Lisa Murkowski

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that not withstanding the passage of H.R. 2029, the committee-reported substitute be withdrawn.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Now, Mr. President, I would like to turn quickly to a Department of Energy proposal to construct a new petroleum product reserve on the west coast. We call this PADD 5, short for Petroleum Administration for Defense District 5. PADD 5 is important because it consumes 17 percent of the Nation's gasoline, 13 percent of its diesel fuel, and 30 percent of its jet fuel. At the same time, PADD 5 is geographically isolated, according to the Energy Information Administration. The approximately 30 refineries operating on the west coast are responsible for supplying nearly all of its petroleum products. The argument for a product reserve is relatively straightforward. Because PADD 5 is separated from the rest of the country by the Rocky Mountains and from the world by the Pacific Ocean, a stockpile of refined fuel should be established. That is the argument that is out there. I don't oppose a study of this concept, but I can see the pitfalls out there. PADD 5 imports over 1 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products each day, suggesting that it really is not cut off from the world in the first place. And bear in mind the size of the district that we are talking about. Any stockpile would have to be really enormous to have significant impact. Finally, would Federal gasoline reserves supplement or replace commercial stocks? That is a question that needs to be asked. So perhaps the solution is not a refined product reserve at all but instead a return to basics, and that basic is crude oil. After all, there are reasons we chose crude oil instead of the products when we first created the Reserve. By and large, that rationale hasn't changed. First, oil is better suited, chemically and economically, for long-term storage underground, we don't have seasonal specifications on oil as we do on gasoline, and oil can be processed into an array of products while gasoline cannot. Very quickly, taking this back to Alaska, a gasoline reserve on the west coast of any size would be small potatoes when compared to the incredible resource base we have in Alaska. For decades now, tankers have shipped North Slope crude to the line of refineries that stretch from Anacortes, WA, down to Los Angeles. Drivers up and down the coast fuel their cars with gasoline that is refined from this Alaskan oil every day. Alaska North Slope crude oil is chemically similar to the kinds of oil stored in the SPR. In fact, according to the Department of Energy, over 30 million barrels of Alaskan oil have been stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. West coast refineries are optimized to run Alaskan crude. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is only pumping about 500,000 barrels per day, down from 2 million barrels per day at its peak. So there is plenty of room in our already built, already operating pipeline. The problem is--and you have heard me say this before--the Federal Government controls some 60 percent of the land in our State. More than 10 billion barrels of oil are buried under our onshore Federal lands alone, to say nothing of what is held in our offshore waters but remain almost universally inaccessible to American explorers and producers. That includes about 10 billion barrels in the nonwilderness portion of ANWR, where we are asking for permission to develop 2,000 acres or 0.01 percent of the surface of the refuge. That is all we are asking to access. Beyond our ANWR resources, we have at least another 900 million barrels in our National Petroleum Reserve, which is an area that is specifically reserved for development. The estimate on the 900 million barrels there is that it is likely far too low. For the record, I would add that Alaskans overwhelmingly support development of both of these areas. More than 70 percent of Alaskans want development, understanding the significant economic benefits it will bring and the strong record of environmental stewardship we have in the State. We have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to develop our resources in order to create jobs, generate revenues, and bolster our Nation's security and competitiveness. By doing this, we can actually address not just one but two threats: First, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is just one-third full; in large part because of the anti-energy decisions made by this administration and the west coast is more vulnerable to supply disruptions as a result of falling production. You think about a crisis situation in the Middle East. The west coast will need more oil. Its refineries are ready to run Alaskan crude and Alaskans are ready to ship it, but there is nothing to ship because the oil is still in the ground and there is no way to transport it from the North Slope to the terminals along the southern coast of the State. I am not talking about keeping our oil in pristine condition, never to be used. Energy is not fine china that you keep up on a shelf. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not a petroleum preserve. Our strategic stocks, barrels ready to go, should rarely be tapped, but Alaskan resources are already part of the daily life of Californians, Hawaiians. The resource must be accessible, though, but first they need to be accessed. Opening Alaska's resources now would ensure that more oil is transported through TAPS. A healthy pipeline would ensure that oil can be shipped from Alaska to fuel the west coast refineries when they need it and help ensure that energy remains affordable for the west coast. Instead of constructing an entirely new product reserve, as some are contemplating, perhaps what we should do is preserve the infrastructure we have already built and leverage it to boost our energy security. Why would we want to build a reserve when you can prevent a shortage in the first place by letting a State that wants to produce oil go ahead and produce the oil? To me that is sound, strategic thinking. That would be a policy that benefits us instead of simply costing more money that we don't have. That is the kind of thinking that I believe our Nation and our future generations should have.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations placed on the Secretary's desk in the Foreign Service: PN643, PN800, and PN877; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about two issues that are of particular importance to me. When most look at me now, they think about energy and more typically about Alaskan energy. I am not going to disappoint tonight. I would like to speak to that, but I would also like to speak this evening about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the SPR. We have been talking about it a lot of late. It has been viewed as a source of revenue--a pay-for, if you will--with certain measures that we have seen of late, whether it be the transportation measure that we have in front of us, the budget deal that was executed a couple weeks ago, or other measures. I want to take a few minutes this evening to talk about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I will start by first addressing what I will call the flagship SPR. It is the very important stuff, if you will, within the Reserve, and that is the crude oil. I call this the flagship because there are five product petroleum reserve sites in the Northeast. We have product reserve sites for gasoline, distillate, and home heating oil, but these are relatively small reserve sites. There are about 2 million barrels total. I think their effectiveness is probably more controversial. But the flagship SPR is truly--when we think about the impact, the import to our economy and to a level of stability, the flagship Strategic Petroleum Reserve occupies giant underground caverns along the gulf coast. I had the opportunity to visit the site of one of our Strategic Petroleum Reserves. It holds some 695 million barrels, and they are ready to cover our Nation's net imports for several months if global energy markets should spiral out of control. The comforting reality about these flagship SPRs is that, through thick and thin, these reserves are rarely ever tapped. They have offered a measure of security and stability that I think is unique in the history of global commerce. Amid higher levels of domestic production and lower levels of imports, a number of reforms are being considered for the SPR by the Department of Energy now. There has been a lot of discussion. There is a study underway by the DOE, and a discussion about upgrading the distribution capacity of the SPR is underway, and it clearly has merit. The North American energy landscape has changed so quickly and so dramatically that the volume of oil we can pump