Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, in response to the Senator, the Florida delegation is clearly united in recognizing that if you cannot sell your home because you cannot get a mortgage, because the bank requires flood insurance, and you cannot afford the flood insurance, the real estate market starts to dry up. In a State such as Florida, the real estate market is one of the main economic engines that fuel the ability of people to have work and to be able to support their families. As a result, we are seeing in places along the coast with--taking examples: That was a tenfold increase from 4,000 to 44,000, a flood insurance premium, told by the Tampa Bay Times. It is not only ridiculous, it is stunning to the point that people cannot believe something is facing them in their personal lives with their homes that could be so easily taken care of if we could get the approvals to get the legislation we already have 60 votes or more for. They cannot believe people are opposing bringing up this legislation to fix what is so obviously in need of fixing.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, it is my understanding. But in the newfound felicity and spirit of the season, wouldn't you think that since the real estate market along the coast has dried up--why? Because if you cannot get flood insurance because you cannot afford it, you cannot get a mortgage. If you cannot get a mortgage, there are a lot of folks who cannot buy a house. By the way, those who need to sell their houses cannot get the buyers. So what happens to the real estate market in places such as the Tampa Bay region of Florida, as chronicled by the Tampa Bay Times--an example that a homeowner's present flood insurance premium is $4,000; under the new bill, $44,000. That is unaffordable. What we are merely asking for is that FEMA do an affordability study while this is delayed for a few years to determine what is the affordability. If this is supposed to be actuarially sound, then that came as a result of huge losses to the program because of an unusual thing--not a hurricane called Katrina but because the waters rose, it put pressure on the dikes and it breached the levees, and that flooded the bowl called New Orleans, and that caused lots of economic loss, and they are figuring all of that in the flood insurance premiums. And oh, by the way, 40 percent of all those flood insurance policies are in my State of Florida. Before we hear from the Senator from New York, I want to say this: Floods come from many sources. Obviously, floods come from hurricanes. People used to think hurricanes were Florida's problem. Well, now we know, because of the experience on the gulf coast, they can do an awful lot of damage in many different ways. But oh, by the way, people up in the Northeast suddenly realized hurricanes are a problem. Why? Because the ocean temperature is rising, and when the water gets warmer, the frequency of the storms is more and the ferocity of the storms is greater. Thus, in a time when it is normally cool water, cold air temperature, all of a sudden we have a major storm that comes to a part of the country that is completely unprepared, and now not only do you have all the damage from the water and the wind--and think what happened all the way up into New England, all the way up into Vermont. You heard about all those rivers that suddenly completely overran and inundated that little town with a lot of water, and they are calling this a thousand-year storm. But the 1,000-year storm happened a year ago. I am not here to speak about climate change, on which I certainly think we better get our heads out of the sand. I am here to talk about an immediate problem for the people all up and down the coasts of the United States; that is, the affordability of flood insurance. Why would not our colleagues give us a little Christmas present since we have over 60 votes in the Senate, and let's give some hope to those homeowners back home who now cannot afford flood insurance. I want to hear from the Senator from New York who has been a leader, and his State has suffered. Fortunately, it is going to take folks like him and the great Senator from Louisiana to keep beating this drum to bring some relief to our people who are desperate. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I know we are awaiting the arrival of Senator Johnson. I wish to take a moment to express my appreciation to the majority leader for including in the items we will be handling before we adjourn for Christmas the confirmation of Judge Brian Davis to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Judge Davis has been waiting for 2 years. This is a good example of how things have gone very slowly for a very deserving judge. He has been waiting for 658 days. He has the support of Senator Rubio and myself. The American Bar Association has found him to be unanimously well qualified to serve on the Federal district court, and it is the ABA's highest rating. Judge Davis is a native Floridian who grew up African American in segregated Jacksonville, FL, and despite those circumstances was accepted to Princeton for his college education. He returned later to the University of Florida Law School and then became a top prosecutor in Jacksonville and 20 years ago went on the bench as a State circuit judge. He has an impeccable record. He is, in a huge bipartisan way, embraced by the lawyers who have practiced in front of him. Yet it has taken 658 days. I thank the majority leader and I thank the Senate. I thank Senator Grassley, who initially had concerns, but when he looked at the record he had an open mind, and then he saw the character, the quality, the excellence of Judge Davis. There are 37 judicial emergencies around the country, and two of them are in the Middle District of Florida where Judge Davis is, and three of them are in the Southern District of Florida. The courts are overburdened, and we need to fill these vacancies. So I thank the Senate in advance for giving this good man, this excellent jurist, the opportunity to serve in a greater capacity, to serve his country. I want my colleagues to know this is a great Christmas present for me, but it is nothing compared to the Christmas present it is going to be for Judge Brian Davis and his family. