 80 percent of ESPN. The worldwide leader in sports, as ESPN calls itself, thrives because of the advertising revenue it is able to generate and large subscriber fees. According to a January 2012 Newsweek article, ESPN charges $4.69 per household per month, citing a research company. By comparison, the next costliest national network, TNT, costs $1.16. Again, $4.69 for ESPN and the next most expensive one is $1.16 for TNT. Whether or not you watch ESPN--and I do all the time--all cable subscribers are forced to absorb this cost. Not every American watches ESPN. Not every American should be forced to watch ESPN and pay $4.69 per household per month in order to have it carried into their homes when they do not view it. Because these channels are bundled into packages, all cable consumers, whether they watch sports or not, are paying for them anyway. Cable and satellite carriers that consider dropping ESPN must also contemplate losing other channels in the bundle, such as the Disney Channel. Some have described this as ``a tax on every American household.'' Others, like the CEO of the American Cable Association, have said: My next-door neighbor is 74, a widow. She says to me, ``Why do I have to get all that sports programming?'' She has no idea that in the course of a year, for just ESPN and ESPN2, she is sending a check to Disney for about $70. She would be apoplectic if she knew . . . Ultimately there is going to be a revolt over the cost. Or policymakers will get involved because the cost of these things are so out of line with the cost of living that someone's going to put up a stop sign. Today we are putting up a stop sign. We are going to find out how powerful these companies are, as opposed to clearly correcting an injustice that is being inflicted on the American people. This legislation would eliminate regulatory barriers to a la carte by freeing up multichannel video programming distributors, such as cable, satellite, and others offering video services, to offer any video programming service on an a la carte basis. But if they want to keep bundling, they can do that too. They can make both offers to the American subscriber. In order to give these companies an incentive to offer programming on an a la carte basis, the legislation links the availability of the compulsory copyright license to the voluntary offering of a la carte service by the MVPD. In other words, if these companies do not offer a broadcast station and any other channels owned by the broadcaster on an a la carte basis, then that company cannot rely on the compulsory license to carry those broadcast stations. The compulsory license is a benefit conferred on these corporations, so it is reasonable to ask the recipients of that benefit to provide consumers with an a la carte option. I emphasize ``an option.'' To address the notion that a la carte options are being denied distributors, the legislation conditions important regulatory benefits such as network nonduplication, syndicated exclusivity, blackout rights, and retransmission consent option on the programmers, allowing MVPDs to sell their channels on an a la carte basis. It is time that the consumers got something in return, other than a higher bill at the end of the month. Furthermore, because not all programmers also own broadcast stations, the bill contains a provision that would create a wholesale a la carte market by allowing programmers to bundle their services in a package only if they also offer these services for the MVPDs to purchase on an individual channel basis. If a cable operator does not want to carry channels like MTV, it would have the option of not doing so and only buying and carrying the channels it thinks its consumers want to watch. Finally, the bill provides that if the parties cannot agree to the terms of a carriage agreement, the final offer made by each side must be disclosed to the FCC. The second section of the bill responds to statements by broadcast executives that they may downgrade the content of their over-the-air signals or pull them altogether so that the program received by MVPD customers is preferable to that available over the air. Our country is facing a spectrum crunch. If broadcasters that are using the public airwaves in return for meeting certain public interest obligations are going to deviate from those obligations, it is my view that we should consider whether that is the most efficient use of our country's spectrum. It would be a distortion of this basic social compact if over-the-air viewers were treated as second-class citizens. This bill provides a legislative response if broadcasters either downgrade their signal or pull it altogether. The bill provides that a broadcaster will lose its spectrum allocation and that spectrum will be auctioned by the FCC if the broadcaster does not provide the same content over the air as it provides through MVPDs. Finally, my bill touches on sports blackout rules that can limit the ability of subscribers to see sporting events when they take place in their local community but are not broadcast on a local station. When the venues in which these sporting events take place have been the beneficiary of taxpayer funding, it is unconscionable to deny those taxpayers who paid for it the ability to watch the games on television when they would otherwise be available. Therefore, the bill proposes to repeal the sports blackout rules so far as they apply to events taking place in publicly financed venues and/or involve a publicly financed local sports team. In the end, this Television Consumer Freedom Act is about giving the consumer more choices when watching television. It is time for us to help shift the landscape to benefit television consumers. I know the broadcasters and cable companies are likely to suggest that the government should not micromanage how they offer their product to customers and that bundling can promote diverse offerings. What those interests fail to mention is that the government has already entered the marketplace and conferred certain rights and privileges, such as a compulsory license, network nonduplication, syndicated exclusivity, and retransmission consent, which stack the deck in favor of everyone but the American consumer. I hope the introduction of this act furthers the debate on issues such as a la carte channel selection. I look forward to the Chamber's consideration of the bill.