out of the Reserve is greater and potentially much greater than the volume of oil we can actually move to refineries. This is something we need to understand and study more, but it is something that--we have congested waterways, we can look at reversed pipelines and so on, ways that we can figure out how we can move this oil more readily if we so need it. In the measure we have just executed with the budget proposal, there is funding set aside for Strategic Petroleum Reserve maintenance and life extension, hopefully for marine terminals, but effectively recognizing that we need to make sure that our SPR actually functions as it is intended. That study is underway. We will learn more, hopefully in the spring, but the imperative to have a functioning, workable SPR is one that goes to national security, really, from an overall stability argument. I remain opposed to suggestions by some that we should use the Reserve to pay for completely unrelated programs or that we simply sell off the entire stockpile, as some have suggested. As I wrote in my July report of this year called ``A Turbulent World,'' we have drawn down SPR only on a limited number of occasions. In the entire history of the Reserve itself, only approximately 166 million barrels have ever left the storage sites for any reasons. So 166 barrels have been sold off over the course of the life of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for exchanges, emergencies, tests, deficit reductions. Everything that we have ever done that has involved a sale of the SPR totals just about 166 million barrels. That is this graph over here. Over here are the new proposed sales to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If we add up the barrels this Congress--the 114th Congress-- has already committed to sell for SPR modernization, the Bipartisan Budget Act, the DRIVE Act, the Transportation bill, and then a bill over on the House side, the 21st Century Cures Act, we are looking at a total of 279 million barrels to be sold off. That is 40 million for SPR modernization, 58 million for the Bipartisan Budget Act, 21st Century Cures Act is 80 million, and the highway bill is 101 million. We would be selling off 279 million barrels total. Think about that--in the entire life of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 166 million barrels sold off. In one Congress, what we are proposing is 279 million barrels. It is quite eye-catching. These numbers matter. The SPR is designed to provide 90 days of net import protection. It is a pretty simple math equation we are dealing with. If we import more, we need more in storage; if we import less, we need less. Currently, net imports are about 5 million barrels per day. Therefore, the bare minimum we need in storage is 450 million barrels. So if we execute all of the sales the 114th Congress has either approved or is considering, we dip below the bare minimum that is required--the 450 million barrels--by the end of the 10-year window. I am going to be releasing another report on the cumulative impact of all these sales on the integrity of the Reserve, so we should be seeing that in a few days.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 267, S. 1203.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Isakson amendment be agreed to; the committee-reported substitute, as amended, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; the title amendment be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2280, introduced earlier today.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5 p.m. on Monday, November 16, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 141; that there be 30 minutes of debate on the nomination; that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate; that following disposition of the nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn under the provisions of H. Con. Res. 92 until 3 p.m., Monday, November 16; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each until 5 p.m.; finally, that at 5 p.m., the Senate then proceed to executive session as under the previous order.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Cruz substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2262 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 292, S. Res. 302.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Blumenthal amendment to the resolution be agreed to; the resolution, as amended, be agreed to; the Blumenthal amendment to the preamble be agreed to; the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Sessions for 10 minutes.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Iowa who has led the effort this morning as we speak about the waters of the United States rule that would lead to a resolution of disapproval on this very wrong-headed rule. I also want to acknowledge the good work of my colleague from Wyoming, Senator Barrasso, who had the opportunity yesterday to discuss the devastating impact of the WOTUS rule, as we lovingly refer to it. It was a combined effort to address the concerns that so many of us have across the country about the waters of the United States rule that has stemmed from the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers. This WOTUS rule that so many of us speak to is not only an overreach, it is a significant overreach that will allow for a dramatic expansion of the Federal Government's ability to regulate our land and regulate our waters and will harm the people in the State of Alaska and other States across the Nation. They have said in no uncertain terms that this rule could have as damaging an impact on our State and our State's ability to engage in any level of development--this rule would have greater impact than most anything we have seen before. So I am here to urge my colleagues in the Senate to support the resolution of disapproval that we now have pending, which we will have an opportunity to vote on in just a little over an hour. I have had dozens of meetings--meetings with constituents, meetings with people across the country who have raised this as an issue. We have sent letters, and we have questioned the EPA Administrator about the impact of the rule. I had an opportunity to have a field hearing in Alaska earlier this year, joined by Senator Sullivan, focusing on those areas we would consider to be Federal overreach, those areas that hold our State back from any level of economic activity and development. Time after time, the concern was whether this waters of the United States--again, this expansive interpretation of the Clean Water Act literally designed by the EPA, a concern about how its negative impact on our State will be felt. In addition to many of the legislative efforts that are out there, as chairman of the Appropriations interior subcommittee, I included a provision within the Interior appropriations bill to halt the implementation of the waters of the United States rule. I am a cosponsor of the bill we tried to advance yesterday. Unfortunately, it was blocked. I am also a cosponsor of the disapproval resolution that is being offered by our colleague from Iowa. My position on this is pretty simple: The WOTUS rule cannot be allowed to stand. The agencies have to go back to the drawing board. I am not alone in this view. It is a highly controversial rule. It stands out among many of the rules we have seen finalized by this administration. Of the controversial ones that are out there, I would argue that if this is not in the top tier, if it is not the top, it is certainly No. 2. It is a rule that is controversial enough that it draws bipartisan opposition as well. We have a large majority, a bipartisan majority of the House that opposes it. When we look to how this has been addressed by the States, some 31 States, including the State of Alaska, have sued to block it. A wide range of local governments and business groups have done the same. Just last month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a nationwide injunction to prevent the implementation of this rule. I welcome what the courts have done so far, but I do not think Congress should sit back on this and hope we get the right legal outcome. We should not just be sitting back because that right legal outcome may come. It may come in months, it may come years from now, or it may not be the right outcome. Our opinions here in the Congress are not based solely on what the courts say. We have to look to the reach, to the impact of this rule, and then determine whether it is appropriate. Again, my answer to this is pretty simple: It is no. It is just not appropriate. The agencies are claiming the WOTUS rule is somehow or other just a clarification. They have gone one step further and they renamed it. They are calling it the clean water rule because who out there is going to oppose clean water? Nobody opposes clean water. We all strive for cleaner water, cleaner