Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Sadly, I have even more bad news to report today. Through public information, we have learned that an exploding Takata airbag appears to be responsible for yet another death. Less than 2 weeks ago, a Texas man who was driving with his 11-year-old cousin was involved in a low-impact crash. When the airbag deployed, instead of protecting him, the airbag ruptured and sent a metal piece of shrapnel into the man's neck. When the police arrived, he was already dead. We are awaiting more information from Takata and we are determined to get to the bottom of this. I look forward to working with the chairman on this issue. We plan to continue the investigation until all of our questions have been answered. We are going to do everything possible to get to the bottom of this issue so that consumers are made whole.

Mr. NELSON

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to speak to the Senate about Ukraine and also about Syria. These are two parts of the world that are of particular critical importance to the United States foreign policy today because of what they portend for the future. The fact that our relationship is so rocky with the President of Russia, President Putin, who right up to just a few days after the Olympics suddenly shows his true colors when he invades Crimea, a part of Ukraine, despite all of the agreements when the Soviet Union broke up in the late eighties, early nineties, the agreements that in exchange for moving all of the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine back into Russia, that Russia would forever recognize and respect the sovereignty of Ukraine--well, that went out the window right after the Olympics, and Mr. Putin showed his true colors. He could couch it in all kinds of terms, that there is a Russian naval base that was there, but the fact is the whole world knows what he did, and no one could do anything about it. Then he started to move on the eastern part of Ukraine, and that, of course, is going on as we speak. The so-called rebels aren't really rebels. They are a front for the Russian military propped up with actual troops of the Russian military, sometimes disguised as being free and independent players simply because they don't have on their Russian uniforms; but in fact they have taken them off and put on uniforms that are not Russian uniforms to say that they are part of the rebel force. It is a ruse and everybody knows it is a ruse. I went last August to Ukraine, spoke with almost all of the top-level members of the government and asked what it was they needed. To my surprise, at the time they did not say they needed lethal equipment. They needed up-to-date, up-to-the-minute intelligence, and they needed training. I have urged the U.S. Government to provide that, and we are providing a number of things. This Senator thinks it is clearly in the interest of the United States that we provide more assistance to the Government of Ukraine so their military can have the equipment, including lethal assistance, to hold off Putin's aggression in Eastern Ukraine. This is a particularly critical time. I was there last summer, but what has happened in the meantime is over the course of the past year oil has gone from $100 to $46 a barrel. I remember asking someone when I was there and in the Baltic States what did oil need to get to and below in order for Mr. Putin to start really feeling the pinch, and they said anything under $85 a barrel. It is now around $46 a barrel. Although Russia has significant reserves as of a few months ago, about $450 billion of cash in reserves, that is lower now. Those reserves will hold them for a while because of the price they are getting for their oil. They don't have high production costs in Russia, but because the price is so much lower--half of what they were getting--their revenue is significantly down and therefore all of the money that was being supplied by the Russian Government for so many things, a plethora of different social programs--guess who is feeling the pinch. The people of Russia. So the aggressiveness of Mr. Putin internationally is an attempt to try to take his people's eye off of their own financial depravity and, in fact, get it on the international scene where the President of Russia is quite adept at pounding his chest and banging his fist. The Ukrainians are once again fighting right now as we speak for their territory. The Ukrainian Government took back the Donetsk airport in Eastern Ukraine. Then the rebels came back. And I say ``rebels'' with a wry smile. I mean this is the Russian Army. They came back and they took it again. Last week those Russian-backed rebels broke a shaky ceasefire agreement and they renewed the fighting with the Ukrainian Government military. This Senator feels that we have got to do more to help these people who are trying to protect their independence. If you recall, last year we passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act which provides further sanctions and lethal aid such as antitank and anti- armor weapons, counterartillery radars, secure communications equipment, and tactical surveillance drones. All of that was needed. The fighting that is following appears to be a steady buildup of Russian support for the rebels. General Hodges, the U.S. Army commander in Europe, said last week that since December Russia had doubled its support for the rebels. General Breedlove, the NATO Supreme Commander, said that Russian electronic warfare and defense systems have been detected in the conflict areas. So let's not fool ourselves, the Russian Army is in there and we have to do more to help them. On Syria, this Senator feels where we are having success right now in Iraq against ISIS with the multiple strikes from the air, with training up the Iraqi Army as the boots on the ground, including some American boots on the ground that are advisers and trainers--at the end of the day we are going to have to do this in Syria if we are going to be successful. It is a lot more complicated in Syria because of the Assad government. The Free Syrian Army we are now starting to train--it is almost an impossible task. We train them, they go in, they try to attack ISIS. ISIS attacks them, but so does the Assad regime. That is not a recipe for success. We are working with the vetted opposition fighters to go after ISIS in Syria. We have to supply support. We have to supply lethal support in addition to the training and equipment in order for them to be successful. And for them to be successful, it is absolutely in the interest of the United States. Congress has approved the training and equipping of vetted elements of the Syrian opposition, and the Department of Defense recently announced it will deploy 400 personnel in that effort. We are going to have to do a lot more. The American people are tired of war, and yet we have a new kind of enemy, and we are going to have to take it right to them where they are. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I would like to speak about the Keystone XL Pipeline. At the outset this Senator wants to say the conclusion of this Senator is that this is much more about politics than it is about energy policy, than it is about the economy of this country, particularly so since the price of oil has gone from something in excess of $100 a barrel down to the range of $46 a barrel. Likewise, the fact that the United States is now the No. 1 producer of oil in the world--in large part because of our brethren and sistren in the Senate who represent those Northern Plains States as well as the Southwestern States where they are producing all of this newly found oil from the shale rock which has strengthened the economic position of our country. Think about it, No. 1 producer in the world. That is us. As a result, we do not have to be nearly as dependent on the Middle East, from where we used to get at least 50, 60 percent of our oil or from other areas such as Nigeria or Venezuela. I have just mentioned three very unstable parts of the world. Yet that is the position we have been in, but that has changed. It is now the 21st century. As a result of new technologies, we are the No. 1 producer of oil in the world. So back when we were not, when we were still dependent on foreign oil, there was a discovery in Canada-- Western Canada--the ability to extract oil from the heavy tar in these tar sands. The Canadians wanted an outlet for that. It made it much more appealing to us, to the United States back then, when oil was over $100 a barrel and we were still importing a lot of it from abroad. But interestingly, the Canadians wanted and suggested a pipeline that would come right through the middle of the United States, from the north in Canada, through the middle of the United States, down to the gulf coast, to the refineries. Why didn't they go west from the western States of Canada to the Pacific to have an outlet? They had to cross the Rocky Mountains. Of course that was going to be expensive. It was also going to roil up a bunch of the Canadian environmentalists. So the idea of the Keystone XL was born. What does XL stand for? Extra large. Well, if it was extra large, it implies there is an existing pipeline. Indeed there is. I want to show it to you. This orange line is an existing pipeline coming from Alberta, northeast of Calgary, across Saskatchewan into Manitoba, and then it comes down through North Dakota, South Dakota, eastern Nebraska, and there it forks right at the Kansas line. One line goes east all the way into Illinois, and the