Barbara Mikulski

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at a time to be determined during first vote of the day in S-219 to consider pending nominations before the Committee.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 16, 2014, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, what is the pending business before the Senate?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Which is?

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise in support. This is a simple short-term extension of the continuing funding resolution we passed some weeks ago. This is Washington-speak and budget-speak for saying, as of today, the money that keeps the Federal Government in operation expires. However, being debated in the House this afternoon we have a consolidated appropriations bill which will fund the government through fiscal year 2014 and will come to the Senate either late this evening or will be on the floor tomorrow morning. I ask the Senate to pass the short-term extension because it is a technical situation. This isn't the usual delay, drama, and fiscal cliff situation. When the Budget Committee acted, and we passed the bill on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, we, the Appropriations Committee, were given a very stringent deadline of January 15 to produce an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2014. We have worked all the way through the holidays and all the way up to Sunday evening, and we have completed our work. It is now before the Senate and the House to be reviewed. It is on our Web site and so on. We just need a couple of hours to complete the job now. I can assure my colleagues this very short extension is status quo. It makes no changes in funding levels. It makes no changes in conditions for the operation of the government. The Appropriations Committee worked over the holidays. The agreement was made public on Monday. The House will vote on the agreement this afternoon. As soon as the House completes its work, it will come to the Senate. This is a short-term CR. It is for 72 hours. It will provide the time needed for the Senate to consider the agreement, for the paperwork to be prepared, and for the President to sign it. This is a very short- term extension which will enable us to complete our work and not even have a temporary shutdown. I urge my colleagues to allow the short extension to pass the Senate expeditiously so we can move on to the diligence we need to provide in debating the appropriations bill. We will have a vote at 12:15. The vote at 12:15 is on the short-term extension of the current continuing funding resolution. It will be for 72 hours. It takes us through Saturday. I hope we are done before Saturday. This is not a vote on the appropriations bill itself, nor should it be viewed as a proxy vote. It is just simply a technical time bridge to enable us to have adequate debate in the House and adequate debate and review in the Senate to do this. I really hope my colleagues support this 72-hour extension so we do not have the usual drama we have of fiscal cliffs and shutdowns and so on. My colleague, the Senator from Alabama Mr. Shelby, who is my vice chairman, is involved in other duties in the Senate, but he too supports this 72-hour extension. We have been working so diligently on our bill through the holidays so we could have a bill before the Senate, and I must say it has been characterized by diligence, determination, and courtesy. But it takes time. It takes time to review, and it takes time to scrutinize. Quite frankly, it took time to discuss the issues involved in the appropriations. All 12 subcommittees are represented. But I will say more about it when we bring the actual bill to the floor. Madam President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask now for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lie on the table was agreed to. I note the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise today to speak on the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. But before I make those comments, I wish to associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from California Mrs. Boxer and also the Senator from Rhode Island Mr. Jack Reed and also all of those who voted to move forward where we continue to provide an economic safety net for those people who have lost their job and are actively looking for work, and to continue this economic and social contract which has been part of the way Americans respond to help other Americans at a time when they are down but they shouldn't feel as though they are out. I hope we could put party rancor aside and look at commonsense ways to move this bill forward. In terms of the so-called pay-fors, I have been here a long time. I have never seen this pay-for before on unemployment compensation, particularly for a 90-day bill. We are talking about 90 days, and we are already in the middle of January. I hope the two leaders can come together and we can resolve this. On another topic, I wish to report to the Senate some very good news. I rise today as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, and I wish to announce that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 has completed all its work in the committee process. We have completed our conference and it has been filed in the House and should be considered in the House and Senate this week. What does that mean? First of all, our Appropriations Committee has met the test of the Constitution. Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution directs that there be an Appropriations Committee, although it is not referred to by name, and that every year we review the annual spending of the Federal Government and vote upon it. We also followed the law. By following the law, the law is the bipartisan Budget Act forged by Chairpersons Ryan and Murray. We meet the requirements of the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act looks at total spending for the Federal Government--mandatory spending and then discretionary spending. We who are appropriators handle all of the accounts for discretionary spending. Guess what. The Budget Committee puts a cap on us, and that is great. It is a way that we actually have a cap on spending that everybody knows and everybody voted for. So we have a cap by law on discretionary spending of $1.012 trillion for fiscal year 2014. The work of our 12 committees stayed within that cap, and yet we spent the money to meet certain areas. We met compelling needs. We certainly preserved national security. We looked out for our human capital, particularly our children in terms of education, and also invested in physical capital--improving infrastructure--and also the long-range needs of our country by putting public investments into important research and development by $1 billion more in NIH. We also met the mandate of the American people who told us: Work together. Be bipartisan. Work across the aisle and work across the dome. And we did it. They also said: When the bill comes up, don't do