air. This is something we all should be working to. But just changing the name on this rule does not make it so. In fact, this rule is really just muddying the waters. Excuse the pun, but that is what EPA is doing. They are creating confusion. They are certainly creating greater uncertainty. It opens the door to higher regulatory costs and delays for projects all over the country. There have been many colleagues who have come to the floor and talked about kind of the mechanics of the WOTUS rule. Unfortunately, they are pretty complicated. When you start talking about ``categorically jurisdictional waters,'' when you try to explain the ``significant nexus'' analysis, the only people in the room who are really captivated by what you are talking about are the lawyers who might be in a position to gain some benefit because they are working these cases. But most farmers in Iowa and most miners in Alaska are not thinking about what a categorically jurisdictional water is and whether there is a significant nexus from my little plaster mining operation to a body of water. That is not what people are thinking about. I want to use a little bit of my time this morning to speak to how, in the State of Alaska, people will be harmed by application of this rule. To understand the reach of the rule in the State, take a look at this map of the State of Alaska. It is so big, we cannot even fit it all on one floor chart because really we need to go all of the way out to the Aleutian Chain and we do not have all of the southeastern part of the State in it, but we have the bulk here. Alaska, plain and short, is covered in water. It is just wet. According to our State government, Alaska has more than 40 percent of the Nation's surface water resources. Think about that. Think about the entire United States of America, and then appreciate that in one State, in my State, we have more than 40 percent of the Nation's entire surface water resources. So we are talking over 3 million lakes, over 12,000 rivers. We have approximately 174 million acres of wetlands. There are more wetlands in the State of Alaska than in the entire rest of the country combined. So all you colleagues, all you folks in the 49 other States who are concerned about the impact of this rule, I don't mean to diminish your problems, but think about what this rule would do in Alaska. We have more wetlands in the State of Alaska than in all of the rest of the country combined. Out of 283 communities in the State, 215 of these communities are located within either 2 miles of the coast or a navigable waterway. We live on the water, even in the inland part of the state, where I was raised and went to high school--the lakes, the rivers, up in the north country here, where you have just a small lake. Out in the whole southwest of Alaska--when you fly over it, you look at it, and it is dotted with small lakes and bodies of water. Plainly said, it is wet in Alaska. Surprise--if it is not wet, it is frozen. Think about the permafrost we have there. How do you deal with the permafrost? How is that considered in this proposed rule, in this waters of the United States? If it is frozen, is it waters of the United States? Well, you know, we don't know because the rule is unclear, but we are going to go ahead and just assume that it is going to be covered. We have a map here where what you see is blue. The reason it is blue is because all of it is water. This is the National Hydrography Dataset, Streams, Rivers and Bodies for the State of Alaska, September 2015. EPA has produced maps of the waters and wetlands in each of our 50 States. Our colleagues in the House actually had to force the Agency to release these maps last year. Almost the full State of Alaska is shaded in. That is what the EPA wants to be able to regulate under this rule. So what exactly could that cover? What are we talking about? It could be out here in Bristol Bay, where it is all about fishing. It could be a new runway project there that would be subject to regulation or a seafood processing plant out there in Bristol Bay. Up here in the interior of Alaska, in Fairbanks, it could be a new neighborhood they want to accommodate to deal with the growing population there that would be subject to regulation. It could be a parcel of land awarded under the Native Land Claims Settlement Act that just so happens to be in a wetlands area or have a small river present. But the fact that it was a conveyance of land under the Native Claims Settlement Act does not get you beyond regulation through the EPA. It could be the new industrial park in Anchorage that wants to diversify, wants to help expand the economy there. It could be an energy project up on the North Slope that the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation wants to pursue. But, again, it is either wetlands or it is clearly permafrost up there. It could be Alaska's proposed gas line. We are hoping to run a gas line from the Slope all of the way down to tidewater in Valdez. This is a major project our State's legislature is working on. Right now they are in the midst of a special session. It is going to run across--if you want to talk about wetlands and rivers and areas that will be subject to this permitting requirement, it could be any of those. It could be many more. That brings us to the potential impact under the WOTUS rule. I am not certain that the agencies will try to stop every project in the State-- that is too much even for them--but I recognize that they could use this rule to stop any project that they want, whenever they want, and for as long as they may want. So maybe not every project will be affected, but any project could be targeted. Think about that. If you are trying to make an investment decision, if you are a business that is seeking to expand but you have that level of uncertainty because you don't know if you are going to be targeted, that is tough. It is tough to make these decisions. We know these agencies have cast an extremely wide net with this rule. We know from Keystone XL and from our experiences in Alaska that regulatory decisions are not always fair or impartial or even logical within this administration. We know that almost everything in Alaska is either near water, it is wetlands, or it is permafrost. You add it all up, folks, and almost every project in Alaska could suddenly be subject to Federal permitting under the Clean Water Act. That, in turn, means most projects in our State will end up costing more, taking longer, or being indefinitely delayed. I would remind friends that the cost of securing a section 404 permit can easily run $300,000 and take over 2 years to do. So you are adding cost and you are adding delay. The delay adds to further cost. Some developers just give up. They raise the white flag and they say: I am tired. I am frustrated. I just cannot run this regulatory gauntlet. They give up. All of this would be in addition to the significant regulatory burdens Alaska is already facing. One last example I will leave you with comes from Craig, AK, down here in the southeast. This is a small town of about 1,200 people. We have a local tribal organization that wants to construct a 16-unit affordable housing project. The Army Corps required a $46,000 downpayment to a mitigation bank prior to permitting. Again, this is for a small project in a community of 1,200 people. It is a tribal organization trying to bring in some low-income housing units, and they are going to have to spend $46,000 just to get started. Think about what they could have done if they could have put those dollars toward that project. Imagine then--a town like Craig--when you scale this up to communities such as Anchorage and Fairbanks, what do those costs mean to you? There is just too much at stake. Again, I strongly oppose the WOTUS rule because of the uncertainty it will create, the delays it will deliver, the costs it will impose, because Alaska is the only State that has permafrost and we still have no idea whether or under what circumstances these areas will be regulated and, further, because this rule could dampen our efforts to begin new resource-extraction projects, which we depend upon for a majority of our State's budget. Finally, I oppose the WOTUS rule because it is yet another regulatory burden for Alaskans, for people all over the country. This is on top of all of the other regulations we have seen in our State and from the Interior Department's anti-energy decisions to EPA's quest for project veto authority before, during, and after the permitting process. It gets to a point where it is just too much. It is just too much, and this is where we must come together and stand to stop it. I thank my colleagues for their leadership and look forward to the opportunity to support the disapproval resolution that is pending before the body. With that, I yield the floor.

