Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to address a promising new idea for investors and small businesses: crowdfunding. In recent years, small businesses and startup companies have struggled to raise capital. The traditional methods of raising capital have become increasingly out of reach for many startups and small businesses. There is another option, but Congress must act to authorize it and provide for appropriate safeguards. Low-dollar investments from ordinary Americans may help fill the void, providing a new avenue of funding to the small businesses that are the engine of job creation. The CROWDFUND Act would provide startup companies and other small businesses with a new way to raise capital from ordinary investors in a more transparent and regulated marketplace. The promise of crowdfunding is that investments in small amounts, made through transparent online forums, can allow the ``wisdom of the crowd'' to provide funding for small, innovative companies. It allows ordinary Americans to get in on the ground floor of the next big idea. It is American entrepreneurism at its best, which is why it has the support of the President and many in the business community. That said, there are real risks of investment losses at a rate far beyond ordinary investing. Crowdfunding, if done without proper oversight, provides significant opportunity for fraud. Indeed, it was not too long ago that our financial regulators were doing daily battle with scam artists pitching huge returns on fraudulent schemes through small, unregistered securities. That is why the CROWDFUND Act will tap the opportunity of crowdfunding while reducing the risks. The CROWDFUND Act provides a capital-raising alternative for startups and other small businesses, while not undercutting essential investor protections. It allows companies to raise up to $1 million each year from ordinary Americans. It provides more disclosure, more accountability and accuracy, and limits the exposure of any individual investor. I thank my colleague Senator Bennet for joining me in this effort, and I hope to partner with more of my colleagues to move this idea forward in the days to come.

Mr. MERKLEY

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any related statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 345, submitted earlier today.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., on Thursday, December 8, 2011; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 413, the nomination of Richard Cordray to be Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with the time until 10:30 a.m. equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; and that the cloture vote on the Cordray nomination occur at 10:30 a.m.; finally, that if cloture is not invoked, the Senate resume legislative session and resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1944.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the cloture vote on the Cordray nomination will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Additionally, cloture was filed on the motion to proceed to S. 1944, the Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011. Unless an agreement is reached, that vote will be Friday morning.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, tomorrow we will be voting on whether to close debate on the nomination of Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This vote can be framed in terms of his qualifications, but that would be a mistake because folks on both sides of the aisle have noted he is exceptionally qualified for this position. He is a graduate of Michigan State University, of Oxford University, and the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor in chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. In addition, he has held a number of public positions with honor and distinction as State representative, as Ohio's treasurer, as Ohio attorney general. Indeed, as Ohio's attorney general, he was an aggressive advocate for consumers. He recovered more than $2 billion for Ohio's retirees, investors and business owners and took major steps to help protect its consumers from fraudulent foreclosures and financial predators. What a terrific resume. He is an individual who has stood up for retirees, business owners, and investors. He has said fraud will not be tolerated. We will seek it out and we will penalize it and we will end it. In other words, it is exactly the resume of someone we would want to head a consumer financial protection department or division or bureau. Why are we voting tomorrow to end debate? Why don't we just have a unanimous consent agreement that we go to a final vote? The answer is, my colleagues across the aisle are objecting. They are objecting to a vote on his nomination not because he isn't qualified but because they want to prevent this agency from doing its job: protecting America's families against predators. I cannot think of many issues that are so important to the success of our families as making sure they are not subject to financial predators. Yet my colleagues across the aisle are opposing this nomination in order to protect the predators preying on America's families. That is just plain wrong. I hope they will change their position before tomorrow. Let's turn the clock back to 2003. In 2003, a new type of mortgage was invented in the United States. This was a mortgage that had a 2- year teaser rate--a very favorable, low rate--so as to serve as the bait for mortgage originators to say to their clients: This is the best mortgage for you because it has the lowest rate. But what the originators didn't tell their clients was that after 2 years, that rate exploded to a very high interest rate--a predatory rate--and they couldn't get out of the mortgage because the mortgage had a little sentence in it that said they have to pay a huge penalty if they try to refinance this mortgage. That penalty was 5 or 10 percent of the value of the loan. Show me a working family in America who buys a house, puts down their downpayment, makes their repairs, gets moved in, and still has 10 percent of the value of the house sitting in the bank, able to pay a penalty so they can get to a fair