Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Of course I will. I wish to thank the majority leader for his leadership and for standing firm to stop this nonsense.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I would like to speak about the shutdown that has now occurred. To say I am outraged is an understatement. What we need is for the folks down there at the other end of the U.S. Capitol Building to open this government. The economy of this country is at risk and they have done it to advance their own narrow extremist agenda. All of this is due to a relatively small group of lawmakers down in the House of Representatives--some 40, maybe 60--who are intent on having their own way on a personal agenda. They are refusing to work with their fellow Republicans, as well as Democrats, down in the House of Representatives, and the result is a forced government shutdown that is doing a lot of damage to a lot of people. That is why it is important for the American people to say they have had enough and they want these folks to stop this nonsense. We ought to be keeping government open, but, we need to consider a couple of things. For example, the National Institutes of Health are now unable to bring in 800 patients they were going to start to give medical treatment in breakthrough medical techniques and developments. At the same time, the National Institutes of Health--one of the premier agencies in all of this alphabet soup of agencies that we talk about-- they have had to furlough 70 percent of their civilian workforce. A few minutes ago, we heard the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, explaining that the Director of National Intelligence has told her he has had to furlough 72 percent of the civilians in the intelligence community. That is ridiculous. We have terrorists who are trying to do us harm, and he has had to furlough 72 percent. Take, for example, NASA. NASA had to furlough 97 percent of its civilian workers in the space program.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I would like to be recognized to speak on a few issues.

Mr. NELSON. In the course of the next few weeks it is going to be white-knuckle time. Here, coming up next week, October 1, begins a new fiscal year, of which all appropriations funding of the Government, save for those programs that automatically flow such as Medicare, Social Security--all others will cease to have funding unless we can continue to fund through appropriations bills coming up. That is next week. As you know, there are a number of people on that side of the aisle who are threatening to shut down the government unless they get their way. In this particular case a lot of them in the House of Representatives are saying their way or no way; that they want to defund the implementation of the law that has been in existence for 3 years, setting up a reform of the health care system. But the white knuckles--assuming we can get over that little hurdle-- the white knuckles will continue because shortly thereafter we are going to get to the day of reckoning about whether the U.S. Government can pay its bills because of the artificial debt ceiling set in statute that says that above a certain level the U.S. Government cannot borrow any more money. These are obligations that have already been incurred. Just think how many of us own U.S. bonds. A bunch of those bonds are coming due. That is in large part how we finance the debt of the United States, by selling securities with the full faith and credit of the strongest financial government on the face of planet Earth. Therefore, if that debt ceiling, that artificial ceiling set in statute, is not raised, the government cannot go out and borrow any more money--in other words, issuing new bonds. That is when the knuckles completely turn white. Listen to what a respected economist, the chief economist for Moody's Mark Zandi told the Joint Economic Committee last week. He says the financial markets of this country, indeed the international markets as well, will start to get jittery starting next week if there is no clear path to a deal on raising that artificial, statutory debt ceiling. He says then that jitteriness is going to turn into panic once the U.S. Treasury cannot make its payments. He further went on to say: ``If you don't do it in time, confidence will evaporate, consumer confidence will sharply decline, businesses''--I hope the American people, by the way, can understand this, what are the consequences of this--`` . . . businesses will stop hiring,'' he says, ``consumers will stop spending--'' listen to that, shopowners--``and the stock market will fall significantly in value:'' and how about this, small business owners--``borrowing costs for businesses and households will continue to rise'' significantly. Do you know what he told us, the same economist told us 2 years ago when we were getting right up to the precipice on the debt ceiling? He said: At the end of the day if we don't raise the debt ceiling, the economy is going to go back into a recession. Interest rates are going to spike. In the State of the Presiding Officer, the housing market is recovering, as it is in my State. People are excited about buying a new house or selling their old house and moving into a new house. Interest rates are still relatively low. But in a State such as Virginia or my State of Florida, where housing is such a critical component of the economy, just think what is going to happen if the interest rates suddenly spike and now the cost of getting into a new house is double what it was before because of the interest rate spiking and because they are less inclined, if the interest rates spike, to get that new mortgage. Then the houses are not selling and the values of the houses that have been recovering, out of the deep recession, instead of going this way are starting to go that way. The American people have not focused on the consequences if these guys on that side of the aisle and down there at the other end of the Capitol in fact cause the U.S. Government to go into default. Let's listen to some more experts. Martin Feldstein, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors--for whom? For a Republican President, President Reagan: The debt ceiling is a very dangerous thing to play with. How about the respected Bob Rubin, Treasury Secretary under President Clinton? Remember the 1990s, how the economy was surging, how people were feeling good? Let's see what