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

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, today I am submitting a resolution, with Senators Sullivan and Schatz, calling on the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, CAEP, to modify one of their accreditation standards that applies to the qualifications for enrollment of teacher candidates. The goal of accreditation agencies is to ensure that the education provided by our Nation's institutions of higher education and their various programs meet appropriate levels of quality. In 2013, CAEP--the only accreditor of teacher preparation programs in the country--revised its accreditation standards. Problematic, however, is Standard 3.2 that would require teacher preparation programs to ensure that each cohort of students enrolled in the program has an average SAT/ACT/GRE score in the top 50 percent from 2016-2017; the top 40 percent from 2018-2019; and the top 33 percent by 2020. I am all for making sure that our Nation's youngsters have the best possible teachers. We need well-trained, culturally competent, intelligent, effective teachers in every classroom in America. But there is no definitive research or data that shows that performance on the SAT, the ACT, or the GRE is an effective indicator that someone will become an excellent teacher. Worse, basing acceptance into a teacher preparation programs on these tests will have a negative impact on young Native Americans and Alaska natives who want to become teachers in their own communities--where they are so desperately needed. Compounding this inappropriate use of these tests is the fact that Native American and Alaska native students experience academic, economic, and social barriers that result in their SAT, ACT, and GRE scores being disproportionately lower than their peers of other races. Native students also have disproportionately inadequate access to exam preparation and are less likely to take the ACT or SAT than their peers. This new CAEP Standard 3.2 will, therefore, effectively block decades-long efforts to train more Native American and Alaska native teachers, when we know that Native American and Alaska native students benefit from having teachers who understand their culture, their history, and their learning styles. My resolution calls on the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation to do three things: to consult with tribes and native organizations; to jointly develop changes to these standards to ensure that Native Americans and Alaska natives will not be negatively impacted by these standards; and to adopt changes to the standards expeditiously. I hope that my colleagues will pay close attention to this issue, reach out to the teacher preparation programs in their states, and join my colleagues, Senators Sullivan and Schatz in co-sponsoring this resolution, as the Council's standards will impact not only our Native American and Alaska native communities. This standard will also very likely impact young African Americans and Hispanic Americans who hope one day to become teachers but who experience similar barriers to producing high scores on standardized tests.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I have come to the floor to speak in support of the fiscal year 2016 Energy and Water appropriations bill. I want to thank the senior Senator from Tennessee for his leadership in developing this bill, for doing his part to help the Senate return to a regular budgeting process, and I want to urge my colleagues not to filibuster when we vote on it. The Appropriations Committee passed this bill with broad bipartisan approval in late May. The final vote in committee was 26-4, with all Republicans and 10 Democratic Senators supporting it. That means close to 90 percent of the Appropriations Committee voted to advance this bill--a very strong ratio that we should carry over here on the floor, instead of grounding it with demands for more and more spending. There is a lot in here that the Senate should like. My colleague from Tennessee has developed a good, balanced bill that will provide funding and direction to the Department of Energy, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Reclamation. It will allow the Senate to advance our Nation's energy security, nuclear waste cleanup, flood control, and infrastructure development. We hear a lot of talk about the importance of Federal energy policy around here. As the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I certainly agree that energy policy and stewardship of our public lands are worthy of our time and attention. And that is one of the reasons this bill should be allowed to go forward. It will support research and development for our conventional energy resources, for renewable resources, for nuclear energy, and for many other promising technologies. It includes a pilot program for the consolidated storage of spent nuclear fuel, a step in the right direction after years of stalemate that have placed our Nation's nuclear future in limbo. It focuses on the legacy wastes from the Manhattan Project and provides considerable funding for environmental cleanup at legacy sites around the country. It will also uphold our Nation's nuclear security, providing funds for nonproliferation efforts and weapons activities. But that is not all this bill will accomplish. It will also fund the Army Corps of Engineers, whose construction projects and maintenance operations are critical not only for Alaska's harbors, but for every port in the country. Dozens of communities in my home State depend on the sea for their livelihoods--it is a source of food, jobs, and income. Without a viable port, many Alaskans cannot maintain their traditional subsistence way of life, so this is particularly vital to our Alaska Native communities. I don't have time to tick through what this bill will do for all 50 States--but I can tell the Senate a little about what it will do for Alaska. It will fund general investigations in Craig, Kotzebue, Perryville, and St. George. It will provide construction funds for Port Lions and fund the Continuing Authorities Program, which allows projects that are needed by small communities to take place far quicker than can occur through the usual congressional approval process. Operations and maintenance funds will go towards dredging in Anchorage, Homer, Nome, and other cities to ensure their harbors are in good working order and able to handle maritime traffic. This is a good bill. It spends a total of $35.4 billion--which used to be a big number around here. It makes important choices and wise choices and funds our priorities. So if you care about the national lab system or university research programs, you should support this bill. If you care about energy innovation and nuclear safety and nonproliferation, you should support this bill. If you care about ports, roads, harbors, and other infrastructure all around the country, you should support this bill. And if you think the Senate should lead in the Federal budgeting process--if you are serious about getting that back on track, serious about us playing a role instead of being a bystander--you should support this bill. Again, I thank the senior Senator from Tennessee for his hard work and encourage the Senate to move to full consideration of this important bill.