it with brinkmanship and don't do it with showmanship. Get the job done in a commonsense way which promotes growth in our country but yet at the same time looks at reducing debt. They said: Don't do showdown politics. And we won't. We will pass it because we have met our deadline. They said: Don't put government on autopilot with something called those continuing funding resolutions. We don't do that either. Every one of our 12 subcommittees is in this comprehensive bill. We dealt with difficult and divisive policy issues, but we did it with diligence and determination. And, I must add, we tried to promote an atmosphere of civility as we did it. It was tense and it was intense. But at the end of the day, we did work pinpointing how to do the job rather than finger-pointing at each other. As I said, negotiations were conducted that way. Our House Appropriations Committee chairman--Mr. Hal Rogers, the gentleman from Kentucky--and I forged this agreement, along with ranking members, my vice chairman Senator Shelby of Alabama and in the House Congresswoman Lowey of New York. We didn't do it alone. There was bipartisan agreement of all the subcommittee chairs and over 50 Members of the House and the Senate. We met a very stringent deadline. When we left here on December 20, we had to produce a bill by January 15. That is tomorrow. That is when the continuing resolution expires. We are asking for a 72-hour extension, not to finish the job, but so we can do our deliberations on the floor in both the House and the Senate. We worked day and night. I jokingly said during the deliberations: I wish I were as thin as I am stretched, because we really worked at it. Over the holidays our staffs and our subcommittee chairmen worked. The only time they took off was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So we thank each and every one of them for their dedication. As I said, this bill required very difficult choices. It meant give and take. It meant more giving on both sides, because there were no big takes. We worked under a very tight budget, $1 trillion. It sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But of the $1 trillion, $600 billion was in the Department of Defense. The other $300 billion was in discretionary spending for all of the domestic agencies. It comes out to like 620 and 380, but those are the rough numbers. So we did meet our national security needs, but we also were very mindful. I was particularly mindful of the social contract with the American people. I wanted to have a bill to help create jobs in this country, not make-work but real work, in rebuilding our physical infrastructure on roads and bridges and clean water. I also wanted to look ahead to the long-range needs of our country, in research and discoveries, and not only win the Nobel prizes but win the markets. We expanded our commercial service office to help us promote exports overseas, accelerating manufacturing institutes where government could work with this new emerging dynamic, small-scale manufacturing. I have lost over 12 percent of manufacturing in my State, so manufacturing is important. We wanted to make sure that families felt they had a government that is on their side--first of all, helping with school safety--and we have a bipartisan program in here to promote school safety--but at the same time to promote quality childcare and early childhood education. We then made those kinds of investments, all with an eye to getting value for taxpayers. Our colleagues were very clear, and so were the American people: We have to have a more frugal eye. I instructed my colleagues on the Senate side: Let's look at those programs which are dated, duplicative, or dysfunctional. They get a D: dated, duplicative, and dysfunctional. We were able to eliminate many of them, and we will be back at it next year doing a scrub. If you notice, there is no atmosphere of crisis. The other thing that I am proud of in this bill is that we avoided contentious policy riders. I think we have been able to deal with those in a way where they would not be a problem for the other side of the aisle. However, there was one item wrong or one technical mistake in the Budget Committee that I am proud that we were able to fix. This was really at the very top of our agenda, when Mr. Rogers and I met. We were deeply concerned about the cost-of-living issue related to military retirees of working age who were disabled or survivors. Their COLAs were mistakenly reduced by 1 percent in the recent budget agreement. This bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, fixes that problem. It is limited in scope. It is limited to disabled military retirees and survivors of departed servicemembers--the neediest of the needy. We hope, as time moves on, there is a Presidential and DOD commission on pension reform at DOD, and we will have a comprehensive approach and do it. But I want our colleagues to know we were very mindful of these veterans. So we did this fix for military retirees of working age who were disabled or survivors of departed servicemembers, but we also did something else. If you go to the Web site in the House, which has the most detail because it is pending there--it will come up in the Senate when it moves here tomorrow--we really put money into veterans health care. We put money into fixing the veterans disability backlog. I know the Senator from Massachusetts believes that when you are on the front lines you should not have to wait at the back of the line if you are a wounded warrior to get your disability benefits determined. So we pushed for those reforms, and we put the taxpayers' dollars behind them because we knew that is the way they would want us to spend their money. We also maintained the veterans education budget because many of our young men and women coming back home who served so well over there need to brush up on education here to move them to jobs here. I hope in voting for this bill people realize it is a vote to support our most vulnerable patriots, to make sure we keep our promises to our veterans, and that we also look at the comprehensive bill that we have moved ahead without rancor, without roar, and we stayed within the budget parameters given to us on a bipartisan agreement. The House will consider this agreement this week. They have sent us over a 3-day extension so we could complete our work. I hope we pass it. I would like it to pass tonight or certainly tomorrow. We will be on the floor for ample debate on this bill, and I look forward to answering some questions. But at the end of the day, when all is said and done--in this institution often more is said rather than done--you will know we did get it done. I will have more to say about it when the bill comes to the floor. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to speak on actually two topics; one on extending the unemployment benefit program that is so essential to the people of Maryland and to other fellow Americans and also to comment on the National Security Agency surveillance programs, the need for reform of the program but the need not to reject the mission of the agency and cast a disparaging light on the men and women who work there. Let me start first though talking about unemployment benefits. I come with a great sense of urgency and passion that we need to extend these unemployment benefits that expired January 1. This is one of the coldest spells we have had in decades in the Northeast-Midwest area. I find it unfathomable, when it is so cold, that the big chill in Washington is that we are not going to extend the unemployment benefits, extending a warm helping hand to Americans who have lost their job through no fault of their own and have been unemployed for more than 6 months. Where are our national priorities? If we cannot help one another, be a bridge to get to a job, then what is our government all about? We spend billions overseas--and I support that. We spend billions on tax breaks to send jobs overseas. I do not support that. I want to make sure that for the men and women who do not have a job today but are looking for one every day, that we help them out. Senator Coons, the Senator from Delaware, just spoke and said today it could be your neighbor, tomorrow it could be you. I think we are going to be unemployed unless we start focusing on how to help the middle class. The middle class is shrinking and unemployment is staggering. We have to lower the unemployment rate, although I want to make sure that during this time while we look at how to create jobs, we continue to provide a social insurance program that helps people when they are laid off through no fault of their own. My own home State of Maryland is right this very minute affected by 23,000 people--that is 23,000 families--who have now lost a modest benefit which averages out to about $313 per week. That enables people, while they are looking for work, to be able to pay for their housing, pay for their food, and pay for their heat. There are those who are implying that if we provide unemployment compensation or assistance we are going to encourage sloth, laziness, laggardness; that they are going to kind of lounge around not looking for work. Let me tell the story about Western Maryland. This is not Barbara Mikulski; this is reported in the Baltimore Sun and in the Washington Post. We have a community called Washington County. The unemployment rate is 7.3 percent. Just a few years ago they had a Good Humor plant. They made ice cream. I visited that ice cream plant. Everybody was happy, and they were busy producing Good Humor, which was sold all over this country. Well, 2 years ago it closed, and 400 good-paying jobs left Hagerstown. That is the bad news. The good news is a co-op dairy farmer came in, purchased it, and is now producing milk and ice cream but in smaller amounts. Guess what. They received 1,600 job applications for 36 job openings. They had 36 job openings, and 1,600 people in that small rural county applied for those jobs. There were 44 people for every job available. Hagerstown has a great sense of patriotism. They sent many men and women to fight and die in the two wars we just fought. They have a great work ethic. They need an opportunity to have jobs. Don't tell those people in Hagerstown or in Salisbury or in Baltimore or throughout my State that they are too lazy. Maybe we are lazy; maybe we don't get the job done. One of the quickest ways to jump-start the economy, if we want to, is to pay unemployment compensation. All the data shows that unemployment insurance adds about $1.60 back into the economy. I want to create a sense of urgency. I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle: Over a decade ago, you had a man run for the President of the United States who won. His name is George W. Bush. He campaigned on something that I thought was so interesting. I looked forward to actually hearing more about something he called a compassionate conservative. We understand that people are conservative. We understand that people are fiscally conservative, but the message was that we can be compassionate conservatives. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Remember the compassionate conservative message from a decade ago, and remember that man's father said we need the points of light to light up America. I say, let's be a point of light here. Let's add a beacon of hope to the unemployed so we can help them. Don't be critical of those who can't find work. Let's look at how we can have a job strategy. Let's get our infrastructure back so we can create jobs in the construction industry. Let's eliminate the tax breaks that send jobs overseas and bring the jobs back home. Let's do the tax extenders so we can get people working again. Let's put people back to work. Pass unemployment compensation. Let's pass some job creation bills. Let's get America working again, and in order to do that, we need to get to work and pass the unemployment compensation bill. National Security Agency I want to also comment on something else, and that is the NSA, the National Security Agency, which I am very familiar with as a member of the Intelligence Committee, and it is also located in my State. I know the men and women who work there, and I know the mission they provide. I also know that a few months ago a man by the name of Edward Snowden lit up the airwaves with his illegal barrage of revelations about the role of surveillance that the National Security Agency played. Mr. Snowden provided a titillating, mesmerizing inside view of the United States. Whether he was a whistleblower or a traitor, I will leave that for another discussion. Right now we know about NSA surveillance, and it sparked a lot of debate. I think that is good. I think that is healthy. I come to the floor today, first of all, to thank President Obama for establishing a commission to look at this and make recommendations. My view is that we ought to review the recommendations of the Presidential commission. We need to make reform where reform is necessary, but let's not reject the mission of the National Security Agency that has protected us for decades and decades. Let us not reject the men and women who work there every single day, standing sentry to protect us against attacks, whether it is a terrorist attack or a cyber security attack. Yes, we need to protect the civil liberties of the United States of America and honor our Constitution. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, and as part of my principles, I have always said: Before we ask NSA agents--or any member of any intelligence agency--to do anything, we should ask: Is it constitutional? Is it legal? Is it authorized? Is it necessary? Remember the criteria. I recommend that this be the grid of the prism we look at: Constitutional, absolutely; legal, a necessity; and authorize. NSA doesn't do it on its own. The authorization comes from the President and his intelligence apparatus. And last but not at all least, is it necessary to protect people? I think we need to really work on this. President Obama established a review commission. I think it is great, and I think Congress should review it. I know appropriate hearings are already looking into that. At the same time, we should practice reform. I am absolutely on the side of reform. I have joined with my colleagues in supporting reform for these programs. For years I led the fight on the accountability of leadership. Back in 2007, I wanted the head of the National Security Agency confirmed by the Senate. I was stiff-armed by the Congress. I was held back by the Armed Services Committee. We had to deal with the turf wars at the Pentagon: Don't meddle with our generals. Well, I wasn't meddling with the generals. I just think the head of the National Security Agency should be there. So let's get off of the turf wars and fight terrorist wars. Let's restore confidence in the National Security Agency and have its head confirmed by the Senate. I am a great admirer of General Alexander. The committee also recommends that the next head of NSA be a civilian. I think we ought to look at that. I think we ought to examine that and see what is in the best interests of the mission of the agency and what we need to be able to do. But whoever is the head of the National Security Agency, be they civilian or military, I think they ought to be confirmed by the Senate. I also joined across the aisle with my great colleague Senator Coats of Indiana to ask that the NSA inspector general also be confirmed by the Senate to make sure that we have a confirmable position so there is a bona fide whistleblower route with a confirmable inspector general to make sure that NSA is doing the right thing and whistleblowers have an avenue to do it. I also supported transparency to make sure that those NSA programs are accountable and as transparent as they can be. That doesn't mean we reveal the secrets of the United States. Joining with Senators Wyden, Udall, and Heinrich, I have introduced an amendment to make the secret FISA court opinions were publicly available under certain circumstances. I also worked with Senators King, Warner, and Collins to bring greater transparency to the FISA court through amicus curiae, or friend of the court, to assist in the consideration of novel interpretations of the law. There are those who say, in the President's report, that there should be a civil liberties council and a red team that can go in there. Let's talk about that. Let's debate it. Let's make sure there is more than one opinion before the court on its legality. I support those suggestions. Let's look at the constitutionality. One judge recently said the NSA surveillance program, particularly under something called section 215, was shocking, and he said it was not constitutional, but 36 other FISA court opinions by 15 judges said it was constitutional. I am a social worker. I am not a constitutional lawyer. Do you know who decides on what is constitutional? The Supreme Court of the United States. I think that Congress ought to call for--or the executive branch and the President--an expedited review of these programs. I would like to settle, once and for all, whether the programs and laws passed by the Congress in the area of surveillance--I would like to know if they are constitutional. If they are, then we know that. If they are not, then that ends the program. We will follow the law, and we will obey the Constitution of the United States. Let's get to work here. Let's go to work here. Let's make sure that we are bringing about reform. I want to talk about the mission of the agency. The National Security Agency is not a puzzle palace, and it is not some sneaky surveillance agency with people in tan raincoats and fedoras, hiding behind doors and spying on people. In fact, remember what they think they do--they think what they do is constitutional, legal, authorized, and necessary. We need the National Security Agency. There is only one thing the 215 program does: It protects us against counterterrorism. They are there to protect us against counterespionage. They are there to protect us and make sure that weapons of mass destruction are contained. They are advocates for nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in cooperation with the CIA and NRO. They also protect us in the area of cyber security. Those 80 million people who recently had their credit cards stolen at Target--we don't know if that was a job that was done in the United States of America. For all we know, it was organized cyber crime coming out of Albania or another Eastern European country with shoddy rules and regulations. We don't know. However, we do know the FBI and the NSA are working on it, as well as others. NSA's job is to look at what is over there. Some of our biggest bank heists in organized cyber crime are coming from over there. Did you know that one of the biggest thefts out of the Medicare Program was done by a cyber heist by organized crime out of Albania? Can you believe that? It was caught. In working with the inspector general at CMS, the FBI, and the NSA, we caught them, got our money back, and now we are back on track. So they do a good job, and we are kind of losing sight as far as these concerns about surveillance. There is no doubt that we protect the civil liberties of the United States of America. We do believe in privacy. I am not going to describe the program or go into it, but I will tell you what really bothers me. What really bothers me is that somehow or another, through the media, and even conversations in this body, we are painting NSA as if it were a bad, villainous, duplicitous, surreptitious agency. That could not be further from the truth. Somehow or another, the men and women who work there every single day, standing sentry on behalf of the United States of America on signals intelligence, are somehow or another to feel that something is wrong. The morale at that Agency is terrible. The morale at that Agency is falling. The morale at that Agency is not in a healthy situation. We have to do something about that by showing respect for the men and women who work there. Most of them are civilians. They are some of the brightest people in the world. Did my colleagues know that the NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the world because of the code breakers, the cryptologists? They break codes. Who uses codes? It is not Mother Teresa. Respect. Let's have respect because they are hard at work. While the rest of us were home for Christmas enjoying turkey or home for Thanksgiving, they were out there working. They were making sure there wasn't another Underwear Bomber. When our defenses appear to be lowest--when people are traveling on airplanes, when people are in the holiday spirit--they are working. They are working right now to make sure our Olympic athletes are safe, working with appropriate international law enforcement. They are at it every single day. Can't we give them respect while we sort out constitutionality and legality? Let's sort it out, but let's stop the finger-pointing. I must tell my colleagues that I was taken aback today when I