other line goes south through Kansas into Oklahoma. I said at the outset this is much more about politics as opposed to energy policy, as well as economics because this all heated up--XL, extra large--during the last Presidential election. Of course those who raise this issue were trying to say: Unless you embrace this XL you are against the United States being energy independent. Well, an interesting thing happened along the way. From Cushing, OK, there was no line directly going to the gulf coast, where the refineries are in Houston and Port Arthur. The President approved that. That has been constructed. I am advised that has just opened in the last few days--so the existing line, all the way from Alberta, Canada, through the heartland of America, all the way to the gulf coast. That is that. But XL, extra large, to carry more oil, was proposed. The route that is now proposed is here. That looks like it makes sense because it cuts off the dogleg and does a straight line. But originally it had come much further to the west, right over the environmentally sensitive lands of the aquifer in central Nebraska where so much of the water resources for the entire Midwestern United States come from. This Senator said, back in the Presidential election of 2012: If you really want a bigger pipeline and you want to avoid all of the controversy over the environment, which this proposed route certainly has since it is extra large, why do you not just run it along the existing pipeline? The right of way is already there. Indeed, it is now complete all the way to the gulf coast. Why do you not run it just right along and you would have a lot less opposition? But no. This Senator comes back to his main point: This is all about politics. It is all about trying to make some look as though they are anti-energy and others look as though they are pro-energy. But it is what it is. It is 2 years later, and here we are. The proposal is to still come across parts of Montana, South Dakota, further east in Nebraska, and join with the existing pipeline. So what is confronting a Senator such as this who certainly wants us to be energy independent? Well, then, if we are going to have additional oil supplies as a backup, maybe that would be a good consideration. So let's make sure this new source of foreign oil--that we have a chance to use it in this country, since it is going to come right down the middle of America. No. No. No can do. This foreign oil, for those who are proposing what we are about to vote on, is going right down the gullet of America, right down the middle of America to the gulf coast, and it is going to be exported to foreign countries. So a little old country boy such as I wonders: Now, wait. Let me get this straight. You want foreign oil to build a big oil pipeline to run right through the middle of America as a conduit to send right out to other foreign countries and not be utilized in this country? Sadly, the answer to that is yes. That is what we are confronting. We had an amendment that Canada could not export it. We could use it here for American purposes. But sadly that amendment was defeated by the purists who want it to be exactly as they want it to be, a tool of foreign oil to send through the middle of America in a conduit to other foreign nations. This Senator does not think that is in the interests of this country. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to speak on the Keystone Pipeline, but before I do, I want to alert the Senate that I am filing legislation today to try to protect the average American from the breach of data in an individual company and therefore the loss of their personal identification. We have had a number of cases where there have been these wide data breaches in companies with hundreds of thousands of records being stolen. And, of course, woe to you if, in fact, your personal identity is stolen. It may manifest itself in so many different ways, not the least of which we have seen particularly in the Tampa and the Miami area of my State--the use of stolen Social Security numbers to file false income tax returns seeking refunds. Believe it or not, there was a ring in Tampa that was actually doing this so successfully that the street crime actually dropped--the burglaries, the robberies, the breakings and enterings, all of that dropped because suddenly the criminals found it was so easy to use a laptop instead, once they had secured the stolen ID, to generate these false income tax returns. That is just one example. The fact is if your identity is stolen because of a breach in a corporation, you should have a right of having the knowledge that your security has been breached. Therefore, we are filing today, with a number of cosponsors, simple legislation that I have filed before in previous Congresses, that if data is stolen from a company, it is incumbent upon that company to notify its customers within 30 days that their secure information has been stolen. That is it. Plain and simple. Mr. President, I want to talk about the Keystone XL. I would first remind anybody who is not familiar with this issue, this is the Keystone XL Pipeline. What does XL stand for? It stands for extra large. Well, if this is an extra-large pipeline, that would indicate there is a smaller pipeline, and in fact there is. There is a smaller pipeline that is in existence from Canada coming across the northern part of the United States, coming down to a terminal in southern Missouri. It was about 2 years ago that the President announced he was going to start and allow the extension of that southern terminus all the way to the gulf where there are the refineries. That is under construction. I don't know the completion date. It may be already completed. So there is a pipeline from Canada all the way to the gulf coast. If what the oil interests in Canada want is a larger pipeline, XL, a lot of this environmental debate could have been avoided if you simply ran it along the same route as the existing pipeline. In fact, there wouldn't have been all the controversy about all of the aquifer and the recharge area right across the middle of Nebraska that the State of Nebraska got so exercised about, and at first the Governor and the various State officials took the position they did not want this. Finally, a new route was negotiated and the route was further to the east, not right across the middle of the recharge area which supplies a lot of the aquifer not only in Nebraska but a lot of the Western States. Yet it is still running across part of the aquifer. We would have avoided all of that had you just run the XL pipeline right along the existing pipeline. There wouldn't have been all of this siting problem. The environmental problems associated with the pipeline wouldn't have been there. But why was it done? This is all politics. It was done in the middle of the Presidential campaign going back--coming up to the 2012 campaign, and it was supposedly to show that the President was anti- energy, anti-energy independence because he wasn't in favor of creating more oil production in North America. Well, that is clearly what played out. But along the way, then the question came: Well, assuming you put this pipeline there, what is going to happen to that Canadian oil? Where is it going to go? It was a legitimate question. The answer to that was it was going to go right out to additional foreign countries. So this particular Senator said, now wait a minute, do I understand that you want Canadian oil to have a conduit right through the center of the United States to a port in the Gulf of Mexico, then to be exported to foreign countries? And the answer to that was yes. I said, well, since it seems as though it would be in the interests of the United States that we at least keep part of that in the United States for consumption so it would lessen our dependence on foreign oil coming from the Middle East or coming from places where we used to get some 12 percent to 20 percent of our oil--thank goodness we don't today, but used to from a place such as Nigeria. You know how troubled that area is now. My question was: Well, wouldn't it make sense that we keep some of that oil in the United States for domestic uses so we didn't have to rely on oil coming from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf area, from the West Coast of Africa? The answer was that they would not entertain an amendment that would prohibit that oil from being exported. Likewise, if the oil is refined on the gulf coast, it is not prohibited from being exported. I am just a country boy from Florida, but I can put two and two together. It simply does not make sense to me that you would want foreign oil to come in a conduit through the United States right through the heartland to go right out to other oil-thirsty nations in the world. If that were the case, then why doesn't Canada take an oil pipeline and build it themselves to the west, through the Pacific Coast? Or why wouldn't Canada use the existing structures and end up in the Great Lakes and send the oil out through the Great Lakes? And yet, what did I say? This is politics. Since the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed last night was passed, this is going to be in front of the Senate. There are going to be opportunities for amendments, and I can tell you that this Senator is going to support the amendment that prohibits this oil from being sent out to other countries. If we are really interested in the security of the United States, national security, our independence from foreign oil, since Canada is such a close friend and ally, this would be in the interests of the United States. The fact is that it is coming at an interesting time. It is getting all the more complicated. It used to be that oil--and you think back a half a year, three-quarters of a year ago, oil was selling in excess of $100 barrel. Yesterday it was just over $46 a barrel. It is said that Canada cannot efficiently produce this oil and have any break-even point unless oil is selling in the range of $70 a barrel. So why in the world would Canada even want to do this right now, particularly at a time that oil is at $46 and may stay down for some period of time, even a year or two? I think if we apply some country-boy logic to this, there are sufficient significant questions--first of all, to kill the bill, and if that is not possible, certainly to amend it so that it complies with the financial and national security interests of the United States. That is the intention of this Senator. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, we all recognize the danger that many hazardous chemicals and over-the-counter drugs pose to children. That's why we require child-resistant packaging for these substances to prevent accidental poisonings that could result in serious injury or death. Unfortunately, there is no child-resistant packaging required for concentrated liquid nicotine, which can be toxic if ingested or even absorbed through the skin. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, AAP, some of these small bottles of liquid nicotine contain a concentrated and deadly amount of the substance. The AAP notes that this small bottle contains enough nicotine to kill four small children. Just a few drops of the liquid splashed on a child's skin can make the child very ill. The American Association of Poison Control Centers reports that poison control centers received 3,957 calls in 2014 related to liquid nicotine exposure. This is more than twice as many calls as in 2013, when AAPCC reported 1,543 calls related to liquid nicotine exposure. Sadly, it was only a matter of time before one of these accidental nicotine poisonings resulted in death. This past December, a 1-year-old boy in New York State died after ingesting liquid nicotine in his home. We have to do more to protect children from deadly accidents like this. Today I am reintroducing the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act with Senators Ayotte, Bennet, Blumenthal, Boxer, Brown, Durbin, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Markey, Merkley, Reed, Schatz, and Schumer to prevent these unnecessary tragedies. This common-sense legislation gives the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, authority and direction to issue rules requiring safer, child-resistant packaging for liquid nicotine products within 1 year of passage. The CPSC already requires child-resistant packaging for many household products, including over-the-counter medicines and cleaning agents. These rules have prevented countless injuries and deaths to children. There is no reason why bottles of liquid nicotine should not be required to have child-resistant packaging as well. I invite my colleagues to join us to support the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act. Last Congress, this legislation was reported out of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee by voice vote. Continuing our work together this Congress, we can pass this bipartisan legislation and help prevent accidental child nicotine poisonings. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the vote on the motion to proceed to executive session to consider the confirmation of the nomination of Sarah R. Saldana, to be an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, which occurred on Saturday, December 13, 2014. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the motion.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I wish to speak about a tax bill that is coming up that is fairly necessary for the country. The Senator from South Dakota and I have the privilege also of serving on the Finance Committee, and there is an example where we just haven't been able to get a lot done. Now, here we are at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute with a whole bunch of provisions about to expire that are extremely important to American taxpayers, such as the research and development tax credit. American businesses and American taxpayers would like to have some certainty of knowing, as they are doing their planning for the year, that they can plan on this or that deduction or tax credit. In Congress, for the entire past year, we have not had etched into law, because it has expired, a number of these tax deductions and credits that I am going to go through. But the R&D tax credit is only one example. So how in the world can American business and the American taxpayers plan? Take, for example, the Senator has a State where agriculture is predominant. So does this Senator. There are a number of ranchers in the State of Florida who want to donate a conservation easement on their property to keep that property, in this case of ranching families, that they have been ranching for centuries. They want that way of life to continue. There is an interest in environmental restoration; for example, the Everglades restoration, that the headwaters that ultimately flow to the Everglades be preserved from being developed. So there is an interest in the environment to obtain the development rights or a conservation easement. It is clearly in the interests of the taxpayer, likewise, to have observed that conservation easement because that is the easiest way of cleaning up the water that ultimately flows into the Everglades. So the conservation easement is a win-win-win. It is a win for the rancher, it is a win for the taxpayer, and it is a win for the environment. But the poor ranchers, because we have not passed the tax extenders bill, here they are at the end of the year and they would like to make the donation of the conservation easement. How are they going to get it done in the next couple of weeks if we don't pass it until almost the midnight hour? It is just another example, and I look forward to working with the Senator from South Dakota. I hope we can pass it this week so at least some of it can be salvaged before the end of this tax year. I have given two examples and I will give another: the wind energy production tax credit. It provides a credit for electricity produced by the wind. There is a lot of wind out in the middle of this country. It is a good way to produce electricity. It is called renewable electricity. It has brought our electricity sector into the 21st century. It has reduced our dependence on carbon-based electricity. It makes sense. If someone visits a country such as Denmark, look how many windmills there are. I still call them windmills, but they are wind turbines. They are highly sophisticated, finely tuned machines, blades that will take the least bit of wind and turn that big blade that is hundreds of feet long. As it turns, it is generating electricity. Yet for the entire past year people who want to establish these wind farms don't have any certainty that they will be able to get this wind energy production tax credit. The purpose for the tax credit is to give the businesses an incentive to establish wind farms which, No. 1, becomes a win for the environment; No. 2, becomes a win for the business that is in the business of wind energy production; and, No. 3, becomes a win for the consumers because it is weaning us from producing electricity only from a carbon-based fuel that ultimately sends CO2 into the atmosphere. We know what is happening with a lot of CO2 up there, it creates the greenhouse effect. As the Sun's rays come in and bounce off the surface of the Earth and reflect or radiate back out into space, suddenly the glass ceiling--the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases--traps that heat. What happens? The increasing temperature of the planet, 90 percent of that heat is absorbed into the oceans and, as a result, we are seeing the sea level rise. For a State such as mine, the State of Florida, NASA has measured over the past 50 years--not drafts, not projections, measurements--5 to 8 inches in South Florida of sea level rise in Florida. By the way, check the papers. Yesterday the pumps didn't work. Alton Road in Miami Beach was flooded. The mayor of Miami Beach, when he was campaigning 1 year ago, went in a kayak down Alton Road as a demonstration of how the sea level rise at high tide is flooding streets of Miami Beach. It brings me back to this extenders tax bill we need to pass this week: the wind energy production tax credit. Another example is the work opportunity tax credit, which encourages people who work to hire disadvantaged people. It provides a tax credit for businesses that hire people who have a difficult time getting a job. It encourages the private sector to help these folks get out of a difficult spot in their lives, because they have disadvantages, to become independent, to stand on their own two feet because they can go to work. That is the purpose of a tax credit for work opportunity, but that hasn't been in effect all this year, 2014. We pass this tax extenders bill and it will retroactively take it back to the 1st of the year and make this tax credit--and these others I have mentioned--available as people are calculating their Federal income tax for the calendar year 2014. Another is rollover IRAs to charities. It is when you get to