interest rate after the interest rate explodes. So this new mortgage turned the humble, amortizing, family mortgage that had been the pathway for the middle class, for millions of American families, into a predatory trap that destroyed families and that created a lot of wealth for the 1 percent who run the system in our society. Have no doubt, that 1 percent got in, in every possible way. They said: Let's package these predatory mortgages and sell them and then let's take pieces of those packages and combine them with pieces of other security packages and resell them and then let's develop a brandnew insurance industry that insures securities. This insurance is what is often called credit default swaps or derivatives, which are fancy names for insurance on these packages and mortgages. So then they said let's thereby make them very attractive to pension funds and investors across the world. This was so successful that those who were buying the mortgages were willing to pay a huge bonus to the mortgage originators to steer families away from the very successful, humble, amortizing, fixed-rate mortgage into this predatory, exploding interest rate mortgage, all the time posing as the family's counselor, saying it is my job to do what is best for you. Why did this predatory practice in 2003, that grew enormously over the next 4 years, continue to go on? What happened to oversight of fairness, and what happened to the agency that was supposed to shut down predatory practices? That agency was the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve is a very powerful organization. The Federal Reserve has two responsibilities: employment and monetary policy. Those are the traditional responsibilities, but they were given a third, which is consumer protection. Somewhere in that vast, powerful agency on the upper floor, the head of the Federal Reserve and his key advisers were hard at work on monetary policy, deciding what interest rates they would lend to our major banks, and they were hard at work, we would hope, on the employment side as well. But they seemed to have forgotten they were also responsible for consumer protection. That mission was set aside. It was put down in the basement of the building and the lights were turned off and the doors locked and they did absolutely nothing about these predatory practices that were destroying the finances of millions of Americans, that were betraying the fundamental relationship between a family and its trusted mortgage originator who was getting bonus payments for steering them into these loans. They did absolutely nothing about a number of other predatory practices. That is why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created. It doesn't have other responsibilities to distract it. It isn't going to take the fate and success of our families and lock that mission down in the basement and turn out the lights because this is the heart of why this bureau exists. This vote tomorrow is about whether we believe in the family value of fair deals that build the success of our families or whether we believe in the 1 percent exercising full predatory practices to destroy the financial lives of Americans, destroy the financial lives of our veterans for standing up for us in war and who are often a highly targeted group when it comes to these types of mortgage practices and these types of payday practices. This is an important vote tomorrow. It is not a vote about the qualifications of the nominee because the nominee has the right set of skills to be highly qualified in a number of directions. It is a vote about whether, in America, one believes it should be OK to be a predator or not OK. I believe it is not OK. I believe States and the Federal Government should do all they can to make sure deals are fair, to make sure there are not conflicts of interest, to make sure there are not payments that are undisclosed to a customer, to make sure there are not hidden clauses to convince customers by their trusted advisers to sign documents which cause the destruction of families' financial lives over the next 10 to 20 years as a result of that trust. Fairness matters to the success of our families. We should have a unanimous vote tomorrow to end this debate and get on to the final vote of whether to confirm a very distinguished and capable and honorable man who is prepared to fight for the success of American families. I thank the Chair.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the next rollcall vote will be Monday at 5:30 p.m. on confirmation of one of the judicial nominations. We expect the remaining three judges to be confirmed by consent. As a reminder, cloture was filed on the nomination of Caitlin Joan Halligan, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia. That cloture vote will occur at noon on Tuesday.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2192, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, tonight, I voted against final passage of the Defense authorization bill, and I rise now to explain why I voted against it and the considerable concerns I have about the vast expansion of the powers of detention of American citizens that were contained in that bill. These provisions related to the detention of American citizens-- without the standard rights of the fifth and sixth amendment--have been an object of intense debate on the floor of the Senate over the last several days. As a Senator who has now been here 3 years, I can say unequivocally that this debate was extremely valuable. Folks came from both parties on both sides of this issue and shared their insights, both from their life experiences, from their scholarly knowledge of the law, and certainly from their philosophy, and I commend all who participated in that debate. I listened to a great deal of that debate on both sides. I thought this was extraordinarily important; issues surrounding our Bill of Rights and the rights of American citizens, protection from the abuse of power. Some came to this floor and said that essentially the detention provisions in this bill simply clarify existing law and will enhance our national security, and they did so with sincere hearts and sharp minds. Others