got my National Journal Daily and read where it says ``Obama Invites NSA Top Congressional Critics To Meet.'' I think it is always great when the President speaks with Congress, but he invited the critics of the program to the White House. I think that is good. I would prefer, though, to read--instead of ``inviting the critics,'' the phrase would have said ``reformers.'' Put me in the ``reformer'' category. If there are abuses, I am one of the first to criticize them. I have been part of reform. I intend to be part of reform, but I don't intend to be a part of rejecting the mission, and I don't intend to be a part of any effort that downgrades or downplays the contribution of the men and women who work there. So call the people reformers. I hope the White House and this Congress will signal to the men and women at the National Security Agency that they are respected, that they are valued; as we pursue reform, we will always do our duty to ensure that what they do is constitutional, legal, authorized, and necessary. But don't blame them for the job we asked them to do. I think if we proceed with a spirit of reform rather than blame, we will be able to accomplish a great deal. This is a big day in the Senate. Let's pass unemployment compensation. Let's do the reforms we need, and let's do a good job, as we are supposed to do. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to call, as so many others have done, for justice. The scourge of sexual assault still pervades in our military. Our outrage is palpable, but change is possible. I recently read a heart wrenching story in the Baltimore Sun about Brian Lewis. Thirteen years ago, after 3 years of service in the Navy, Brian was assaulted by a higher ranking shipmate. His attacker went unpunished, while Brian bore shame, depression, and even accusations from his fellow shipmates. Brian is not alone. He joins thousands of men and women who have suffered silently at the hands of a fellow soldier, sailor, or marine. This is a compelling national problem. When you join the military and you face the enemy, you shouldn't have to fear the enemy within. Victims of sexual assault have long been redlined and sidelined at the hands of a justice system that fails to be objective or effective. It is time to put a stop to this now. Despite lasting trauma, prejudice, and overwhelming obstacles, these men and women have endured. Their courage in the face of suffering is admirable, but it should not be necessary. That is why I support the new Defense bill for fiscal year 2014. It includes over 30 provisions to address sexual assault. It strengthens the justice system. It provides counsel and support for victims. Most importantly, it provides a serious deterrent for those who dare take advantage of our most patriotic Americans. For 25 years, I have fought to resolve this issue. I thank those who have stood beside me, including, most recently a bipartisan alliance of women Senators. We have made some progress, but we still have far to go. There are 26,000 reasons why we rise today. Twenty six thousand sexual assaults have occurred in our U.S. military this year. Many of these acts of violence are unreported, unprosecuted, and unpunished. We cannot let this continue, not on our watch. It is our moral duty to speak for the voiceless, to vouch for the powerless, to fight for the helpless. The men and women of our military may know how to wage war, but they should have to battle through redtape when it comes to their pursuit of justice.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, Senator Hatch and I join together today to recognize the contributions of Vincent A. Forlenza, chairman, CEO and president of BD, in establishing and leading AdvaMedDx, an important new voice for the role of medical diagnostic tests in patient care. BD, the leading global medical technology company, has a strong presence in both Maryland and Utah as do other companies in the medical device and diagnostics sectors. We understand firsthand the growing importance of diagnostics to power medical discoveries and transform patient care.

Ms. MIKULSKI. The impact of diagnostics, however, is not always well understood by patients, policymakers and, sometimes, even physicians. In 2010, Mr. Forlenza played an instrumental role in bringing together a group of leading diagnostics manufacturers to form a new trade association, AdvaMedDx, whose core mission is to create an understanding of the role diagnostics play in the health care system and help foster patient access to innovative, safe, and effective tests. Soon after the founding of the AdvaMedDx, Mr. Forlenza assumed the role of chairman of the board of directors, a position he has held for the last 3 years.

Ms. MIKULSKI. As part of its contribution to the policy dialogue, AdvaMedDx has organized Capitol Hill briefings at which leaders in the field of diagnostics have shared insights and current developments on topics including women's health, cancer diagnostics, antibiotic resistance, and infectious diseases. Just a few weeks ago, AdvaMedDx and the American Association for Cancer Research held a daylong symposium on personalized medicine and companion diagnostics, keynoted by the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and the Director of the National Institutes of Health.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. Forlenza has been a tireless champion for the power of diagnostics to promote wellness, improve patient outcomes and advance public health. The success of AdvaMedDx in a few short years is in large measure due to this vision that he brought to the organization.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak in morning business for approximately 10 minutes.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to urge my colleagues to support the bipartisan budget agreement. I congratulate our colleagues, especially Budget Committee chairwoman Murray for her outstanding leadership in forging this bipartisan agreement with her House counterpart, Mr. Ryan. They reached this agreement in a way that is indeed a compromise--not everyone's desired outcome but a fair and necessary one. I urge my colleagues to support it. I think it is fantastic that they actually got a budget done. This is the first time in several years we are actually going to vote on a bipartisan budget conference agreement, and I think it bodes well for future activity where we return to the due order of passing legislation, one in each House, having a conference committee to hammer out the disagreements, and then it coming back to us for final agreement. What I like about this agreement is it creates certainty by avoiding sequester for 2 years, giving the top-line funding to us on the Appropriations Committee for 2014 and 2015. Many people do not realize that we on the Appropriations Committee who actually put money in the Federal checkbook to be spent have a cap put on our spending by the Budget Committee. That is called the 302(a) or the top line. We have not been able to do our Appropriations Committee