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, over the course of Friday and through the weekend there has been the publication, first by the Associated Press, of a missing American, a missing Floridian, Bob Levinson, a retired FBI agent and that publication has spurred other entities, primarily the New York Times, which had been holding the story for a number of years--well before the Associated Press ever got the story--to then print a story of additional information about the disappearance, 7 years ago, of Bob Levinson on Kish Island, a resort island in the Persian Gulf right off the coast of mainland Iran. Of course, we have been searching for any shred of evidence about Bob. He has here in the U.S., in Florida, a wife and seven children. The length of time he has been missing, unfortunately, seems to have met or exceeded the amount of time of almost any American. The family, of course, desperately seeks any shred of evidence. They were heartened 3 years ago when Christine Levinson, his wife, received a secretive email with a video that showed that Bob was alive. In it he made statements that he had served the government of the U.S. for 30 years and: Please help. About a year later, she received, also by another circuitous email, a photograph of him, obviously later because his hair is long and there is a full beard. His hair is silver, his beard is silver. In both the video and the last item, the photograph, he appears quite gaunt. Of course, we know he has health problems, high blood pressure, and so forth, and, of course, we fear. We also know that just this morning, on ``CBS This Morning,'' a fellow who he was seeing--an American who lives in Iran, a fellow who he was seeing on Kish Island--saw him taken by Iranian authorities. It is no secret that all levels of the government, including their Florida Senator, have reached out to the Iranian Government over the years, including the President of the United States when he spoke to the newly elected President of Iran when that United Nations meeting occurred in September. I have spoken within the last couple of days to the Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations and reiterated the plea of those of us on a humanitarian basis for this family to be reunited with their loved one and have offered to the Ambassador, if it would in any way help, that I am willing to go to Iran if in any way it would secure his release. If the Iranian authorities took him, somebody in the Government of Iran knows of his whereabouts. I will conclude by saying that for the first time we have what appears to be successful talks going on between the two governments with regard to the Iranian nuclear program, and those are at a critical stage to, hopefully, bear fruit within about 5 months from now. What better time for the Government of Iran to show their good will than to step forth and produce Bob Levinson so he can return home to his family. Mr. President, that concludes my remarks on Bob Levinson for the moment. I will continue to speak on this matter. Now I would like to turn to the matter at hand with regard to the budget, since my colleague from Pennsylvania and, of course, our chair, the Senator from Washington, are here. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge a small but significant provision in this budget compromise. It is section 203 of the Budget Act of 2013, and it limits access to what is known as Social Security's Death Master File, which is important because criminals utilize fraudulently the Death Master File to steal people's identities. When someone dies, the Social Security Administration puts their information into the Death Master File and releases it to the public through the Commerce Department. It lists their name, their Social Security number, and other personal identification information. The public release shortly after death of the Death Master File came about as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit back in the 1980s. Over time, Federal agencies and industries came to rely on the information from the Death Master File. Life insurers use it to know when to pay out benefits. Banks and credit card companies use information from the file to prevent fraud. A whole host of Federal and State agencies, as well as other industries, depend on the information for legitimate purposes, including pension funds, unclaimed property auditors, and identity theft protection companies. But there is somebody else who is using the Death Master File too. It is the criminals who are stealing identities, including especially the Social Security number. When that is posted online, they are using it fraudulently. What are they doing? They are filing an income tax return. They are utilizing somebody else's identity--in this case easily accessible, the Death Master File--creating a false return and getting a tax refund. You may find this hard to believe, but this actually happened in Tampa, FL. Street crime--hijackings, stickups, burglaries, dope dealing--actually dropped because the criminals found a new way of being able to steal people's money. They did it with a laptop instead of with a crowbar or a gun. Street crime actually reduced because the criminals have found a new way. They would steal people's identities in many different ways. They would go to senior citizens' mailboxes, and they would get their ID, they would get their Social Security number. They would go through hospital records, and they would get Social Security numbers. They would do it a number of ways. But one of the easiest ways was this Death Master File. I want to tell you about the story of Alexis Agin, the daughter of two courageous parents John and Neely, who have joined us today. Tragically, Alexis