a certain age--and I believe the age is 70--and you have an IRA. By law, setting up the IRAs which are nontaxable--recall all the years you put money in those IRAs, you put that money into the IRA before you paid tax on it. When you bring money out of the IRAs that you have had all of your life, you are going to pay the tax, and that more than likely is going to be during your retirement years. That is what an IRA is for. It is called an Individual Retirement Account. By law, under the IRA law, when someone gets to be 70, they have to start taking out a certain amount of that IRA. We have had a provision in the Tax Code that is an incentive to give that money that people have to take out to charity. Therefore, it provides an easier way for people who have to take the money out of their retirement accounts to give that money to charity because, when they take it out, it doesn't become taxable before they give it to the charity. In other words, it is a transfer of the tax-free dollars in the IRA directly over to charity. It is a win for the taxpayer, and it is a win for the charitable organizations because there is an incentive there to give that money to charitable organizations. If we don't pass this tax extenders bill, that is not available for all of this year of 2014. Think what that is going to do to some charities and what it is going to be doing to taxpayers who have been planning on that deduction and suddenly find it is not available. Another example is there are a few States--maybe half a dozen--that do not have a State income tax, but often the State government is in fact funded by the State sales tax. My State of Florida is one of those States. The State of Washington is another, and the State of Texas is another. There are about three others. Therefore, if someone is in a State that has a State income tax, and they are calculating their Federal income tax, they can deduct the State income tax in the deduction of the Federal income tax. What about the poor people in the States that don't have the income tax? They should be able to deduct the similar tax that we pay in our States, the State sales tax, and that provision has been there in the Tax Code, but it is not in there for 2014 because it lapsed, and we need to reenact it. This is not a way to run a railroad and tax policy, but unfortunately, because it seems to have the word ``tax'' to it, it seems to be radioactive and, as a result, we have to wait until the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute to pass it. I certainly hope we will pass it this week. Let me give you another example--the deduction for mortgage insurance premiums. When you want to buy a home, the bank negotiates and sets up a mortgage so you can buy the home. Most banks will require you to take out an insurance policy should you fail to pay on that mortgage. We have always had the deductibility of that insurance premium in calculating Federal income taxes, and it particularly helps low- and middle-income people deduct the amount they pay for private mortgage insurance. So, therefore, what does that do? That helps those low- and middle-income folks buy a home. Isn't home ownership something that is desirable in America? I think so. Well, we better pass this tax extenders bill. I will give another example--excluding forgiven mortgage debt from income. It allows people to exclude forgiven mortgage debt from their income. Why am I raising this? Well, haven't we just gone through the worst recession since the Great Depression? Didn't some people get so upside down in their mortgage--with their mortgage being at this level, but the value of their home dropping to this level--so that they owed a much greater amount on their mortgage than the value of their home? What they tried to do was work with the purchaser and the bank that holds the mortgage. That is called a short sale. The bank forgives part of that debt--the difference between the mortgage amount and the value of the home. The poor taxpayer, the homeowner, instead of treating what they have been forgiven as income--they have just had to take a shellacking because of the value of their home dropping below the value of the mortgage. Lo and behold, when they get a break and sell in a short sale, they end up having to pay income tax on that amount of debt that was forgiven. I don't think we want to do that. That is why we have this provision to exclude that debt forgiveness from the income tax. But for all of the last 12 months it is not going to be forgiven if we can't pass this tax extenders bill. I think we better get serious about it. We are talking about looking at this as the last piece of legislation this week to pass before we leave. We better get serious about it. And lastly, let me say that every one of us wants to treat teachers the right way. Teachers haven't been treated the right way. As a matter of fact, a lot of teachers are pulling money out of their own pockets because their school districts are not providing enough money for school supplies for those little children. Those unselfish teachers are going into their own pockets to bring out money to provide the supplies so the kids can learn. Now if a courageous and unselfish teacher does that, should we not at least give them a deduction of that amount they paid for those school supplies for their children? Shouldn't we let them deduct that in calculating their income tax? We have in the past. But we haven't for calendar year 2014--this present year. And that is another one of the deductions that I hope the Congress will pass this week in order to take care of our people. But as we go through this in the future, why do we have to keep waiting until the last minute so people can't plan, so people get nervous, so people don't know what to do, so people don't know how to invest, so people don't know how to preserve their land, their business, and the future for their families? This is no way to run a railroad. Let us at least salvage some kind of victory from the jaws of defeat. I hope we will pass this bill in short order. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, today I wish to call attention to a report released by the Senate Special Committee on Aging, ``Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Benefit: Increasing Use and Access of Affordable Prescription Drugs.'' I have long been an advocate in the fight for affordable prescription drugs for our seniors--in fact, when this body was considering the legislation that created the Medicare Part D benefit, I voiced concerns that we did not go far enough to ensure that every senior had access to the lifesaving and life- sustaining treatments they need. During the debate in the Senate on the Affordable Care Act, I fought to eliminate the so-called Medicare Part D doughnut hole because no senior should have their drug coverage disappear when they need it most. I believe that closing the prescription drug doughnut hole was one of the best things we did in the Affordable Care Act, and in my State alone seniors have saved more than $756 million on their drugs since the law was passed. Over the past 2 years, the Aging Committee has held hearings, drafted legislation, solicited multiple reports from the Government Accountability Office, GAO, and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, OIG, on selected topics, and met with industry and beneficiary stakeholders. I requested a study by the GAO on the Part D plan finder tool's accuracy of information on plans and drug pricing. I chaired a hearing to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the creation of Medicare Part D. During that hearing, witnesses raised issues of specialty drug costs, coverage denial, and customer service issues. As a result, Senator Collins and I introduced the Part D Beneficiary Appeals Fairness Act, S. 1365, to give beneficiaries the right to appeal for a lower copayment for drugs on the specialty tier, the tier on which the most expensive drugs are. I have worked hard with my colleagues to rectify issues with the Medicare Part D appeals process when I learned that seniors were still having difficulty when coverage for needed medications was denied. I also requested a thorough review by the OIG into beneficiaries' access to generic drugs in Medicare Part D plans, the results of which are in the report submitted today, as well as a continued review of the differences in prices for drugs in the Medicaid Program as compared with the Medicare Program. I will continue to improve the Medicare Part D Program, and that is why my colleagues and I issued this committee report to inform the full Senate on innovative ways to use the tools within the Part D program to better control drug costs for seniors and taxpayers. This report is the culmination of 2 years of work by the Senate Special Committee on Aging to assess the status of the Part D program and recommend improvements. One undeniable factor that keeps costs down in the Part D program is the use of generic drugs. Competition in the generic drug market translates into real savings for both taxpayers and beneficiaries. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, estimated in 2010 that the use of generic drugs in the Part D program saved beneficiaries and taxpayers approximately $33 billion; approximately 72 percent--$24 billion--of those savings accrued to the Medicare program and 28 percent--$9 billion--went to beneficiaries. CBO estimates that such savings are shared by beneficiaries and the Part D program through a combination of lower copayments and lower premiums than would have been charged otherwise. While the proportion of generic drug use has increased over time, certain high-cost beneficiary groups continue to miss savings. The committee's report finds four areas for improvement that should be addressed in order to continue to improve on value-based prescription drug use. These include: Incentivizing and supporting plan sponsors to not only include generic drugs on plan formularies but also to proactively promote the maximum use of generic alternatives where appropriate. Currently, most plan sponsors offer a full array of generic alternatives, but they are not required to do so, leaving a small number of plan formularies that do not maximize generic offerings. In addition, there are no mechanisms that reward or incentivize plan sponsors that have undertaken successful strategies to further increase generics use. Encouraging value in Part D plans as much as possible will be increasingly important in coming years. Finding ways to increase the adoption of generic drugs among beneficiaries that receive low income subsidy, LIS, benefits. Generally, insurance companies have been successful at encouraging enrollees to use generic alternatives when available in part because there are large differences in copays between brand and generic drugs. However, in the LIS population, these cost differences do not exist; their copays are set by statute. Innovative methods to improve use of generic drugs in this population, while still ensuring full access for this vulnerable population, must be explored. Improving education among beneficiaries and health professionals. There continues to be a need to educate beneficiaries and health professionals on the efficacy of generic medications and incentivizing them to substitute brand-name drugs for generic drugs, when appropriate. Maximizing program integrity efforts at pharmacies. In some situations, questionable pharmacy billing practices could thwart efforts that have been made to incentivize generics. HHS OIG, GAO, and others have identified important program controls in the Part D program that could be improved. While the report deals only with those levers in the Part D program that can be adjusted to incentivize the less-costly drug option where appropriate, it is undeniable that recent reports indicate certain situations where the price of a selected generic drug dramatically increases. This trend--and the factors that contribute to this disturbing trend--must be better understood. Generics have been critical to overall fiscal sustainability of the health care system, and we must understand and address volatility that results in inexplicable price spikes for patients and taxpayers. I believe this is a hugely complex and recent phenomenon but one that must be studied further. That is why today, in addition to releasing this important and timely report, I intend to request an investigation by the GAO into those factors that underlie the recent price increases of certain generic drugs. It is my hope that these actions, taken together, are efforts that both sides can agree to and will inform us on the best way to move forward to achieve the maximum drug savings possible and provide better, more affordable care for our seniors in coming years.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, before the Senator from South Dakota leaves the floor, let this Senator say that I am looking forward to working with him since he will be our chairman of the Commerce Committee next year. I will have the privilege of being the ranking member. We have a fairly full plate of things that must be done: FAA reauthorization, telecommunications rewrite. Fortunately, it looks as though we have just done a Coast Guard bill, but there can always be tweaks to that. There are a host of things. We are way beyond on NASA reauthorization. Fortunately, we have been able to build on the NASA reauthorization that was done in 2010, but that needs to be updated. There are all kinds of consumer legislation as we get into things such as this thorny issue of Internet access. It is going to take some real bipartisan cooperation. In my discussions with the future chairman, Senator Thune, I am looking forward to working with him on this very important committee.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, it has been summed up here, and I want the Senator from Michigan to hear what has been summarized so meaningfully by all of our colleagues, because this is the best of this institution in terms of how it performs. It has been embodied here in the public service of Carl Levin for 36 years. What we have heard from testimonies on both sides of the aisle is that because of how he has conducted himself as an individual and how he has conducted himself as a public servant and how he has conducted himself as a leader in this Senate is an example of exactly how this institution is supposed to function. Isn't it rather symbolic that on the last couple of days of the session, the bill that will be passed is the bill Senator Levin has ushered through the Senate? He never broke tradition. He made sure the defense authorization bill was going to be passed by hammering out the differences with the House and shepherding it through the parliamentary process. And it has happened every year because of his extraordinary leadership. I will close simply by saying that because he is all of the things we have heard--the consummate gentleman, the humble public servant, his razor-sharp mind, and the best lawyer, by the way, in the entire Senate--because he is all of those things, he also is the embodiment of a Senator because when he gives someone his word, that is it. A person does not have to worry anymore. The future Senate should take a lesson from the life and the leadership of Carl Levin from Michigan. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, one of the great things about America is that two Senators with different outlooks, from different States, can come to the same conclusion, as we have on this legislation. What the Senator from South Carolina has just said is not only my hope and my prayer, but I hope it will be the hope of the whole of the Senate as we embark on the Nation's business next year. And let's see if we can get along. Let's see if we can work together in a civil way. Let's see if we can find that elusive consensus that has been so elusive in the course of these past very contentious and highly partisan and highly ideological years. Let's see if we can get it done. There is a lot to be done. I am going to have the privilege of serving with the new chairman of the Commerce Committee, John Thune of South Dakota. I will be the ranking Democrat on that committee. John and I have already started having personal and private conversations about working together and getting things done, and I am looking forward to it. So in the words of the Senator from South Carolina--of which he is very sincere--I want to echo those words, and I am not only sincere, I am very determined. Now, we will see if it works, but this we know: The people of this country want it to work, and they want us to work together. They are tired of this nonsense they see. So we come here late on a Friday night and we have in front of us our responsibility to spend taxpayer money, hopefully wisely and responsibly. It is one of our chief duties. So the appropriations bill is in front of us. I will vote for it. There are a lot of good things in it. Previous speakers have mentioned those things. We have to be prepared to take on the Nation's enemies, those whom we identify and those whom we don't identify. They are all lurking out there in many different ways. We have to help the health of this country by continuing to try to give the appropriate amounts to institutions such as the National Institutes of Health. There was a time a few years ago that they were being cut. That didn't make sense. The head of NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, came to us and said: I have to stop dead in the tracks 700 research grants going out the door to universities and hospitals across this country, research grants for trying to find cures for diseases. That doesn't make sense. So we are beginning to correct that in this bill, and this bill across the spectrum of government will be able to fund the needs of government. But we have before us what is nothing more than a blatantly partisan attempt to undermine the legislative process and ram through a number of provisions that have no business being in there. We can hear the note of sadness in my voice that in the process of making legislative sausage, some odiferous ingredients got in the sausage because tucked into this spending bill is a provision to once again bail out big banks and undo some of the reforms we made after the financial crisis of 2008. Have we forgotten that just 6 years ago our economy was on the verge of collapse? Do we remember when the Republican Secretary of the Treasury got on his knees in front of the congressional leadership and begged them to pass the Troubled Assets Relief Program to try to buoy up the financial institutions so that the entire country would not go into a financial death spiral? Have we forgotten the lessons we learned from that crisis? Have we forgotten what happens when we allow banks to make extremely risky bets and tell them that if they win they can keep the profits, but if they lose the U.S. Government will bail them out? In this case, this bill would undo part of the financial reforms that say the government isn't going to cover or