came, equally sincere, equally learned, and argued the opposite side; that the detention provisions in this bill constitute a devastating circumvention of the fifth amendment right to due process and the sixth amendment right to a speedy trial by impartial jury, as well as a sixth amendment right to confront the witnesses against him or her. Maybe it is useful to take a look at what the fifth and sixth amendments actually say. One of the last clauses of the fifth amendment notes that: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. I think we all grow up in this country absolutely believing in this fundamental value that the government cannot take from you your life, your liberty or your property without the process of law. The sixth amendment notes that, in prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial--and I emphasize public trial--by an impartial jury of the state. It goes on to note that the accused shall be able to confront the witnesses against him and to have the assistance of counsel. So these basic issues of speedy and public trial, an impartial jury, the assistance of counsel, and the ability to confront the witnesses against you, all of these are contained in the sixth amendment and all relevant to this debate over detention. Most of this conversation is about a section of the bill called section 1031, subtitle D, and it is referenced subtitle D, ``Detainee Matters.'' I will just read the title of the section to give a sense of what this is all about. Section 1031. Affirmation of authority of the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons pursuant to the authorization of the use of military force. It uses this fancy word ``covered persons,'' and it is what is referred to in everyday speech as enemy combatants. So section 1031 is about the ability of the Armed Forces to detain enemy combatants. The reason this is framed this way is that there is a historical exception under constitutional findings of the Supreme Court to amendment five and amendment six of the Constitution. That exception is that if an individual is fighting on the side of the enemy against the United States, they do not have the same rights because they are now an enemy combatant in time of war, and they can be detained for the duration of that conflict. This was adjudicated in World War II over individuals who assisted with sabotage in New York, and it was found that the standard rights of speedy public trial, trial by jury, right to counsel do not apply if you are an enemy combatant. Instead, you are put into the framework of a war setting to be treated as a member of the opposing army. So this exception has historically been extremely narrow. You are on the battlefield or you are directly working as a member of the enemy force against the United States. It should be extremely narrow, and it should be substantial hurdles for the State to be able to simply claim that you are an enemy combatant and thereby strip you of your fifth and sixth amendment rights. But what we have in this bill, in section 1031, is not this narrow set of provisions based on the historical understanding of an enemy combatant. Instead, we have a definition that says ``a person who was a part or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban, or associated forces, engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of enemy forces.'' On first reading, it may sound as if that individual is directly involved in combat, but listen to the words embedded in this. First of all, it says ``a part of,'' with no conception of what ``a part of'' means. Did you write one sympathetic e-mail in your lifetime? Does that make you ``a part of''? We have no standard here. ``Substantially supported'' is understood to mean material support, but no contingency for intent. If you donated money to a charity and that charity used it to support Taliban activities somewhere in the world or some other group that had an association with the Taliban, you have substantially supported, under this conversation. Then it says ``the U.S. or its coalition partners.'' Who are these coalition partners? What is the definition of that? A few weeks ago, you might have noticed in the news that there were a lot of protests going on in Bahrain. We have a military facility in Bahrain. Is Bahrain a coalition partner since we utilize a partnership with them to supply our forces in the Middle East? Yes, probably so, because there is no definition of ``coalition partner.'' With individuals who were standing up for human rights and got into a battle with police in a public square, they are engaging in a belligerent act against a coalition partner. I hope you can start to see that the standard understanding that has been constitutionally established over time is completely taken apart in this simple paragraph. That should be of grave concern to all Americans who care about our constitutional rights to a fair hearing. What happens when the government suspects you have done something? I want to take you to a case in Oregon. We had a case regarding an individual named Brandon Mayfield. Brandon Mayfield was born in Kansas. Brandon Mayfield got his law degree in Topeka, KS. Brandon Mayfield is an Army veteran. Brandon Mayfield is married with three children and lives with family in a Topeka suburb. Brandon Mayfield is a Muslim convert, and in 2004 FBI agents raided his law office, his home, and his family farm to collect evidence, believing he was a terror mastermind behind the Madrid bombings. The reason why is an FBI agent concluded that a partial fingerprint matched Brandon Mayfield's fingerprint. Under this framework, the government now labels him an enemy combatant, and what right does Brandon Mayfield have to contest this? Basically, no rights. The law provides only that there will be a hearing; that the rules of the hearing will be set by the executive branch--by the President, if you will; that the attorney will be assigned by the executive branch; that the rules of evidence will be determined by the executive branch; that this hearing will occur sometime--but when? We don't know. There is no right to a speedy trial, there is no commitment that it will be public; in other words, no