work because we have not had a top line. This enables us to have one for 2014. We are under a mandate to bring it back to the Senate and to the House by January 14. We will meet that deadline. It is going to be tough. It is going to be stringent. But we are going to get the job done. It also gives us certainty for 2015 so we can return to a regular order of actually knowing where we stand with our cap, holding our hearings, and bringing bills to the committee. The other facet I like about this bipartisan budget agreement is it prevents harm. It protects seniors and families. It preserves the social safety net, such as Medicare and Social Security. Finally, the agreement ends gridlock. The American people are tired of shutdown, slowdown, slam-down politics. This agreement ends the lurching from crisis to crisis and shows we can compromise and we can govern. First of all, and foremost, this budget agreement creates certainty for America's businesses and families. By avoiding sequester for 2 years, it prevents further across-the-board cuts--not that we do not need strategic cuts, and we will come up with them in the Appropriations Committee--but across-the-board cuts where we do not know if a program works or if a program is dysfunctional. This way, we can actually look at those programs that we do need to cut--those that are dated, those that are duplicative, those that are dysfunctional. Sure, let's cut those. But at the same time let's keep the good programs and make sure that they are adequately funded. I believe that avoiding the sequester and the meat-ax approach to cuts really helps us to have better governance. We will have a more frugal government, and we will have a more sensible way of spending. It also gives us this top line funding for 2014 and 2015 for the Appropriations Committee. It means that we can write an omnibus bill. What does an omnibus bill mean? We on the Appropriations Committee have 12 subcommittees. We would like to have brought these subcommittees up one by one and have the House exercise their due diligence in looking at the bills to see what they want to add, subtract or change. We could not do it because we failed to have this budget agreement to give us the top line. What we will now be able to do is for 2014 we will be able to bring them all up at one time in a bill called the omnibus. I hope it is a bus that really moves. It will enable us to make smart choices about our investments in America instead of government on autopilot through a continuing funding resolution. This agreement saves America from lurching from one continuing funding resolution to another. It is a fair compromise. For 2014 it is $45 billion above the House-proposed budget, but it is $45 billion below the Senate-proposed budget. Our budget leadership met in the middle and really thought that would be an adequate compromise. I would have preferred the 1.058 level, but it is adequate. The bipartisan agreement also, as I said, prevents harm to the middle class. What America is looking for, though, is not only numbers and programs and so on, they want us to get our act together. They want us to really do our job, and do it in a way that is sensible and civil. I believe that is what was done in that budget committee. They want us to work together across the aisle and across the dome. This bipartisan agreement shows what can be done when we do meet in the middle to make progress for the middle class and for those people who are neither right or left but want to take the middle of the road. This compromise is not perfect. Compromises never are. For me, some of the pay-fors were not exactly what I was happy about. For example, they require new Federal employees to pay more for their retirement and working-age military retirees to receive smaller COLAs. I would have preferred an agreement that closed tax loopholes or canceled some of those out-of-date farm subsidies left over from the 1930s. However, by avoiding the sequester, we also will be able to avoid furloughs. If you talk to the civilian employees at Defense, and you talk to Federal employees in the domestic agencies about this whole idea of furloughs and sequester, some of them had to have a double furlough, such as at the FBI. We were facing furloughs in the FBI. We did not have gas for the FBI cars. That is not right. We want to make sure we continue to fund our government and meet our responsibilities. I cannot stress enough how important this bipartisan agreement is. If we continued the path that we left and the sequester was left in place, it is would cost our economy 800,000 jobs in 1 year--800,000 jobs. Maryland already lost 21,000 jobs because of the sequester. We have important Federal agencies. We have over 250,000 contractors, both in defense and civilian agencies, and the ripple effect through my State had an impact on institutions like Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland and on major flagship companies like Lockheed Martin, and it was really significant. By passing this, we have a certainty that enables us to keep those jobs. The Appropriations Committee is ready to write a funding bill that will create jobs today and jobs tomorrow. Jobs today and important investments in infrastructure, education, research and development, and jobs tomorrow. Let's take this bipartisan agreement, and we will produce a bill. We on the Appropriations Committee will produce a bill that meets our national security needs, our compelling human needs, and at the same time lay the groundwork for a more prosperous America. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and end gridlock and deadlock. Let's get on with making sure that we have certainty and reliability in funding the government of the United States of America. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to honor Maggie McIntosh on the occasion of her retirement as director of Federal Relations at Johns Hopkins University. Maggie has a long career in public service. She has served in the Maryland House of Delegates since 1992, when she was first elected to represent the 42nd District. Since 2002, Maggie has represented the people of northern Baltimore City as the Delegate for the 43rd District of Maryland. She is also an active member of the Maryland Democratic Party. She previously served for 8 years as a member of the Democratic Central Committee from Baltimore City. Maggie is a woman of many firsts. She was the first female majority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates. She was also the first woman to serve as chair of the Environmental Matters Committee. Maggie is also a fighter. One of her many passions is education. She was a Baltimore City public school teacher, and an adjunct professor at Catonsville Community College and the University of Baltimore. Maggie is also passionate about environmental issues, Maryland economic development, equal rights, and the effort to elect more women in Maryland. She has an extraordinary record as a legislature, and she is only now getting started. Additionally, Maggie is a trusted friend. I have known her for many years. Maggie previously served as my State director and campaign manager--I call her ``Boss Maggie.'' Today, I wish to recognize her for her years of service to Johns Hopkins University. Maggie joined Johns Hopkins in 1992, and is currently the director of Federal Relations. She is retiring from her position after 20 years at Johns Hopkins. I wish her the best as she continues to serve the people of Maryland and fights the good fight for the issues she believes in.