died from cancer 2 weeks shy of her 5th birthday. Obviously, no parent should have to go through the pain of seeing their child go through this kind of ordeal and then losing the child. So you can imagine how they felt when months later they learned that someone had used Alexis' identity, obtained from the Death Master File, to file a fraudulent tax return, claiming a refund, and the IRS--when they tried to correct this--asked them to prove that Alexis was their daughter and was not the one responsible for the fraudulent tax return. Because I have heard so many stories of innocent Americans whose identities have been stolen, this Senator filed this legislation that would restrict access to the Death Master File by establishing a certification program run by the Commerce Department while still allowing access to the Death Master File for legitimate purposes. This brings us to the budget agreement. I am very pleased that the Senator from Washington has included within this budget that we are going to pass--it would be nice if it were today, but it looks as if it is going to be tomorrow--what some of us have been calling on for years: restricting access to this master file, making it harder for criminals to steal identities and therefore making it harder to steal taxpayer money. That is where this actually has a revenue effect because we are going to actually save the U.S. Government money by doing this. We are going to save the U.S. Government money that otherwise would be stolen. So I thank the courageous chairman of the Budget Committee for including this idea in the act and for crafting what used to be S. 676, the Identity Theft and Tax Fraud Prevention Act. It was never the intent of this Senator or the cosponsors to deny access to the master file by the people who need it for legitimate purposes. The language in this budget deal would include the file in the Freedom of Information Act exemptions so that it will not be available to just anyone off the street. However, the Social Security Administration and Commerce would still be able to release the information in the file for those who need it. So I want to ask the distinguished chair of the committee whether is it true that as Commerce sets up a certification program, the Social Security Administration and Commerce will still be able to release the Death Master File to folks who need to use it for legitimate purposes?

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to close by again thanking the distinguished chairwoman of the committee. She has been a quiet hero, and the proof is in the pudding of all of her labors. She deserves the praise of the country that we have a budget, No. 1, but I also thank her for making it a lot more difficult for criminals to steal the identities of those who have passed on.

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am here to speak on the budget, but until our other colleague from Pennsylvania gets here, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, before the Senator from New York departs, I want to say this is a real-life example. In Pinellas County, FL, which is the county that houses Saint Petersburg and Clearwater, a current flood insurance premium for a homeowner: $4,000. A new flood insurance premium--10 times as much--$44,000. Do you think that homeowner can afford that? Do you think that homeowner can now sell their house since that is the flood insurance premium that is facing a potential buyer? And, of course, the real estate market dries up. So it is a question of affordability, and I merely underscore what the Senator has already said and what the great Senator from Louisiana is going to talk about; that is, that you have a pause, you get FEMA to do an affordability study, and then you phase this in over time. It just so happens that 40 percent of these policies are in my State of Florida. We have more coastline than any other State, save for Alaska, and they are not afflicted by the same things we are, and they do not have a population of 20 million people. Lo and behold, our people are hurting, and we have to give them relief. So I beg anybody in the Senate: Please, when this unanimous consent request comes up, we have to have this relief for our homeowners and for the real estate market. The maps are a different question, and eventually we need to address the issue of the maps because they are obviously drawing some areas that are not flood prone. They are well above the flood stage, and somehow these maps have gotten misaligned. We can address that. But right now we have to address the affordability question. This is no fooling time, and I beg the Senate to let this legislation go by unanimous consent. I am anxious to have my colleagues make their statements. Mr. President, I am chairing the Aging Committee hearing right now. I look forward to the Senator from Massachusetts joining us after her statement. So with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, what we have just passed is the indemnification bill on commercial space launches.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Nelson amendment which is at the desk be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time, the title amendment be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. NELSON. I thank the Chair.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 3547, which is at the desk.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, today, I am asking for unanimous consent to pass H.R. 3547, as amended, a bill to extend government liability, subject to appropriation, for certain third-party claims arising from commercial space launches. The bill supports the competitiveness of the United States commercial space industry. This industry, which grew in part out of the successes of NASA, is vital both to the economy and to national security. Our U.S. space companies offer us new opportunities to send astronauts into space on U.S.