subsidize the banks' so- called credit default swaps. This is no way to legislate. There is also a provision in here that would let truckdrivers drive even longer hours without having to stop to rest overnight. Eliminating this rule--this rule that simply requires truckdrivers to stop for some rest once in a while--is a direct threat to public safety. It endangers motorists on America's highways. What we have seen is that what happens when truckdrivers make a mistake because of the lack of sleep, that lack of sleep increases risk. We enacted these rest requirements to protect folks, to make traveling on our highways just a bit safer. They are common sense. But this safety provision is reversed in a spending bill, of all places. I intend to raise this issue in the commerce committee next year and hope to have the support--and I know I will--of the Senator who is now presiding in the Senate. It doesn't stop there. Look what they are trying to do to health care. There is a provision in here that would gut part of the new health care law that helps to keep insurance premiums stable. Why would we want to make people pay more for health care? Do you want to score some political points with your base? Do you want to do it on the backs of millions of hard-working Americans who are already struggling to make ends meet? Well, the American people deserve better. If we want to change policy, let's have an open and honest debate on the issues, not some backroom deals tucked into a spending bill. But we are down to the moment of truth, and it is either this spending bill--which in large part is very good. The alternative is uncertainty and a stop-start kind of appropriations process that will do no one any good. It is essential for there to be financial fiscal certainty in the funding of the government for the remainder of this fiscal year. So I am going to vote for the bill. As I conclude, I, too, want to say a word about the Senators who are retiring, and I will make this very short. I am glad the chairman of the Appropriations Committee is coming back to the floor, and I will happily yield to her very wise stewardship. Having already spoken about the extraordinary measures, I would just mention one thing while she is here. I have told this to her privately. Today I spoke to former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Kay Bailey and I had the privilege of being in the right place at the right time when this Nation's human space program was at a crossroads. There was no direction. There was uncertainty and debate in the administration as to what direction it would take, and the task fell to Senator Hutchison and me to try to give that direction with passage of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. That act has served as the template for the direction of NASA. It needs to be updated with other authorization bills because that was 4 years ago. Yet there are Senators in this Senate who have prevented us, when there is no other objection, from getting unanimous consent to pass the NASA authorization update. But there is a safety valve, and the safety valve is the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from Alabama, as they have taken the template of the 2010 NASA authorization bill and fleshed it out and put flesh on the bones of the structure each year, including this bill. I will speak at length at another time about our colleagues who are all such personal friends of mine who are departing: Senator Hagan; Senator Pryor--one of my best friends in the Senate, someone with whom I have met in private prayer sessions each week we were in session; Senator Begich; Senator Udall; and that mighty fighting force known as Landrieu of Louisiana as well. Some of our other retiring Senators I have had the privilege of speaking to at the time they gave their farewell speeches on the floor. I look forward to further comments. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. I want to speak about a very uplifting topic in more ways than one. Friday morning I was at the Cape. We call it the Cape. It is technically known as the Kennedy Space Center. America is going to Mars. The first test flight, the spacecraft Orion, put upon another rocket--in this case, a heavy-lift rocket called the Delta IV--twice orbited around the Earth. On that second orbit it was boosted up way beyond low-Earth orbit to 3,600 miles, and then with a ballistic reentry simulating 80 percent of the forces, the stresses on the spacecraft, the Gs, as well as the heat shield heating up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit in a spacecraft totally instrumented to check out the integrity of the spacecraft and the effectiveness of the heat shield as part of it--an ablative heat shield that burns off upon reentry--and it was a fantastic success. I talked about this last week ahead of time just to give folks an idea of how large this is. The Apollo spacecraft was 12 feet in diameter. It looked like a similar kind of shape, a capsule. That was over four decades ago, 12 feet. Orion is 16\1/2\ feet and totally new technology, a new heat shield and up-to-date instrumentation that will carry four astronauts on our goal of our journey to the planet Mars in the decade of the 2030s. This is what I wanted to share. Friday night after the launch with the extensive coverage that the news media gave, I was at a totally unrelated charity event for a children's hospital. I had people coming up to me and saying we didn't know that we had a space program. It is simply because they associated the shutdown of the space shuttle with the last flight of 135 flights--they associated that with the shutdown of the space program in the last flight of 2011 of the space shuttle. They now see what has been happening behind the scenes all along, where indeed we are in a dual track in America's manned space program, the one track going to Mars way beyond low-Earth orbit where we have been for the last 40-some years. This is a low earth orbit that services the International Space Station where 6 humans are right now, about 250 miles above the Earth doing research in the program of going out and exploring the heavens. The second track of the dual track is, in fact, building American rockets, which is being done in a commercially viable way to go to and from the space station as they are right now with cargo, but making those spacecraft safe with the escape systems for humans. That is the dual track. Therefore, as a result, we end up with NASA exploring the heavens again. We are back in the human space business. The great Senator from the State of Arkansas is here. He does not know I have just spoken about him. It is going to be my privilege to listen to his remarks. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, in just a few moments one of my best friends in the Senate is going to give his farewell address. Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, a former State legislator, former attorney general, and two-term Senator, was caught in this tidal wave in the last election that caused those of us in the Democratic Party in the former old Confederacy, now known as the South--and of course parts of the South these days don't look anything like the old Confederacy. As a matter of fact, my State of Florida is a good example. It is a compendium of people from all over the United States because folks from all over the country have moved to Florida, and thus it is a microcosm of the country. Arkansas is a State where the Pryor family has served with great distinction and enormous public service for decades. Although it temporarily comes to an end with Senator Pryor leaving the Congress in January, that is not the end of his public service. His mom and dad served so ably for years and years in the Governor's mansion, as well as the Senate, serving the people of this country and Arkansas. Mark and his family served our country so ably over the years and that public service will continue. Jay Rockefeller I reflect back just a few days ago when Senator Rockefeller gave his farewell speech. He is another extraordinary public servant who has demonstrated selfless public service. He is a Senator who, because of his family heritage, could have done anything he wanted, but he chose-- after a life of privilege, growing up as a young man, and after having spent time abroad--to go to one of the poorest States in the Union. He first was a volunteer to the poor and later developed a distinguished record of public service that included secretary of state, Governor, and now a five-term Senator. I will speak later about other colleagues who are leaving. These are just two examples. Senator Rockefeller and my seatmate Senator Pryor are extraordinary public servants who when you talked to them and when you looked in their eyes, if they gave you their word, that was it. You didn't have to worry about it. Some say it is a throwback to the old days. The old days is a throwback that we ought to go to, when if a Senator gave you his or her word, that was it, when there was civility among Senators, when there was not an avalanche of outside money that came in to try to define you with statements that were not true. We see what has happened to our politics in America today with exceptional millions of dollars coming into a State, buying up television, to create a statement in 27 seconds often that is not true and that fact checkers say is not true, factcheck.org and Politifact. Yet when we talk to the TV stations and the broadcast stations and show them the fact checkers, they will still run the TV ads. But rather than talk about the mistakes that were made with the Citizens United Supreme Court case and missing by one vote in this Chamber several years ago--we had 59 votes and we needed 60 to cut off debate so we could get to the DISCLOSE Act, a DISCLOSE Act that did not counter the Supreme Court decision, it just said if you are going to spend all this money, you are going to have to say who it is that is doing the contribution. Of course, if we had been able to pass that, then all of this money would not be flowing because it is hiding behind this masquerade of the Committee for Good Government or the ABC committee for whatever. So they masquerade behind that veil to spend all of that money in order-- for their ultimate purposes. It caught a number of our people. Just look at what happened in the runoff election this last Saturday. Look at the imbalance of the spending on TV that occurred since the general election and the runoff in the State of Louisiana. I will speak about Senator Landrieu, Senator Udall, Senator Begich, and Senator Kay Hagan later. I wanted particularly to talk about Senator Rockefeller, our chairman of the commerce committee, and Senator Pryor, one of the finest public servants I have ever had a chance to serve with.