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, today, I wish to honor my long-time staff member, Denise Nooe, on the occasion of her retirement. Denise has been a part of my team for 30 years. She began working for me in 1983 as a constituent services representative when I was representing Maryland's Third District in the U.S. House of Representatives, and she was a key part of my team when I transitioned from the House to the Senate. Denise has been the outstanding director of my Annapolis office since 1987. Denise and I have similar backgrounds. We both believe in the power of community organizing to make a difference. We believe the best ideas come from the people. We both have master's degrees in social work, and believe in the importance of helping individuals and serving our communities. We believe that the people have a right to know, to be heard and to be represented. Throughout her career, Denise has strived to make a difference in people's lives. She has utilized her social work skills every day in understanding how she can best serve the people of Maryland, and help them to the best of her ability. As a caseworker, she has helped thousands of veterans and military personnel negotiate the labyrinth of the Federal bureaucracy. She has brought solace to families when their loved one has died in the line of duty. She has made sure that the brave soldier who died for his Nation could be buried at Arlington. She was vigilant in getting the widow and children the benefits that the servicemember earned for them. Our wounded warriors could always come to her with a problem and be confident that it would be managed for them. She has represented me on hundreds of occasions on Veterans Day and Memorial Day and any day that veterans and our brave military needed me. She has also been the link to my Veterans Advisory Board and the Governor's Commission on Veterans. Denise also represents me throughout Maryland, most especially in Anne Arundel County. She was instrumental in the creation of the BWI partnership and the Fort Meade Alliance. State and local officials in Anne Arundel County know she is my catcher's mitt. Actually they think she is the Senator, because we are both short in height. But Denise is also tall in stature among her colleagues, for certainly she has no peer. Denise has recently been in a key advocacy role assisting me in my efforts to reduce the horrific backlog of Veteran's disability claims in Baltimore. She has been my boots on the ground in Baltimore and played an important role in rallying and assisting the Veterans Service Organizations during this difficult time. Throughout these wonderful 30 years, Denise has been an invaluable member of my staff. Not only has she helped me immensely in my work as a U.S. Senator, but she has also stood sentry with me and served the people of Maryland with distinction for three decades. Today I want to recognize her for all of the important work she has done, tell the world that I hold her in the highest regard and wish her the very best on her retirement.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, today we, of course, are beginning the debate on the National Defense Authorization Act. Throughout the next hour, and throughout the rest of the day, you will see the women of the Senate take the floor, one, in support of our military but also to express their concern and their ideas on how to deal with sexual violence in the military. You will see in the next hour our ideas--the fact that we have excellent ideas in the bill--and then we will have a robust debate on how to even further enhance this process. This is a compelling national problem. When you join the military and you face the enemy, you should not have to fear the enemy within. No woman should be a victim of rape by a fellow soldier or seaman or corpsman. No man should face the same sexual attack and call it hazing. There is no place in the U.S. military for violence against one member of the military by another. I am pretty fed up. I am fed up with lip service and empty promises and zero tolerance policies and task force after task force after task force. I am an old-timer in this institution. I have been here for 25 years, and I have worked on this issue every year. Ever since I first came here there has been some repugnant occurrence--from when I was a brandnew Senator and I had to deal with a situation at the Naval Academy where a female midshipman was chained to a urinal at the Naval Academy and taunted for 3 hours by fellow midshipmen, until she was freed by a visiting Air Force cadet, getting her out of handcuffs at her own Naval Academy. Then there was Tailhook. Then there were other kinds of incidents. Statistics after statistics. There are 26,000 reasons why we are on the floor today. Mr. President, 26,000 sexual assaults have occurred in our U.S. military this past year. Then we look at the service academies training the future leaders--15 attacks at the Naval Academy, 15 attacks at West Point, and over 50 attacks at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Now is the time to do something, to do something bold, to do something strong and something unequivocal, something victims can have confidence in, where the accused can feel the process will be fair and we restore the confidence in the U.S. military to stop this and to deal with their own. I am proud of the leadership taken by the women in the Senate and the women on the Armed Services Committee. There are now seven women on the Armed Services Committee--five Democrats and two Republicans. Wow, do they work on a bipartisan basis with the leadership of the committee. We appreciate the work of the fine men who have supported us in dealing with this issue. We particularly thank Chairman Levin for his leadership, and we acknowledge the role of Senator Inhofe. By the way, all of the women of the Senate wish to express our sincere condolences to Senator Inhofe on the loss of his beloved son, Dr. Perry Inhofe. This is not just a women-only fight. This is a fight to make sure our military continues to be the best in the world and that when you serve, there is an enemy outside that we will always face, but there is an enemy within that we need to now end. We, the women of the Senate--all of us--agree on the goals. We want to be able to provide prosecutorial tools for punishment, we want to ensure fairness in the process, and we want to make sure we get help to the victims. The National Defense Authorization Act has more than 30 reforms in it to