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I am here this morning to speak about the issue that is before this body, the motion to proceed to H.R. 2029, or what we refer to as the MILCON-VA appropriations bill. I certainly intend to support closing off debate on this and moving to take up this important appropriations measure. This is important for a host of different reasons, not the least of which is that we need to get to the substance of this issue. We need to get back to a regular order process in order to advance the appropriations bills that we on the Appropriations Committee have spent a considerable amount of time and effort drafting. Over these past many months, we have worked to make sure that the bills were ready for floor consideration. We didn't want to find ourselves in a situation where, at the end of this year, we scramble to piece together an omnibus measure that has not had the considered debate and opportunity for amendment that I believe we all seek as lawmakers. It is important that we consider the Military Construction- VA bill in regular order and do it now--not stick it on the back end of another measure, not incorporate it into an omnibus bill or into some fashion of a CR omnibus right before Christmas. I serve on the Appropriations Committee. I had input into this bill at the subcommittee level and again at the full committee markup, which is a lot more than can be said of many of my colleagues in this body who don't have that opportunity since they are not on the Appropriations Committee. But even after having the input that I have had, it is extraordinarily important that I have another opportunity to influence the bill, and I will illustrate why. I am going to speak about one very specific issue today that has garnered the attention, concern, and passion of Alaskans and veterans around the State, and that is the issue surrounding the Veterans Choice Card. In the view of many Alaskans, the Veterans Choice Card is an unmitigated disaster in our State, and there are many reasons that is the case. We don't host a stand-alone VA hospital in Alaska. So the VA has issued a Choice Card to every veteran in the State who is enrolled for health care. In order to use the Choice Card, you have to identify a provider that is willing to accept the card, qualifies under the very onerous Choice Card standards, and is also willing to put up with the bureaucratic strings that are attached to determining which care is approved by the VA over what period of time and for what price. In Alaska, we have a demand for health care providers that far outstrips the supply, and I have been on the floor many times speaking on that subject. We have many Alaskans that have private health insurance which pays the providers better, and it is certainly more efficient than the government-sponsored programs. Structurally, the way the Veterans Choice Card Program is currently designed, it does not provide Alaska's veterans with the choices that it promises. It is just as simple as that, and those are just the structural problems we are talking about. Many of our colleagues know that TriWest has encountered difficulties with implementing the program, and the VA has had trouble coordinating TriWest's work with the work of the local VA facilities. Unfortunately, these problems have led to some dangerous near-misses. We had one situation with a veteran who was scheduled for a fee-basis neurosurgery. He was going to receive this care from a community provider in the State. Then he was told by the VA that the VA had changed its mind. They were not going to sign off on paying for the care. The vet was told to call TriWest. The TriWest call center operator gave the veteran a list of behavioral health providers who had signed up to accept the Choice Card. The call center operator didn't know that neurosurgery is not the same as behavioral health. By the time the VA had reversed itself, the neurosurgery that the veteran had initially scheduled was no longer available. The vet had to wait for one to become available. What happened in the interim? They gave the veteran pain medicine. In another case, we had a veteran sent to Seattle for a course of radiation therapy, and in the middle of this course of radiation therapy the vet was told to return home because his authorization had expired. He was told: The authorization has expired. Go home. It is not as if he could just get in a car and drive 20 minutes back to his house. He had been sent to Seattle from a rural community in Southeast Alaska for the care--for the radiation therapy. They said: Go home. Your authorization has expired. So there was a whole series of exchanges with TriWest and then with the VA itself. The vet began, basically, calling family members to tell them he was coming home to die and to start making funeral preparations. This is not how we treat our veterans. Now the Veterans Choice legislation provided that the Choice Card program does not displace any of the existing VA purchased care programs. It explicitly supplemented those programs, which for us in Alaska would be a good thing. In Alaska, the VA--and this was under Secretary Shinseki's leadership--established two purchased care programs to address gaps in VA capacity in Alaska. One of the programs provided for partnerships with our tribal health system to care for our vets in more remote areas of the State where the VA simply doesn't have a presence. It was innovative. It was innovative at the time, and these partnerships worked. They really did help to facilitate the care. The other program called ``Care Closer to Home'' enabled the VA to purchase care from community providers in the State who performed medical services that the VA didn't offer--services such as neurosurgery and specialized forms of radiation therapy. Before this program was implemented, the VA forced veterans to fly to Seattle or other parts of the country for services that we would consider pretty routine. You have a 1,000-mile-plus flight to Seattle for an orthopedic appointment or for a neurosurgery appointment. This is what we are putting our veterans through. Imagine you are 70 years old, 80 years old, and you are told to go take a flight for 3\1/2\ hours to Seattle--get yourself to the hospital just for an orthopedic appointment. By the time the veteran is at this place and needs that appointment, you are not feeling well in the first place. I have talked and written before about a veteran on the Kenai Peninsula who died while fighting with the VA over urology care. He couldn't travel to Anchorage, which is about a 3-hour drive, much less to Seattle where the VA wanted to send him because he was in very frail condition, but the VA refused to purchase his care on the Kenai Peninsula where there are facilities that could have helped him. I think we would all agree that when our elderly veterans are in perhaps their final months of life, they have got a lot better things to do than fight with the VA and the bureaucracy. When the VA came to the hearings before the appropriations subcommittee, I asked them pointblank whether the implementation of the Veterans Choice Card would adversely affect the existing purchased care programs in Alaska, whether it is through IHS or further specialized care, and the answer was clear. There was no nuance; there was no doubt. The answer was no, it is not going to impact negatively the purchased care program. When the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up the MILCON-VA bill on May 21, the VA hadn't changed its answer. It is not going to negatively impact, they said. Then a week later, on May 28, I happened to be visiting the VA facility in Anchorage, and I learned there that the VA had spent all of its fiscal year 2015 purchased care money and was planning to suspend its relationships with community providers and the Alaska tribal health system. I had gone to the VA center to get an update, to check in with the new docs who were there and to see how things were going. It was basically a checkup with the folks at VA, and they laid this bombshell. They weren't trying to be coy with me or hide the ball. They had just learned themselves. I don't know who was in greater shock, me or the folks there at the VA and their military partners. We were also in a situation where there were a lot of rumors that the VA was going to pull out of the Joint Venture Hospital that it shares with the Air Force on the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Again, this was a bombshell of news. Now we know that the VA was not just out of purchased care money, it was out of money to operate its health care system, and without the emergency infusion of money we provided from the Choice