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I wish to share with the Senate the fact that we are about to do the first flight test of the new NASA human spacecraft, called Orion. As a matter of fact, it was attempted earlier this morning. There was a launch window between 7:05 and 9:44 eastern time. In fact, a combination of some weather concerns plus some questions of valves opening on some of the fuel lines in the rocket and trying to rework those valves ultimately led to the decision to scrub the mission today. The spacecraft looks like a capsule. If we recall the Apollo capsule that took us to the Moon, it carried three astronauts. It was 12 feet in diameter. Orion is 16.5 feet in diameter and is being designed to carry four astronauts. But it is the forerunner to the space systems that will eventually--in 20 years--carry us to the planet Mars. It will be launched today on an existing workhorse. We have two major workhorses in our stable. The Delta--the Delta IV and this, configured with additional boosters, is called the Delta IV Heavy. The other workhorse in the stable getting so many of our payloads into space, including our military satellites, is the Atlas V. Both of them are proven workhorses and have been almost flawless. This particular spacecraft, for its first flight test, is going up on a Delta IV Heavy. As such, what it will do is first to put it into low Earth orbit, and from there it will be projected out 3,600 miles from the Earth and come back as if it were on a mission to the Moon or to an asteroid or coming back from Mars in a trajectory, coming through the Earth's atmosphere, creating quite a few g's and creating--at about 20,000 miles an hour as it is coming back into the Earth's atmosphere--about 4,000 degrees Farenheit on the heat shield. So the flight test today is to test the structural integrity of the spacecraft as well as to test the viability of the heat shield. That has now been postponed until tomorrow. It was my expectation Senator Thune would be able to go. As it turns out, he has to go back to South Dakota. I will be there at the Cape, and we will report on the launch later on to the Senate next week. But it will all be done in 1 day, and it will splash down in the Pacific, somewhere in the region of the State of the Presiding Officer. They are actually going to have television coverage of the splashdown because we have a Predator that will be over the Atlantic. That is why we have to have the weather there, as well as the weather at the Cape, to be exactly right so we can record the splashdown, because this is a flight test. We are developing a new spacecraft to take humans to missions far beyond low Earth orbit. A lot of people think the human space program was shut down after the space shuttle. No, we are just going into the new design of new spacecraft that can take us on a mission out of Earth's orbit as we explore the Earth's heavens. I will give a report to the Senate next week. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, in 2010 Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Truth in Caller ID Act, which prohibits caller ID spoofing when it is used to defraud or harm Americans. What is caller ID spoofing? It is a technique that allows a telephone caller to alter the phone number that appears on the recipient's Caller ID screen. In other words, spoofing allows someone to hide behind a misleading telephone number to try to scam consumers or trick law enforcement officers. The Truth in Caller ID Act put in place tough new sanctions to crack down on phone scams, empowering States to help the Federal Government track down and punish these fraudsters. Since then spoofing technology has evolved to give fraudsters new tools to pull the wool over our eyes. They take advantage of innovative text messaging services to trick unsuspecting Americans into sending money or providing sensitive personal information. I believe our laws must evolve and adapt to the new tactics and technologies used by these criminals. That is why I am introducing the Phone Scam Prevention Act of 2014, to update the protections we put in place in 2010 and give consumers the tools they need to help them protect themselves. The bill does 3 simple things. First, it extends the current prohibition on Caller ID spoofing to calls coming from outside the United States and stops crooks from using text messaging services to scam consumers. Second, it ensures consumers have access to what are known as ``whitelist services,'' where the technology exists. Whitelist services allow consumers to pick a list of approved phone numbers to ring through to their phone. All other numbers are automatically forwarded to voicemail or rerouted to a different number. Calls from first responders, government agencies, and other important entities would still ring through to the consumer's phone. Several phone companies currently offer whitelist services to their customers. It only makes sense to allow more Americans to have access to these valuable services so that they can help protect themselves from abusive phone calls. Third, the bill directs the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, to develop Caller ID authentication standards within 5 years from the date of enactment to ensure Caller ID information is accurate, or at the very least warn consumers when such information cannot be verified. An international group of telecom engineers, including specialists at the FCC, are currently working to develop such standards. The bill would merely accelerate the timeline for the standards to be finalized and move us to a more secure telephone system sooner. When in place, Caller ID authentication will give consumers the information they need to judge the legitimacy of the call. Scammers will no longer be able to use spoofing technology to claim to be from the IRS, your bank, your utility company, or law enforcement and bilk you out of all your savings. I invite my colleagues to join Senators Collins, Donnelly, Booker, and me in support of the Phone Scam Prevention Act of 2014. Working together, I am hopeful that we can finally stop many of the fraudsters behinds these phone scams. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, in 2010 Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Truth in Caller ID Act, which prohibits caller ID spoofing when it is used to defraud or harm Americans. What is caller ID spoofing? It is a technique that allows a telephone caller to alter the phone number that appears on the recipient's Caller ID screen. In other words, spoofing allows someone to hide behind a misleading telephone number to try to scam consumers or trick law enforcement officers. The Truth in Caller ID Act put in place tough new sanctions to crack down on phone scams, empowering States to help the Federal Government track down and punish these fraudsters. Since then spoofing technology has evolved to give fraudsters new tools to pull the wool over our eyes. They take advantage of innovative text messaging services to trick unsuspecting Americans into sending money or providing sensitive personal information. I believe our laws must evolve and adapt to the new tactics and technologies used by these criminals. That is why I am introducing the Phone Scam Prevention Act of 2014, to update the protections we put in place in 2010 and give consumers the tools they need to help them protect themselves. The bill does 3 simple things. First, it extends the current prohibition on Caller ID spoofing to calls coming from outside the United States and stops crooks from using text messaging services to scam consumers. Second, it ensures consumers have access to what are known as ``whitelist services,'' where the technology exists. Whitelist services allow consumers to pick a list of approved phone numbers to ring through to their phone. All other numbers are automatically forwarded to voicemail or rerouted to a different number. Calls from first responders, government agencies, and other important entities would still ring through to the consumer's phone. Several phone companies currently offer whitelist services to their customers. It only makes sense to allow more Americans to have access to these valuable services so that they can help protect themselves from abusive phone calls. Third, the bill directs the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, to develop Caller ID authentication standards within 5 years from the date of enactment to ensure Caller ID information is accurate, or at the very least warn consumers when such information cannot be verified. An international group of telecom engineers, including specialists at the FCC, are currently working to develop such standards. The bill would merely accelerate the timeline for the standards to be finalized and move us to a more secure telephone system sooner. When in place, Caller ID authentication will give consumers the information they need to judge the legitimacy of the call. Scammers will no longer be able to use spoofing technology to claim to be from the IRS, your bank, your utility company, or law enforcement and bilk you out of all your savings. I invite my colleagues to join Senators Collins, Donnelly, Booker, and me in support of the Phone Scam Prevention Act of 2014. Working together, I am hopeful that we can finally stop many of the fraudsters behinds these phone scams. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, there has been quite a bit in the press about defective exploding airbags. This is a part of a steering wheel with the airbag deployed. In the steering wheel, the driver would be like this with their hands on the steering wheel. When the impact occurs and the airbag is deployed, instantly, if you have seen that kind of impact on the airbag, because of the chemicals inside of the steering wheel, it causes an explosion that comes out of already existing holes in the metal that contains the airbag and it deploys the airbag like this so that the--in this case, the driver--in the case of the passenger, the same, but it is not a steering wheel like this. That protects and has saved countless, thousands and thousands of lives. The fact is that we now know there are four people in this country who are dead. There are a hundred who are injured. That is not including the international office, because of the defective airbag that has been manufactured by a Japanese manufacturer. What its defect is is that instead of the chemicals exploding to inflate the airbag, it explodes with such force for all of this that is contained within the steering wheel before it explodes. There is metal. When the chemical explosion occurs, it is supposed to go through the airholes and fill the bag. Instead, what has happened in the explosion, it is with such force that some of the metal becomes shrapnel and comes through the bag and in effect becomes lethal projectiles that harm either the driver or the passenger. For example, on this exploded airbag, I want you to see the size of the hole that was ripped in this bag here. Here is another one. A hole that was ripped. There are holes in other parts of the bag. Obviously this isn't supposed to occur. As a matter of fact, I visited with a constituent from central Florida. This is a firefighter with a young wife and a young child. A piece of shrapnel, in this particular constituent's case, came into his eye. Therefore, in his occupation as a firefighter, he will not be able to fulfill the financial support for his family as a firefighter. Four people in this country are confirmed dead, and 100 are injured. We have a Federal agency that is supposed to be protecting us. It is called the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Recently, because of the attention brought to this matter, they have come out and said they want these recalls, but the recalls first started out at about 4.7 million. It has been doubled to 7.8 million. It is increasing all the time, and it is expected that it will be in the range of 11 million in this country and 16 million recalls worldwide. Normally, if you could get the recalls done, once it occurs--once the defect is known--then the public is protected. But it seems like, similarly to some dragging of the feet of automobile manufacturers and their parts manufacturers in the past, that is what is occurring here. What we are also seeing is a Federal agency that in this Senator's opinion has not been right up front, forward leaning, and aggressive to protect the public. Thus, I have requested of the Secretary of the Department of Transportation to get in this and to do several things: First, to make sure that all these recalls are happening, and, secondly, if you are a person who knows of the recall because the automobile manufacturer has sent you a letter, are you going to be wanting to drive around if they tell you they can't fix it immediately? Are you going to be wanting to drive around in an automobile that could suddenly explode and cover you with metal shrapnel, severely injuring or killing you? Of course not. So where is the automobile manufacturer with regard to giving a loaner until that air bag can be replaced with a safe one or where are they with regard to providing a rental car? For the automobile company to say we will disable the airbag until we can get the proper replacement, that is not a solution because often the seatbelt and the airbag are designed to work in conjunction with each other to protect the safety of the driver and the passenger. So driving around in a disabled airbag is not a solution. The solution is prompt replacement of the defective, lethal airbags or, until they can be replaced, to give the customer another automobile that is safe. Along the way, someone came up with the brilliant idea in the Federal agency that they were going to issue just regional recalls under the assumption that highway humidity, in fact, is one of the causes. They don't know that, but that is one of the suspicious causes. But what does a regional recall do for the protection of the public? Aren't we a mobile society? If you say we have high humidity in my State of Florida, in Texas and in other Southern States, aren't we a mobile society in which people in other parts of the country who own automobiles come to our States? Of course we are. Oh, by the way, how about some States in the north that have high humidity in the summer--if, in fact, that is the cause. So to say that a solution to the problem is a regional recall is totally ridiculous and the Federal regulatory agency should not be issuing these kinds of edicts if we are serious about protecting the public. I have recommended, in a letter that has been signed by several of our colleagues to the Secretary of Transportation, Secretary Foxx, that he start imposing the maximum fine allowed by law per day against the automobile manufacturers for any days that are missed in replacing the defective airbags so that people will not have to drive around in cars with this defect. While we were home over this recess during the election, I had an airbag explode and demonstrate its force. It is severe, and it is quick, as it has to be in order to protect the passenger in an automobile accident. But if that airbag is defectively constructed so that the explosive force becomes like a hand grenade exploding and sending pieces of a metal into the human body which the very device is supposed to protect, then it is time for action. I hope the folks who are manufacturing and installing these defective airbags indeed are hearing these words of warning. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to show a device in the course of my presentation about exploding airbags.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I wish to recognize the outstanding work of Grace Medical Home, a comprehensive medical clinic in my hometown of Orlando that provides a broad range of health services to low-income, uninsured residents in Central Florida. Grace Medical Home provides 8,500 patient visits annually allowing 2,300 Floridians access to high quality medical services at little or no cost to the patient. Both nationwide and in Florida, free and charitable clinics are a critical component of America's medical safety net. Our country has a strong tradition of neighbors caring for neighbors, and nowhere is that more apparent than in our free and charitable clinics. There are approximately 1,200 of these clinics throughout the Nation that since the 1960s have been filling in the gap for those who ``fall through the cracks'' in our current health care system. These clinics believe in giving people a hand-up not a handout, and they activate at the grassroots level, utilizing a volunteer and staff model to provide a range of health care services to economically disadvantaged individuals. Free and charitable clinics do not receive dedicated Federal funding. Instead, these clinics rely heavily on private donations from individual donors, foundations, grants, and volunteers, which allow them to keep their doors open and to deliver health care to those who need it the most. Currently, the Affordable Care Act is making great strides to help millions of people gain insurance and access to health care. However, even with the most optimistic projections of health insurance enrollment or Medicaid expansion, roughly 30 million people will still be without health coverage. Therefore, free and charitable clinics are and will continue to be an important part of our country's safety net. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in Congress to better address the needs of the underserved with respect to affordability, accessibility, and portability of primary, specialty, dental care, and medication access. And I am thankful that free and charitable clinics across the country like Grace Medical Home are continuing to build a healthy America--one patient at a time.