protections from the force of the State whatsoever--completely the opposite. This gateway around the fifth and sixth amendments is very loosely defined rather than tightly defined. The entire process by which an individual might try to say ``You are wrong, that was not me, I was not there'' is extraordinarily without powers for the defendant. I find that outrageous because once that hearing occurs, possibly in secret without an attorney that the individual would like to employ, without rights to evidence, without an ability to confront the witnesses against him or her--without any of these rights, that person can now be locked away forever under this law. There is no right to appeal, no right to contest, and therefore this completely works against the principles we hold dear. Those principles were set up--the fifth amendment and sixth amendments were set up to defend us against the overreach of an executive branch. Yet tonight we have stripped away those protections. A lot of the conversation over the last few days has noted that there was a historical gate through which you did not have the fifth and sixth amendment but also recognized how narrow that was. What we have done today changes that. I hope this continues to receive substantial attention. I would have hoped there would be hearings about this phenomenal change in U.S. law adopted tonight because this sort of thing should not be done lightly. It should not be placed at the last second into a Defense authorization bill without extensive consideration, extensive testimony by experts on all sides of this issue. There is another feature of this bill that I think deserves attention, and that is that it creates a presumption for certain types of crimes to be tried in military tribunals rather than in civilian courts. Many of my colleagues are much more familiar with this than I am, but they have come to the floor and noted that 300 individuals who have been accused of terrorist-related crimes have been tried in civilian courts and found guilty, versus 6 in military courts. They have noted that because the FBI is immersed in the process of getting evidence out of individuals, they are masters at it, which helps to explain these 300 convictions versus the 6 in military courts. But the law tonight creates a presumption that they can be tried in a military court under an argument that several of my colleagues have made that simply the military is better at it. But there is not one shred of evidence brought that the military is better and lots of evidence about the sophisticated, experienced, systematic, and successful efforts of the FBI. Mr. President, I would like to conclude by summarizing that all that we hold dear as Americans in this Constitution about our fair rights as citizens has been trampled on tonight. This has happened twice before in this Chamber, and the Supreme Court has thrown it out twice before. I hope they will find a case that this will put before the Court again because it is the responsibility of the Court to keep taking us back to this document, this Constitution, when we waver from the course it lays out. There should not be a situation that the government can simply assert that the President, no matter what President it is--this President or any future President, whether it be President Bush, whether it be President Obama, whether it be the next President of the United States or one of five Presidencies into the future--they should not be able to say: You, Joe American, I am calling you an enemy combatant. I am locking you up. I am assigning your defender--your court attorney if you will. I am deciding the rules of evidence. I am deciding if it is going to be secret. And after I conclude that there is enough evidence because of a partial fingerprint, I am locking you up forever, and there is not a damned thing you can do about it. Brandon Mayfield was locked up, and he might have been locked up forever if this law had been in place. But the FBI made a mistake. The FBI completely botched the fingerprint comparison. It was Spain that brought it to our attention. Spain kept saying: America, you have the wrong guy. America, you have the wrong fingerprint. And it was Spain that found the right match, and it was finally our own system that said: Yes, we made a mistake, and we are setting Brandon Mayfield free. But under what was done tonight, he may never have seen the light of day outside of his prison. That is not right. It is not, absolutely not a contributor to the security of this country to strip away fair rights of due process, to summon the evidence, to confront your accusers and make sure that a just decision occurs. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 2 p.m. on Monday, December 5, 2011; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 4:30 p.m. with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; and that following morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session under the previous order.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. 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.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Monday, December 5, 2011, at 4:30 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar items Nos. 363, 364, 365, and 406, under the previous order.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 1257, as modified, under the unanimous consent agreement and rise to speak to it.