Act fund before August recess, the VA would have run out of money before we had come back from the August recess. It was a situation that was a mess. We fixed the mess for 2015 but did nothing for 2016. What does the VA's failure to properly project the cost of purchased care in 2015 mean for its fiscal year 2016 appropriations? After asking the VA on several occasions, I am left with the impression that the VA once again will run out of money for purchased care and then will remedy this situation by shoving veterans who are seeking care under the Choice Card whether the care is meaningfully available or not. So we have been pushing the VA on this, and to Secretary McDonald's credit, he came to Alaska this summer. The Undersecretary for Health, Dr. Shulkin, visited Alaska. They weren't sheltered from the anger that our vets were feeling. My colleague Senator Sullivan conducted an incredible field hearing to create a record of how the VA, TriWest, and the Choice Card Program were individually and collectively failing Alaska's veterans. But here's the problem. We don't have a fiscal year 2016 solution locked down, and we may not have an acceptable solution locked down by Veterans Day, either. Without an opportunity to debate the fiscal year 2016 appropriations bill on the floor, I have limited opportunity to press this point, to demand that the GAO investigate what actually is going on and try to amend the bill to ensure that the VA has adequate purchased care money available so that it doesn't drop these veterans through the cracks when it can't serve their critical care issues, and neither can the Choice Card program. Without the opportunity to debate in regular order, I can't do what the people of Alaska have asked me to do in representing them the way I know that we need to in order to deal with this. I hear what the Democratic leader is saying, that the Budget Control Act needs to be addressed, but I don't agree with the tradeoff that we cannot consider appropriations bills in regular order while conversations are ongoing to address the bigger, broader question. Failing to consider these bills in regular order corrodes the influence of this body; it corrodes the ability of Members to fulfill the responsibilities that we have to the people that we work for. These are issues. Again, I chose to focus my comments this morning on one area within the MILCON-VA, on that implementation of the Choice Card in Alaska, and how it has so basically failed our veterans. But there is so much more. Again, if we don't have that opportunity to bring it up, to offer our amendments, to do our best to serve the needs of our veterans, we fail them. We fail the system. I do hope we will have the opportunity this afternoon to advance to these important measures. Remember, this is just the first of 12. It is very important work that we have in front of us. Madam President, I know my colleague from Connecticut has arrived on the floor, but before I yield the floor to him, I want to briefly mention a meeting that I had this morning in my office. Welcoming Members of The Anchorage Fire Department Honor Guard Madam President, I was able to welcome members of the Anchorage Fire Department Honor Guard to my office. They are making their way to Emmitsburg, MD, to be part of a ceremony at the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial, where they will pay tribute to and honor the firefighters who have given their lives in the line of duty during the year 2014. Remembering Jeff Bayless The firefighter whom Alaska is recognizing and honoring is a gentleman by the name of Jeff Bayless. He died at the age of 51 on March 7, 2014, during a strenuous training exercise in Anchorage. How Jeff Bayless lived his life as a fourth-generation Alaskan, and as one who had not only a love for the outdoors but a love and care for people, is something that we want to pay tribute to, and we want to honor and recognize him. This weekend, on the campus of the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, MD, the name of fallen Anchorage firefighter Jeffery Edward Bayless will be inscribed on the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial. A total of 87 firefighters will be honored, and 84 of those firefighters, including Jeff, gave their lives in the line of duty during 2014. Three died in previous years. This week, I welcome members of the Anchorage Fire Department Honor Guard to my office, as they make their way to Emmitsburg to celebrate Jeff's life and his contributions to the fire service. I wanted to reflect for a moment on the life of fire hero Jeff Bayless. Jeff died at age 51 on March 7, 2014, during a strenuous training exercise in Anchorage. Heroes are remembered for the way they lived their lives and this is how we should remember Jeff Bayless. Jeff was a fourth generation Alaskan. He grew up in Copper Center, attended Alaska Bible College in Glennallen, and then became a paramedic through the Oregon Health Sciences University training program. Jeff was also trained as a Registered Nurse. After serving as a paramedic in Oregon, he returned to Alaska to work as a first responder in Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Ultimately he found his home at the Anchorage Fire Department, first as a paramedic and then as a firefighter. He excelled in both roles. Working his way up the ranks, Jeff was a Senior Captain at the time of his passing. As would be expected of a fourth generation Alaskan, Jeff had a love for the out of doors. From an early age, Jeff put his mastery of the outdoors to work in the service of lifesaving. As an older teenager, Jeff and his buddy happened upon a flash flood in the Yukon that swept vehicles off the road. Using their wilderness savvy, they roped up and rescued every person. Later in life, as a member of the Anchorage Fire Department's whitewater rescue team, he plucked several victims from dangerous waters. One of these rescues was particularly memorable. On September 16, 2012, Jeff's Station 11 was called out to rescue a kayaker on the Eagle River who was lodged against a tree after his kayak overturned. The kayaker was in the water for about 90 minutes when a bystander called for emergency assistance. First the tree had to be cut, then the kayaker plucked from the water by his lifejacket. The kayaker was hypothermic by this point. While a number of units from the Anchorage Fire Department responded, Jeff was senior on the three-man jet boat team that plucked the victim out of the water. Jeff's team won the American Red Cross of Alaska Wilderness Rescue Heroes award. Jeff characterized the rescue as one of the most challenging successful rescues his team had ever been involved with. The team was well trained to perform the rescue and in spite of the dangers ``everyone went home,'' including the victim. I cannot characterize Jeff's life in words more touching than on his National Fallen Firefighters Foundation official biography. He spent his life simply doing what he loved, completely engaged, lost in the moment. Without any consciousness of the impact his own life was having, he left behind a great legacy of life, encouragement, accomplishments, and friendship. That, my colleagues, is the definition of a fire hero. He would say he was one of the guys who was just doing his job, but as one of those men who was just doing his job, he needs to know that we view him as one of our heroes. Our thoughts and our prayers are with his family and all of his brother and sister firefighters as they gather this weekend in Emmitsburg. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

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