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I come to the floor to speak in support of the nomination of Mrs. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB. Her previous experience as Deputy Director of OMB during the Clinton administration, as well as her work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and her current position as president of the Walmart Foundation in my opinion, make her well qualified to be the Director of OMB. With our country now facing a $16.8 trillion dollar debt, which is more than $53,000 per person, the Director of OMB is perhaps the toughest job in Washington, and I am confident that Mrs. Burwell is up for the challenge. In addition to the unsustainable debt, $85 billion in draconian, across-the-board sequestration cuts to defense and nondefense programs in fiscal year 2013 have now started to hollow out our military. I hope to work with Mrs. Burwell to remedy these cuts that are devastating to our national security. Although Mrs. Burwell and I will not always agree on how we tackle our country's urgent fiscal challenges, I am confident that she will commit to finding bipartisan solutions to these real problems. Solutions that will provide greater program efficiency and transparency and will put our country back on a path of fiscal stability so that future generations will not be forced to pay for the irresponsible spending decisions we continue to make here in Congress. Again, I am pleased that the President put forth such a qualified nominee, and I look forward to working with her.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, there has been a great deal of misunderstanding about the position the Senator from South Carolina, I, and others have taken on the detention and interrogation of the suspect in the Boston bombing. None of us is saying the suspect should be indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant by the U.S. military or tried in a military tribunal. The suspect is a U.S. citizen and must be treated accordingly, and he will be. What we are saying is that the importance of treating the suspect in accordance with his rights as an American citizen must be balanced with our government's top national security priority, which is the lawful, effective, and humane interrogation of this subject for the purposes of gathering intelligence. The Boston attacks were clearly inspired by the violent ideology of transnational Islamist terrorism. We need to learn everything we can about what foreign terrorists or terrorist groups the suspect and his brother may have associated with, whether they were part of additional plots to attack our Nation, and what other relevant information the suspect may possess that could prevent future attacks against the United States or our interests. We need to delve further into this whole issue of the education some people who are motivated by these base ideologies obtain over the Internet and the effect it is having. We should at least know about this. Our civilian justice system offers a responsible option for striking this balance with American citizens. It allows the Justice Department to delay reading a suspect his Miranda rights if doing so is in the interest of ``public safety.'' The administration had rightly invoked this public safety exception in the case of the Boston suspect, which provided our national security professionals a discrete period of time to gather intelligence from the suspect without the presence of his lawyer. However, soon after questioning him in this manner, the administration recently reversed itself and read the suspect his Miranda rights. In doing so, the administration gave up a valuable opportunity to lawfully and thoroughly question the suspect for purposes of gathering intelligence about potential future terrorist plots. Whether we will be able to acquire such information has now been left entirely at the discretion of the suspect and his lawyer. Put simply, the suspect has been told he has the right to remain silent. If he doesn't want to provide intelligence, he doesn't need to. Is this a responsible balance between a citizen's rights and our national security? The suspect had only been responsive for a couple of days before he was read his Miranda rights. Even then, he could not communicate verbally. Does anyone really believe our national security professionals were able to acquire all of the relevant intelligence possessed by a subject who couldn't speak in only 2 days? This is not a responsible balance between civil liberties and national security. From the very beginning of this debate, the Senator from South Carolina, the Senator from New Hampshire, I, and others have maintained that the administration should reserve its right to hold the suspect as an enemy combatant for the purpose of gathering intelligence. This was not the only option or even the ideal option. In light of the administration's decision not to continue questioning the suspect under the public safety exception, the only option we are left with is lawfully questioning the suspect as a potential enemy combatant. The full extent of whether the suspect is linked to al-Qaida or its associated forces remains unclear. The brother's trip to Russia certainly should be the subject of an inquiry. Additional questioning is critical to making it clear. Today there is ample evidence that would