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, this amendment requires the President of the United States to develop a plan to expedite the reduction of U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan and to accelerate the transfer of responsibility for military and security operations to the Government of Afghanistan. Before I speak to some of the details, I want to thank the original cosponsors who have worked hard on this amendment: Senator Mike Lee, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, Senator Rand Paul, and Senator Sherrod Brown. The United States went to Afghanistan with two main goals that were laid out by President Bush: to destroy al-Qaida training camps and to hunt down those responsible for 9/11. Our very capable American troops and their NATO partners have aggressively pursued these objectives. There are very few al-Qaida operating in Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in June 2010 that there were at most only 50 to 100 al-Qaida members in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is no longer and has not been for some time a central arena for al-Qaida activity. American forces have also effectively pursued the second objective, which is capturing or killing those who attacked America on 9/11. In recent years, America has captured or killed two dozen high-level al- Qaida operatives, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged operational mastermind of the September 11 attacks, who was captured in a raid on a house in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi near the capital, Islamabad; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, described as a key facilitator of the September 11 attacks; Sheikh Sa'id Masri, an Egyptian believed to have acted as the operational leader of al-Qaida, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike. Most importantly, our exceptional intelligence teams and armed services have tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden, the founder and head of al-Qaida. Citizens may fairly ask--and they do ask--given that we have successfully pursued our original two missions, isn't it time to bring our sons and daughters home? Our citizens remind us that the United States has been at war in Afghanistan for over 10 years, the longest war in American history. Our citizens recognize that the war in Afghanistan has come at a terrible price. More than 1,200 Americans have died from snipers, from improvised explosive devices, and other deadly weapons of war. More than 6,700 Americans have been wounded by those same weapons. Thousands of our soldiers have suffered from--and will suffer for years, decades to come--traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. Our soldiers have paid a huge price. Their families have paid a huge price. In addition, the war in Afghanistan has consumed and is consuming an enormous share of our national resources. According to the Congressional Research Service, by the end of this year--just over a month from now--we will have spent the better part of $\1/2\ trillion or approximately $444 billion. In 2011 alone, we will spend about $120 billion. So what is the answer to our citizens who ask, given our success in destroying al-Qaida training camps and given our success in pursuing those responsible for 9/11, why we haven't brought our troops and our tax dollars home. The official answer is that America has expanded its mission in Afghanistan from the narrow two original objectives of destroying al-Qaida and hunting down those responsible for 9/11 to the broad mission of nation building. Destroying al-Qaida--our original mission--and building a modern nation state where one has never existed are two entirely different things. The expanded mission of nation building in Afghanistan goes way beyond those original two military objectives. This expanded nation- building mission involves creating a strong central government. It involves creating an election process for a functioning democracy. It involves building infrastructure--roads and bridges and schools. It involves a major mission to create a sizable national police force and a sizable and effective national army. We have spent a lot on this mission, but the success is limited. Over 10 years, as I mentioned, we have spent $444 billion. Now, that is in a nation that had a prewar gross domestic product, or economy, of about $10 billion a year. So we have spent an amount equal to 44 times the economy of Afghanistan. One would think the result is we would have rebuilt the infrastructure of Afghanistan 10 times over or 20 times over. But the reality is there is very little to show for this nation- building mission. Why is that the case? Most simply, this nation- building mission is systematically stymied by multiple forces. One is high illiteracy. On my recent trip to Afghanistan, I was told that among those recruited for the national police, the literacy rate at a first grade level is only about 16 percent--first grade level, 16 percent. The goal is to be able to raise that literacy rate so that soldiers can read the serial numbers on their rifles. That is a very different world from the world we live in. The second huge factor is vast corruption. Just after my first trip to Afghanistan, the newspapers were full of stories about the family members and the associates of the President of Afghanistan building massive mansions in Dubai. Well, sending our money to Afghanistan so the elite can send it to Dubai to build mansions does not serve our national security. The efforts in nation building are stymied by deeply felt, ancient tribal and ethnic divisions. Moreover, there is a strong national aversion to the very mission of building a strong central government. I had an interesting experience where I met with six Pashtun tribal leaders in Kabul, the capital. They came in to share their stories and each one of them said that some form of the government you are trying to build is an affliction to our people. Please do not build a stronger government that exploits and afflicts our people. I said to them, help me understand this, because building a government means a force that can help with education, that can help with health care, that can help build transportation infrastructure, that can help provide security for businesses to prosper. They spoke to me and said--one of them summed it up and said, Senator, you don't understand. All of the government positions here are sold. The people who buy them do not buy them to serve our people. They buy them to exploit our people. And when you build a strong central government, which we oppose, the exploitation increases. So this nation-building mission is systematically stymied by high illiteracy, vast corruption, extensive and deep tribal and ethnic divisions, and a historic national aversion to a strong central government. We have been in Afghanistan for more than 10 years. It is time to change course. Our President recognizes this. He has worked