accomplish that. Thirteen relate to prosecutorial reforms, 10 are reforms to improve victims' services, 2 reforms are to improve training of first responders, and 5 also deal with various kinds of reporting. I am so pleased that the bill works to prevent retaliation against someone who reports a crime. So if you feel you have been a victim of sexual assault you are not retaliated against by stepping forward, where you are then doubly victimized, both by the attack and then by those who want to squelch the fact that you want to bring the attack to the surface and to follow some kind of redress and to also get help. It also eliminates the statute of limitations on courts-martial for sexual crimes. It requires a review of decisions by commanders not to prosecute and requires dishonorable discharge for anyone convicted of a sexual assault. The bill ensures that every victim gets access to legal counsel and support. This is very important. It is important not only to me and the other women, but it is important to the person who would be injured. First responders must have training in sexual assault. There are others that could be elaborated on. Sexual assault in the military continues to rise. It is a problem, as I said. I am worried about the men and women every day, to be sure that they are well trained and well protected. Unfortunately, many of these acts of violence are unreported, unprosecuted, and unpunished. DOD's own annual report gives us a picture of why victims do not report these crimes. Fifty percent do not think anything will be done, 43 percent believe they will not be believed, and 47 percent are afraid of retaliation. The reforms in this bill deal with those fears and their concerns. We are ready to reform, revise, and standardize how the military deals with these problems. These reforms will change the way the military thinks and how they act. During the course of this whole process, we have met with victims and heard their stories, we have met with experts and advocates, we have met with the military themselves. Now we are ready to give all concerned in this a voice by using the Defense bill for a vehicle for serious and significant reform. We have been able to do this because we have worked together on both sides of the aisle, working with the leadership of the committee--30 reforms that people can count on for fairness in the process for the accused but also help to those who feel they have been victimized but to be sure they are not victimized by the very system they count on. I eagerly look forward to hearing from my senior Republican colleague Senator Collins. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, we are seeing something pretty historic, with over half of the women of the Senate speaking on this issue. I know the press isn't covering this, but I hope with C-SPAN they are. This is a bipartisan effort, with 30 reforms we have agreed to, and it is very impressive that we are all here, speaking up with one voice, and an occasional difference in goals. I hope America is watching because this has never happened before. I now turn to the Senator from Wisconsin for her remarks, then to the Senator from Missouri, and then to the Senator from Washington.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, how much time do we have under this morning business agreement?

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. We have two more speakers, Senators from Massachusetts and Washington State. I ask unanimous consent morning business be extended for these two for approximately 10 minutes.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I yield to the Senator from Washington State and the Senator from Massachusetts.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, with the outgoing statement by the Senator from Massachusetts, we have now concluded the time that the women of the Senate have taken, on a bipartisan basis, to speak out against sexual assault in the military and to speak for the 30 reforms we have all agreed upon, on a bipartisan basis, that will enable prosecutorial reform, help to the victims, guarantee that there is fairness with the process, and make sure that if a victim comes forward, that victim will not be retaliated against or ignored, and for anyone who is accused, that person will get a fair process. I am very proud of the way the seven women on the Armed Services Committee took the lead on this issue and were then joined not only by the rest of us but also social workers, advocates, former Attorneys General. We could not have done it without the very good men on the committee, particularly the chairmanship of Senator Levin and the help of Senator Inhofe. I note the Senator from Rhode Island Mr. Reed is on the floor. We want to thank Senator Reed for his strong advocacy and advancement for women in the military and also these important reforms. I would also like to add, as the dean of the women, that what we did this morning was pretty historical. We have 10 women from the Senate across the aisle speaking out on 30 reforms that were agreed to in the underlying bill. This is what the American people wanted--Members of the Senate working together with the chairman of the committee, listening to victims, listening to experts, and listening to the military. Do you know what was disappointing. There was only one person in the press gallery. If we had been in conflict--and there will be disagreements later on where there are differences in some policies, and that is OK with me. But we don't make press when we have actually worked together, and worked with such incredible diligence and expertise among ourselves, to solve these egregious and historically intransigent problems. I say to the press, you know you like conflict, you know you like controversy, and you particularly want to see it among the women. We have a precedent where we have disagreed before on goals. When I led the fight with Lilly Ledbetter, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison took me on with nine amendments. We had a good debate and a good bill at the end of it. Senator Murkowski, from the State of Alaska, has also disagreed with me on what should be the best approach on preventive health. We had debates without personal conflict, and we then came up with some good ideas. I say today, when I listen to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--who again have great backgrounds--this is pretty historic. If you are watching on C-SPAN, you saw history being made. There were 10 of us--and there will be more later today--who actually agreed. We are trying to govern the way we were elected to govern. I am proud with what we are going to do with the reforms that are involved. I am proud of the way we have gone about it, and if we disagree on some matters here and there, that is what debate, intellectual rigor, and civility will be all about. I will conclude this debate for now. Other women will be coming throughout the day to speak, and we know we will be debating some other important policies as well. I yield the floor.