-built vehicles and to continue launching communications satellites and conducting important scientific research on the International Space Station. This bill helps to ensure the strength of the space industry by continuing to provide Federal launch liability protection from third- party losses for commercial launches. Congress first established this indemnification regime in 1988 and has seen the need to extend the policy many times since then. It is important to note that it has never cost the United States a single dime. This indemnification helps domestic launch companies compete in the global launch market. Many international cornpetitors enjoy similar protections in their various home nations. However, indemnification protection is set to expire on December 31st of this year. Without indemnification, each company would ``bet the company'' every time they launch. As chairman of the Science and Space Subcommittee, I have worked with other Senators to thoroughly consider this issue. In a hearing this May, we discussed indemnification in detail. It was clear that extending indemnification was necessary. This bill therefore extends the indemnification for 3 years, until 2016, giving Congress the ability to continue to review this policy while providing the commercial space industry the stability it needs. I would like to especially thank Senator Thune and his committee staff for their work on this bill. I would also like to thank Senators Cruz, Feinstein, Heinrich, Kaine, Rubio, Thune, Mark Udall, Tom Udall, Warner, and Wicker, all of whom worked with me on this effort.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Senator Schumer and I are here for another reason. We don't want to make a mistake. For some number of years, there has been on the books a law which will expire at midnight tonight that has protected us from weapons going through detectors that are not made of metal which the detectors can't detect. Of course, not only are we talking about government buildings and other secure facilities, but clearly we are talking about airports as well. So now computer technology has advanced to the point, ever since we had that old law, that a person can actually, with a computer, through 3D processing, laying down plastic layer upon plastic layer, create a weapon that cannot be detected with most of the detectors we have today. That old law needs to be updated, but apparently there are those who do not want it updated. So, as a last gasp, we are appealing to the Senate, before the stroke of midnight tonight when this law will be erased, to continue the old law that will at least go after the plastic-type weapons, plastic guns, of which their manufacture--it is required that they have some part of metal in them in order to detect them. But the technology has surpassed that. They can now manufacture them with 3D printing to have no metal parts and they will still shoot a bullet. That is what we are going to have to update. So with the simple click of a mouse, things are changed and it makes it practically invisible to metal detectors and other screening devices. I thank the senior Senator from New York, who has taken the lead on this issue. He has recognized this problem. He has asked me to join him. The House of Representatives last week passed similar legislation to not do what we ought to do to update the law but to continue the current ban on such weapons for another 10 years. They obviously pose a very serious threat to our national security as well as to Americans' personal security, and we need to do everything we can to keep them out of the hands of people who want to do harm to others. Mr. President, I am looking forward to the comments of the senior Senator from New York. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I too thank Senator Grassley for arranging so we could proceed with the current law. I have found Senator Grassley to be someone who will listen, who will deliberate, and who will try to do what he thinks is in the best interests of the people, in this particular case, the security interests of the people. I would ask Senator Grassley to consider, as we meet about this over the course of the next several weeks or months, since we both fly in to Washington, DC--and if you are on flights like this Senator is, there may be a good chance there is an air marshal on that flight because the flight is so sensitive coming in to a city where you are only seconds-- if an airplane aborts a landing, you are only within seconds of that airplane being near some of the centers of the U.S. Government, such as the Capitol, such as the White House, such as the Supreme Court. If a person were able to sneak a plastic gun through, then it seems to me that poses a much greater threat to the security interests of this country and its people. If it is, in fact, legal to have a gun where you can remove that piece of metal and someone has been able to sneak that through the metal detectors at the place of origin of that person's flight, then it seems to me we are asking for trouble. In the great tradition of the Second Amendment of protecting people and letting them have their rights to guns, this is an aberration of that right that we need to duly consider and protect against. I thank Senator Grassley for coming here and extending the law today. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, there are some good things that are going on, and I wish to talk about that. First, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business until 6:15 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, there are some tough times around here, but I usually look for the good news. There is good news. Would anyone have believed 6 months ago that most of the chemical weapons in Syria would be dismantled at this point? In our wildest expectations we could not have expected that. But for the technicalities and specifics of the inspection, that clearly appears to have occurred or is well on its way to occurring. We have had 43 straight months of private sector job growth in the economy. When Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers went down, we were in a financial death spiral. Little by little we are coming out of it. Of course, the news just announced last Friday on the jobs report gives another indication that the economy is beginning to take hold, and we see that in the confidence that is being expressed. We see that in the real estate market, and we certainly see that in the financial markets in New York. Let me give you another piece of good news that most people would not think about. There has been the discovery of a former Martian lake. As we reach out into the cosmos to try to find any indication of life, scientists are now thinking that this Martian lake might have harbored life billions of years ago--about the time some of the scientists suggest that small microcosm of life might have started on this planet. If this proves out, we are going to Mars not just with robots. Eventually, in the 2030s, we will go with humans, and when we get there, we will find out if that is true. If it is true, was there life that developed? If there was life that developed, was it civilized? If it was civilized, what happened and what can we learn from that that might help us as a civilized life? So I see good signs. I see the good signs of Senator Kerry as our Secretary of State and what he is doing in trying to bring the parties together in the Middle East. So instead of everything being doom and gloom, I see good things.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, with the Thanksgiving holiday, November is a time for many of us to enjoy time with our loved ones and reflect on our futures together. With so many family gatherings, many retirement experts also encourage us to use this time to talk with family about our long-term needs. In addition to thinking about financial needs for retirement, it is important to also address our health as we age. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, an individual turning 65 today has almost a 70 percent chance of needing long-term care in the future, and 1 in 5 will need long-term care for more than 5 years. Conversations about long-term care and advance care planning can be understandably difficult, but they are necessary to ensure our loved ones receive the care they want if they are no longer able to speak for themselves. Thinking about long-term care means recognizing the invaluable--but too often unrecognized--contributions made daily by family caregivers. Over 65 million Americans provide $450 billion worth of unpaid care every year, twice as much as homecare and nursing home services combined, and these numbers are increasing. More than one-half of family caregivers perform intensive activities such as bathing, feeding, and medication management. However, these services often come with a cost to the caregiver, such as financial burdens and a toll on physical and mental health. As the chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, I want to help middle-class families struggling to provide necessary care for their loved ones. This year, the committee has examined the importance of advance care planning as well as why a majority of Americans have done little to no planning for future long-term care needs. Next month, we will continue this series of hearings by looking at expert recommendations for reforming our long-term care system. Lastly, Senator Baldwin and I penned a column in recognition of the critical need to address the long-term care inadequacies in this country, and I ask unanimous consent that a copy be printed in the Record following my remarks. I urge my colleagues to join me in this effort. As our Nation continues to grow older, this problem will continue to grow worse, and the current system must change to meet these needs.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for inquiring. I can say that Federal flood insurance that is not affordable is not Federal flood insurance. To go from a position that one is paying rates at one level and all of a sudden go to a higher position, people are completely priced out of the market and all of the ancillary things that go with it because people can't sell their homes. When one puts that ripple effect through the entire economy, especially in a State such as mine that has more coastline than any State save for Alaska and where we have 40 percent of all the flood insurance policies. I dealt with this, I would say to the Senator from Louisiana, because in my former life I was the elected insurance commissioner of Florida. Fortunately, I had no jurisdiction over the Federal Flood Insurance Program, but other insurance companies that offered it privately or supplemented the Federal flood insurance we did have jurisdiction to regulate. People cannot build a house--if they are going to a bank to get a mortgage--unless they have flood insurance. Now that the maps, as the Senator has pointed out, have been expanded showing there are a lot more areas that are inundated by water, by flood, at times of the year, then this becomes, for the engine of commerce, a critical component. One can't be charging one price and suddenly say we are going to be charging people four times as much. Let us have a little common sense. A little common sense says we want FEMA to do an affordability study and, in the meantime, until we receive that study, we want this put on hold. It does not say it is not going to go up in the future, but availability of insurance is directly proportional to the ability of people to pay for that insurance and to continue the American dream, which home ownership is. I would ask if the Senator from Louisiana remembers how long we have been trying to get this going. To the great credit of the Senator from Louisiana, who has taken the lead, she saw the problem early before people started complaining in my State and other States. They were complaining in the State of Louisiana. Senator Landrieu was on top of it. We have only been doing this for about 8 months. We have a vehicle on the floor that is a must-pass vehicle. It is the Defense authorization bill. We need to get this legislation amended onto it and have it signed into law. I thank the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Col. B.B. Lange, a defense fellow assigned to our office, be granted privileges of the floor for the purpose of the Defense bill.