out an agreement with the NATO partners to remove the remaining combat troops by the end of 2014. That is just over 3 years from now. But what happens during this next 3 years? This amendment says: Mr. President, during these next 3 years, seize the opportunity to diminish the combat role of American soldiers and increase the responsibility placed with the Afghanistan Government and the Afghanistan forces. Seize that opportunity. I say to my colleagues today, this is incredibly important for our success in transferring responsibility. If we do not provide the opportunity and the necessity for the Afghanistan institutions to take responsibility for their own security, they will not be prepared to exercise that responsibility down the road. The United States is facing a global terrorist threat. We will be well served by using U.S. troops and resources in a counterterrorism strategy against terrorist forces wherever in the world they may locate and train. That strategy was highlighted by the pursuit of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan or more recently our successful pursuit of Anwar Awlaki in Yemen. Our intelligence and our military, the best in the world, have proven without a doubt that they excel at this strategy. Thus, it makes sense to expedite the reduction of U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan and accelerate the responsibility for military and security operations to the Government of Afghanistan. That is what this amendment does. The amendment specifically requires the President to prepare a plan for the expedited reduction of troops and accelerate transfer responsibility based on inputs from military commanders, from NATO and coalition allies, from diplomatic missions in the region, from appropriate members of the Cabinet, and from consultation with Congress. What this amendment does not do is it does not limit our ability to identify an attack by al-Qaida or terrorist forces wherever they may be in the world. It does not limit our ability to destroy al-Qaida or associated terrorist training camps wherever they may be, wherever they are in the world. It does not restrict funding for supplies and equipment needed by our troops deployed in the field. If our national security is well served by taking the fight to al- Qaida wherever they are, if our nation-building strategy in Afghanistan is confounded by illiteracy and corruption and cultural opposition and tribal and ethnic conflicts, if our national resources are needed in that global antiterrorism strategy and are needed as well for nation building here at home, if our men and women have suffered enough on Afghan soil, then we should encourage our President to seize every opportunity over these next 3 years to reduce our forces in Afghanistan and to transfer security responsibilities to the Afghan Government. That is what this amendment does, and I encourage every colleague to support it. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY. The Senator is correct. The amendment is designed to encourage, to increase the pace of the reduction of U.S. forces and the transfer of responsibility to Afghanistan's forces.

Mr. MERKLEY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to support Senator Paul's amendment to revoke war authority. We have heard on the floor that the consequences of revoking authority are vague and uncertain. Indeed, my team has been seeking a reply from the Department of Defense as to whether there were any conditions we should be alerted to or whether this would create a problem. At the last minute, we appear to have a memo--which has not come to my office--that says there are possible complications. Well, let's be clear. The executive branch never wants to hand back authority it has been granted. It always wants to retain maximum flexibility. But as my colleague has pointed out, this is an issue of constitutional authority. We had a constitutional discussion about authorizing action in Iraq and, certainly contrary to my opinion, this body supported that action. But now the President is bringing this war to an end. Doesn't it make sense, then, that we end the authority that went with this war and call a formal end to this battle? The issue has been raised that there might be something that happens in the future. Isn't that true for every country on this planet, that something might happen in the future? Something might happen in Somalia or in Yemen or in any nation in the world. Indeed, under the War Powers Act, the President has the ability to respond immediately. He doesn't need to come to this body for 60 days. So there is extensive flexibility that would go with Iraq just as it goes with every other country, in addition to the authority that has been granted to pursue al-Qaida and associated forces around the world. When, if not now, should we revoke this authority? Do we say that once granted, at any point in the future the administration can go back to war without the authorization of this body? It is time for us to reclaim the authority of Congress. Should the circumstances arise that the President feels the need to go back into a war mode versus many of the other uses of force that are already authorized under other provisions, then he would have 60 days. He could come back to this body and say: These are the changed circumstances. Under the Constitution, will you grant the power to renew or create a new force of war in that country? Then we can hold that debate in a responsible manner. But this open-ended commitment under these circumstances doesn't make sense. Congress has yielded its authority under the Constitution far too often to the executive branch. So many times this body has failed to do its fair share under our constitutional framework. This amendment before us today makes sense in the context of a withdrawal of troops and provides plenty of flexibility to undertake any security issues that might arise in the future. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to support the Paul amendment.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I call for the regular order.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside. I call up en bloc 1239, 1256, 1257, and 1258.