allow the administration to question the suspect for key intelligence. The consequence of not doing so is that our need to question the suspect for such intelligence is left solely at his discretion and willingness to cooperate. This is not a responsible approach to the national security of this country. Again, this is not to say that we must hold the suspect indefinitely in military detention, nor that the suspect must be or should be tried in a military tribunal. In both cases, there is plenty of precedence for holding a terrorism suspect as an enemy combatant for a limited time before moving him into the criminal justice system for the purpose of standing trial in civil court. What is more, the Supreme Court has consistently upheld the legality and constitutionality of this approach, as well as the ability to hold American citizens as enemy combatants. Ultimately, the broader question is whether one views the United States as part of the battlefield in the global fight against terrorists. I know some don't. I, however, do not see how we can avoid this fact. Those who seek to attack us certainly view the homeland as part of the battlefield--indeed, the central part. Of course, there will always be and should be differences in how we handle events in the United States and events overseas and differences in what rights are due to American citizens as opposed to foreign citizens. Yet we cannot afford to build a wall between the fight against terrorists abroad and the fight against terrorists who are trying to attack us here at home, including when American citizens are involved in this fight, as some clearly are, and will continue to be. Just because some don't seem to want to grapple with the difficult, unprecedented legal issues this war presents does not mean they will cease to be real challenges. If we pretend the homeland, the United States of America, is not part of this battle, I believe it will only be a matter of time before we learn this lesson the hard way. I say to many who are reporting on this issue, I hope it is clearly understood that we are not saying the suspect should be indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant by the U.S. military or tried in a military tribunal. The suspect is a U.S. citizen and must be treated accordingly, and he will be. During the now-famous discussion of 13 hours on the floor of the Senate, there were certain comments made that I think are important to recall. The battlefield coming to America or acknowledging that is an enormous mistake. I am quoting from the debate that took place. Alarm bells should go off when people tell you that the battlefield's in America. I'm here to argue that we can't let America be a battlefield because we can't say that we're no longer going to have due process, that we're no longer going to have trial by jury, that we're no longer going to have presentment of charges in grand juries. It is impossible in a battlefield. This is another quote: [W]hen people say, oh, the battlefield's come to America and the battlefield's every--where the war is limitless in time and scope, be worried, because your rights will not exist if you call America a battlefield for all time. The Chair understands as well as anyone that the people of Boston and the people of Massachusetts, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, would clearly take exception to a statement such as ``the battlefield coming to America or acknowledging that is an enormous mistake.'' The people of Boston are very well aware that the battle comes to the United States. There are many attempts for it to come to the United States. Tragically, it came to the United States of America in a most tragic and terrible way. We need to have a larger debate here about the location of the battlefield. To somehow believe the ultimate target of these radical Islamic extremists and other extremist elements is not the United States of America is a gross misreading of what this fight against terrorism is all about. Quoting from a Wall Street Journal editorial, as I have done in the past: The Boston bombing also ought to chasten libertarians who keep insisting that the U.S. homeland is not part of the terror battlefield. ``It's different overseas than it will be here. It's different in the battlefield than it will be here,'' [one Member] told Fox News earlier this year. ``Which gets precisely to the argument I have with some other Republicans who say, well, `the battlefield is everywhere. There is no limitation.' President Obama says this. Some members of my party say the battle has no geographic limitations and the laws of war apply. It's important to know that the law of war that they're talking about means no due process.'' Boylston Street looked like a boulevard on Monday, and so did Watertown on Thursday night. The artificial distinction [arises from undue] focus on geography. The vital distinction for public safety is between common criminals, who deserve due process protections, and enemy combatants at war with the U.S., wherever they are. As for due process, the greatest danger to liberty would be to allow more such attacks that would inspire an even greater public backlash against Muslims or free speech or worse. The anti-terror types on the left and GOP Senators who agree that the U.S. isn't part of the battlefield are making the United States more vulnerable. Americans erupted in understandable relief and gratitude on Friday with the rapid capture of the terrorist brothers. But we shouldn't forget that their attack succeeded, with horrific consequences for the dead, the wounded and their loved ones. The main goal now is to prevent the next attack. How do we prevent the next attack? We find out as much information as possible as to what motivated this attack. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from South Carolina be included in the colloquy.