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I join my colleagues this afternoon in speaking on a joint resolution on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. I wanted to make clear my position on this agreement. We use the term ``deal'' in the Senate talking about the Iran deal. I almost feel like we need to put it in quotation marks because in my mind a deal is something that has been negotiated in give-and-take, back-and-forth, and there is an agreement that is relatively evenhanded or fair on both sides. I do not believe that this deal is a fair deal. I will support the resolution of disapproval when we have that opportunity for that vote. This is not where I hoped I would be on this because I do believe-- and I do believe strongly--that diplomacy is the way that we solve disagreements around the world. I think that most of us were actually very hopeful when the administration began negotiation some years ago with the aim and with the purpose that Iran would cease its nuclear program and end its progress toward a nuclear weapon. I believe that our world would be safer if we were able to achieve those goals--without question--and these are goals that the President himself articulated. He stated specifically that this was his aim. But, unfortunately, this agreement fails to meet those goals. Simply put, this agreement is not in our national interest. After considerable study and considering the terms of the agreement and the views of experts on both sides, the many closed hearings that we had, the many public hearings that were out there, I have concluded that this is not just a bad deal, but I think this is a sad deal. I think this is a sad time for us because of this deal. In fact, this is a deal that borders on capitulation and appeasement, a deal that rewards nuclear extortion. Those are pretty tough words, but that is where I feel we are--a deal which is far worse than no deal at all. I reject, absolutely out of hand, the statement from our President that we have no choice, that it is either this deal or it is war. That is a false choice, and I think it is wrong to put it that way before the American people. Certainly, these negotiations were hard. They were very difficult. That is the nature of these negotiations and deliberations. But other options do exist, and we have been on the floor for several days talking back and forth about them. Well, what else is there? Well, first, there are the sanctions that got Iran to the table in the first place. There are even stronger sanctions that can be imposed. There is continued diplomacy. It is not an apt description to say it is this deal or it is war. Before I discuss my specific objections to the agreement, I would like to place my views on this agreement in context with my views on international agreements in general. I am certainly not opposed to joining with international partners in making the world a better and a more peaceful place. On issues ranging from the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to the new START treaty, I have worked with the administration. I have been there. I approach these issues with an open mind and an open heart, and I have strived to maintain an open mind on this agreement. But quite honestly it is hard, it is really hard, if not impossible, to maintain an open heart when it comes to Iran. Iran is not a country that is open to resetting relations with a world that clearly is seeking peace and a civil society. Before it entered into this agreement, Iran wasn't talking about a reset here, and it has shown no evidence of changing its ways because of where we are with this agreement now. We hear every day that Iran's senior leaders are leading the chant ``Death to America.'' And they said this before the agreement. One would think maybe now there has been this agreement that tone would change. But no, despite all the efforts of Secretary Kerry and others, they are still chanting ``Death to America'' today. That hasn't changed. In fact, just yesterday the Supreme Leader called again for the obliteration of Israel. These are not rabble rousers in the street. These are the leaders in Iran who are calling repeatedly for ``Death to America'' and to wipe Israel off the map. Say what you will about the reportedly moderate President Rouhani, but the facts speak for themselves. We have The Washington Post's Tehran correspondent who has been in jail since July of 2014. Iran continues to hold him on trumped-up espionage charges, and he is not alone. Iran also holds an American pastor, a U.S. marine who traveled to Iran to visit family members, and it is believed to hold Robert Levinson, who was kidnapped from an island off of Iran's coast. Iran continues to persecute Christians and Baha'is in its own country. These are flagrant human rights violations. The facts do not suggest to me this is a regime that is ready for reform. I am not speaking about human rights violations that occurred at an early time in history. This is here, this is now. These persecutions, these human rights violations, these imprisonments are right here, right now. If this were not enough to cause one to question whether we can trust Iran to change its ways, consider this. Iran is a key funder of Hamas and Hezbollah, committed to the destruction of the State of Israel. It funds the rockets which are launched into Israel's sovereign territory from Gaza, southern Lebanon from Syria, and these rockets don't just threaten Iran's sworn enemy, the State of Israel. They also endanger civilian populations in the countries from which they are launched by inviting, if not demanding, immediate retaliation from Israel. So one has to ask the question: Is this a nation that is committed to peace and good global citizenship? Hardly. It just is not. I think we recognize--and the Presiding Officer, in his capacity before coming to the Senate, has been engaged in diplomatic negotiations, and he knows that in diplomacy we often end up negotiating with those who don't share our views, don't share our values. It is important for us to look at what Iran gives the world in return for this agreement. In light of the progress Iran has made in its quest to develop a nuclear weapon, it was imperative to me that an agreement--if we were going to get to an agreement--must not simply arrest Iran's nuclear ambition but require the abandonment of those ambitions. It had to stop those nuclear ambitions. The agreement before us, viewed in absolutely the most favorable light, simply does not accomplish this goal. At best we have pushed the pause button. At best it puts a pause on Iran's final preparations towards becoming a full- fledged nuclear state. And even then, to regard that pause as meaningful requires me to suspend disbelief. I have to suspend my disbelief that Iran can be trusted to live up to the terms of the agreement. I must believe that even though Iran is not required to fully disclose the military dimensions of its existing nuclear program, the international verification mechanisms are indeed effective. I can't do that. I must also believe that other nations will be inclined to meaningfully call out Iran on violations and not simply rationalize them away in order to keep up the appearances this deal is working. I don't think that is going to happen. Each of these assumptions is just a bridge too far. I can't get there. And I hear from Alaskans, as I know my colleague in the Chair does, when they are asking me: Hey, what happened to these anytime, anywhere inspections this administration was promising? Now they are not there. They are asking about these snapback sanctions. It is a pretty catchy word, but what exactly does it mean? How feasible is it? Is it practicable in its implementation? And I can't look at them squarely in the eye and say: Sure, you can count on those snapback provisions to come into play. And even if we could get them back in, we know those sanctions would be weaker, would be less effective than what we have now. Alaskans are also asking: Well, what about these side agreements-- these side agreements between Iran and the IAEA--how is it only they know what is going on there? And we can't go back to our constituents, we can't go back to the good people of the great State of Alaska and say with confidence: Yes, we have these provisions on verification that give us that security; yes, snapback sanctions are