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I think the President did the right thing today. The whole idea of health insurance reform was to get people into health insurance that do not have health insurance. The idea was not for those who had insurance, unless they wanted to improve that insurance or they did not have the insurance they needed. The idea, certainly, was not that if they had insurance they were satisfied with, that they were not going to be able to keep that. That is what the President had said. That is what the President reaffirmed today. I think the President did the right thing. Insurance is a very complicated subject. In all that we are hearing about in the setting up of those different health insurance exchanges in each of the States, you are creating a new pool of people, both young and old, both sick and healthy, and you spread that health risk over a larger number of people. If it is a typical population of young and old, not just all old, and not just all sick, the more you can spread that health risk over an average population, the more you can bring down the cost of that health insurance. That is basically the principle of health insurance. So, unless we can get the young and healthy people who need health insurance--by the way, they may think they are invincible, but they may also have an accident. Instead of them ending up in the emergency room at the time that they have the accident, or when they really get sick and they do not have health insurance, and they do not pay--guess who pays. All the rest of us pay in our health insurance premiums. So the whole idea is to reform this by getting as many of the 45 million people that do not have health insurance into the health insurance system. That is what these 50 State insurance exchanges are designed to be. So the issue today did not directly affect that, but for the fact that if those who have health insurance, and they say that they are happy with it, but they are really not because it is a subpar health insurance policy--I call them dog policies. If they realize they have a dog policy, then they see what they can really get in the exchange in a comprehensive policy that will cover maternity and all of the other things, on top of the guarantees that an insurance company cannot cancel them, on top of the guarantees that if they had a preexisting condition, their insurance is not only not going to be canceled but that they will, in fact, be able to get insurance. What I have described--guess what it is. It is the Affordable Care Act. It is the ability to have health insurance when a big part of our population--45 million people in this country--has not been able to have it. The narrow little issue addressed today by the President was that some people have health insurance that they like. They ought to be able to keep it. Some people who have health insurance don't realize how much better it could be with much more comprehensive coverage. Once they see the difference, those folks who the President said today can keep those subpar policies are going to want to go into the health insurance exchange. That is what this is all about. Unfortunately, this has become all balled up in politics. It is a complicated subject. Most of us don't even want to think about it. We want to leave it to our insurance agent, someone who is skilled. Now, as we are making our own individual choices, which we are able to do by going on a Web site and designing a policy for ourselves, we are empowering ourselves to have the health care coverage we want. In the meantime, we have a lot of turmoil, a lot of strife, and a lot of politics. Give it some time. And this is a former insurance commissioner speaking, and I know most of the tricks the insurance companies will pull. But give it some time. Down the road, with the insurance companies I have seen, as I have talked with the CEOs, they want to cooperate because they realize this is good for their business as well because now they will be able to offer so many more policies to people who, in fact, do need that health coverage. Give it a little time. It is going to work. There will be a few twists and turns. We are not going to get rid of the politics because it is the nature of the beast these day, but give it a little time and it will all work out. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act with my friends, Senators Grassley, Rockefeller, and Enzi. Our common-sense bill will correct a fundamental flaw that prevents individuals with disabilities from creating their own trusts. This is a basic right that should have never been overlooked. November is Long-Term Care Awareness Month, when hopefully many families will discuss and decide how to best plan for their retirement and their future health care needs. Unfortunately, current law assumes people with disabilities lack the requisite capacity to create such trusts for their long-term care needs, so these individuals must turn to others to create such a trust. This creates an unnecessary and sometimes costly burden on the individual and additional caseloads in our overworked courts. I also am pleased to have the support of the American Association of People with Disabilities and Easter Seals as well as the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys, the Academy of Special Needs Planners, and the Florida Joint Public Policy Task Force for the Elderly and Disabled. I urge my colleagues to support me in this legislation so that we can finally correct this flaw. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act with my friends, Senators Grassley, Rockefeller, and Enzi. Our common-sense bill will correct a fundamental flaw that prevents individuals with disabilities from creating their own trusts. This is a basic right that should have never been overlooked. November is Long-Term Care Awareness Month, when hopefully many families will discuss and decide how to best plan for their retirement and their future health care needs. Unfortunately, current law assumes people with disabilities lack the requisite capacity to create such trusts for their long-term care needs, so these individuals must turn to others to create such a trust. This creates an unnecessary and sometimes costly burden on the individual and additional caseloads in our overworked courts. I also am pleased to have the support of the American Association of People with Disabilities and Easter Seals as well as the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys, the Academy of Special Needs Planners, and the Florida Joint Public Policy Task Force for the Elderly and Disabled. I urge my colleagues to support me in this legislation so that we can finally correct this flaw. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. I wish to speak about the issue at hand. Thank the good Lord we are finally having, as the Good Book says, people who will come let us reason together. I am so grateful, for the hundreds of thousands of people who have been directly hurt by this shutdown. I am very grateful we will avoid a default that would not only hurt the people of this country but would irreparably damage the financial foundation of this Nation. This should have never happened in the first place. We have heard the two previous Senators, one a Democrat and one a Republican, say the same--it shouldn't have happened in the first place. One doesn't hold the country hostage and disrupt people's lives to get their particular agenda done, particularly when they are dealing with an existing law that has been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. But that is exactly what has happened. We are in a situation in the politics of this country where narrow, certain special interests claim their position is the only position and have it reflected in Congress so that the political ideology of a narrow, small group of extremists can direct the affairs of the Congress. This group, especially in the House, can cause the trauma and the turmoil we have been through. We apparently have an agreement. I assume we are going to vote on it in the Senate, and it should pass overwhelmingly sometime today. Then the question is will it be put in front of the entire House so Republicans and Democrats alike can vote for this and get us over this immediate potential crisis. December, January, and February are the deadlines set in the agreement we will pass today. The first challenge will be for the Budget Committee--a conference committee from the Senate meeting with a conference committee from the House--to hammer out the differences between the two budgets, as there are substantial differences. We will have our first test shortly when the conference committee is named and goes to work. We will see whether they can start bridging some of those differences. Simultaneously, there are going to be many Senators meeting to talk about what has been referred to as the grand bargain, which could be under the umbrella of what the budget conference committee does. Since the Budget Committee is talking about top-line numbers of appropriations and the details are left to the individual committees, there need to be many good-will negotiations with respect to each other in order to build consensus. We have not seen a great deal of that around here, but we are starting to see glimmers of it today. The great test is going to come in the next couple of months by the deadline of December 13 and then, of course, January 15. I don't think anybody with common sense would want to approach this by not getting an agreement before January 15. That is when this next tranche of severe budget cuts, spending cuts across the board, including half of those spending cuts in defense, expires. We have heard defense official after defense official tell us that this is not good for the security of this country. Hopefully the Budget Committee can achieve an agreement in conference committee that will avoid that sequester. If all of that is done and the wheels are set in motion about the fleshing out of a Budget Committee agreement--for example, tax reform done in the Finance Committee in the Senate and done in the Ways and Means Committee in the House, tax reform such as getting rid of a lot of the loopholes, producing revenue, utilizing, for example, some of the revenue to lower tax rates, some of the revenue to pay down and lower the deficit, and some of that revenue to replace the sequester that is going to have such negative effects on the common security of this country. If all of that is done by January 15, then we won't have a problem February 7, which is the time the artificial, statutorily imposed debt ceiling expires, because that crisis of potential default will have been absolved by virtue of agreements prior to that. That is a lot of good will that is going to have to take place in the next few months. That is a lot of mutual consideration and respect that is going to have to reign, instead of much of what we have seen here the past few weeks. I am grateful we have this agreement and that in the next 2 days it can be wrapped up and default can be avoided. I am hopeful, albeit cautious, that we can avoid this again, with good public policy. I close by saying that a public office is a public trust. We, as public officials, ought to recognize that our responsibility is to represent all of the people, not only some of the narrow interests represented in this country. If we will approach these next 2 days and then the next several months representing and recognizing that a public office is a public trust, then we can get it done. That is my hope, my prayer, and why I am very grateful we have come to this point. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.