practicable; no, there are no side, secret agreements. We can't do that. Before causing the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and allowing sanctions to expire, I need some clear and convincing and unequivocal evidence this agreement will achieve what it set out to achieve. Ideally, I seek Iran's commitment to change its ways, to act as a responsible player on the world stage. It was through sanctions--and we keep hearing this on both sides, whether you support this agreement or do not support this agreement-- that Iran was brought to the table in the first place by crippling sanctions. We will lose our leverage with Iran once those sanctions are dialed back. Whether it is 9 months or longer, we lose that leverage. So I am very concerned about where we are with unfreezing assets and releasing sanctions. Many of us have spoken on the floor here about how Iran will now have billions of dollars to spend creating further chaos in the Middle East or arming Israel's enemies or developing rockets which someday might be used to deliver nuclear weapons. You can count me as one of the skeptics. I do not believe Iran will choose to do good with these newfound sources of revenue. I do not believe that they are going to be putting these resources into rebuilding roads and hospitals and infrastructure. I am that skeptic, and I think I join many here in noting what we have seen even under crippling sanctions, when Iran didn't have access to the frozen resources and funds that will be available to them under the deal, they still found a way to direct and finance acts of terrorism throughout the Middle East. Should we give them more money in their hands to do more mischief? Count me as a skeptic. As you know, I focus a great deal on the energy issues as the chairman of the energy committee. I am very concerned about the opportunities this agreement affords Iran's oil sector--opportunities that come at the expense of America's energy producers and our overall economy in the near term. The Energy Information Administration here in Washington and the International Energy Agency in Paris estimates that lifting sanctions on Iran could raise Iranian output by some 700,000 barrels per day. Now, we recognize that production is going to take some time to ramp up and to bring back online--perhaps well into next year and beyond-- but it will come. What we do have in place and ready to go is Iran's floating storage facilities. They are ready to go now and to move that oil out onto the market. And these supplies will do what? They will work to push down global oil prices. We know that will be a good thing for consumers everywhere, but what do we do here in this country? We ban the exports of our oil. In effect, we sanction ourselves. So we are going to let Iran have access to the global oil market, put some 700,000 barrels a day of oil out there, gain new revenues to help their economy, and also do whatever else they may do--create that havoc and chaos and mischief, and fund terrorism. We are going to see oil tankers filling up at Kharg Island instead of Galveston. They are going to be setting sail for our allies in South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere. Our diplomacy is going to benefit Iranian producers while our antiquated domestic export ban is going to harm American producers. This misalignment--and I have outlined it in several white papers out there--can be corrected. We can correct it legislatively, and the administration can correct it. And now that the President claims he has his veto-proof margin of support for the Iran deal, I think there is even greater urgency for this Congress to move on this issue. That is another issue, but I think it is important to raise. It is just one of the many issues that I believe demonstrates that Iran is looking at this as a good deal for them. They got the most out of this negotiation and gave the least. Iran's strategy of nuclear extortion has not been disabled. To the contrary, it has been rewarded. What do they get? What do they get? They get a pathway to nuclear weapons, ICBM program, conventional weapons, sanctions gone, and a stronger economy. It sounds like a pretty good deal for Iran. It sounds like a pretty good deal for Iran but certainly not for the security of this country and not for the security of our allies. I suspect that many of my colleagues, even some who are voting for this agreement, concur with my conclusion that Iran is getting a better deal. We have seen a flurry of comments not only in print but we have certainly heard great discussion on the floor that this agreement is flawed, it is not what we wanted, and it is not what we would have negotiated. The comments from colleagues supporting this say we have to take it because there is no other option here. The President has said it is this or it is war; there is no other option. If you don't like this plan, what is your plan? Then they say we can't have the administration walk away because American prestige will suffer if Congress forces the administration to walk away from this deal. This is not about American prestige, and this should not be about a President's legacy. This is about our security as a nation. Just this morning, I met with a family with three young girls in high school from Juneau, AK. They were doing a walk-through of the Capitol, and they came over to my hideaway. We were talking, and I let them know I was finishing the comments on my statement here. We got to talking about this agreement, and they wanted to know my position on it. I said: Quite simply, I cannot support an agreement that fails to make our Nation a safer place, that fails to make the world a safer place. It has been suggested that this agreement is better than no deal; in other words, that a bad deal is better than no deal at all. I cannot accept this. I cannot accept this, and I don't think this is a situation where we are holding out for the perfect; to use the expression, we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I am not looking for a perfect deal. I am not looking for a perfect deal, but I am demanding one that makes our Nation a safer place--safer with the deal than without--and this agreement doesn't do it. I place the blame firmly with the administration. The President did not work with this Congress. He did not throughout the course of the negotiations try to align our expectations with the direction he was taking to determine what a good agreement might look like that we could all concur with. So I am not surprised that this deal remains so unpopular with the American public. There are a bunch of polls out there. The latest one from Pew says only about 20 percent of the American people support this agreement. I do think it is important to note that on this floor we do have a bipartisan majority of Members in who oppose this deal. I understand that is true in the House as well. I think that is important. And I do think it is unfortunate, with the vote we took just hours ago, that we are not able to get to a straight up or down vote on the resolution of disapproval at this point in time. The whole premise of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act--something that 98 of us agreed voted for, was that we, as the representatives from our respective States around the country, would be able to speak yea or nay to this issue by way of a vote. The American people want Iran out of the nuclear weapons business--it is pretty simple--and that means dismantlement. The American people want their President to demonstrate backbone in the negotiations, not capitulation, not appeasement--not appeasement of Iran, whose leaders seem to take continued pride in this pattern of unacceptable and often reprehensible behavior. This deal simply does not get us there. That is why I join so many others in opposition. I thank the Presiding Officer for the privilege of the time on the floor, and I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 190, S. 1629.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.