he says. Defaulting on our commitments is unthinkable and dangerous, and the debt ceiling should be raised now without conditions. That is what the President has said. He is not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling because of all of these consequences. Yet they are saying if they do not get their way to take away the funding for the implementation of the part of the health care bill that is supposed to go into effect--a lot of it has already gone into effect--they want to take away the funds. Let's listen to another respected economist. After all, he has shepherded us out of the recession because he is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. He says: But I do hope that Congress will allow the Government to pay its bills, not raise the possibility of default which would be very, very costly to our economy. That is a little bit of understatement, as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve always does, but it is a zinger. Mark Zandi, the one we quoted before, says: This dark scenario is so dark I can't imagine it. How about another former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Blinder: In short, the consequences of hitting the debt ceiling are too awful to contemplate. . . . A sane Congress wouldn't even think about it. Let me quote another Republican, Bruce Bartlett, deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at Treasury under President George H.W. Bush. This is what he said: A potential debt default is far more than a domestic consideration; it is a matter of foreign policy. That leads me to briefly comment. We suddenly have in the international arena a whole bunch of new things that might be optimistic signs. If the Russians follow through and if President Assad does in fact open--and those are two big ``ifs'' but at least it has happened thus far in the first week--if Assad does in fact open his chemical weapons, then there is the possibility that not only would the ability to disperse chemical weapons in Syria have been eliminated but those entire weapons would have been eliminated. That is a pretty good first step. We are also hearing the new President of Iran--as a result of an election in Iran--start to sing a new tune and have more of an outreach to the West. Should we be skeptical? Of course. I talked to the new Foreign Minister of Iran, who was a former Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations, last Friday. I talked to him about what a gesture of good will it would be if they could find the missing retired FBI agent who disappeared 6\1/2\ years ago, Bob Levinson, from the tourist island of Kish off the Iranian coast--if they could find him and return him to his wife and seven children after having been gone for 6\1/2\ years. We have had proof of life twice--one with a video and the second time was 2 years ago in a photo. What a gesture of good will it would be if they were sincere about having a new relationship with the West. So if intrigues are real and they happen, would we want to undermine so much of that--to put it in the words of a Republican adviser of the Treasury to President George H. W. Bush--that a potential default is far more than a domestic consideration, it is a matter of foreign policy. Would we want to weaken the U.S. Government as it negotiates over these critical matters? I will conclude by saying there is some movement and discussions underway about a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians with security safeguards for both. Again, if there is any reality to these new messages that are flowing around and which our Secretary of State and our former colleague John Kerry is trying desperately to bring about--just think of what that does to improve the world situation, of which the enormous beneficiary is the United States of America. Yet would we be threatening again, pulling the economic underpinnings out from all of our negotiators on these three main negotiated topics that are now in front of us that affect the national security so desperately of the United States and the security of our allies? I don't think so. That is why I think there are a bunch of folks over here who have tried to get the Members in the House of Representatives to come to their senses. We have seen this brinkmanship before. I hope cooler and more rational heads will prevail. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, many States such as mine, Florida, have strict bullying policies in place. But we need to go beyond that, and Federal legislation is needed because, as the Secretary of Education has said, these laws in the States ``lack consistency and enforcement mechanisms'' across the country. So you get to the tragic case in Florida of Rebecca Ann Sedwick. It is a tragic reminder that bullying in the social media is increasing in both method and mercilessness. Here is a girl with a single mom. She gets subjected to this bullying in class, so her mom takes her out of the school and puts her into another school. This is a 12-year-old little girl. She then is bullied online. This occurs for 2 years. This is what she gets: Why are you alive? You should die. You are ugly. Can you die, please? She gets a constant dose of this not only at school, but then in the social media. Her mom tried to take away the cell phone that would have these applications. But when she gets her phone back, she gets a new application, and this cyber bullying keeps coming through. We have before us legislation that would get educators and parents more involved in trying to prevent this kind of bullying. Unfortunately, Congress is crippled by gridlock and for the last 6 years has been unable to pass any major education bill that contains this anti-cyber-bullying language. That is why I suggest my colleagues consider this provision on its own--separate from the broader bill--to expedite our response to what has become an increasing problem. The measure would require elementary and secondary schools to better address bullying and harassment. This calls on schools to report incidents of bullying to parents and others so we can try to prevent such conduct in theture. I have asked the leadership, the leadership of the committee, as has my colleague, that they consider expediting this passage because of the national attention to this tragic incident in Florida. I can tell you, it is all over Florida. I want to thank Senator Casey for his sponsorship and continuing leadership on this issue over the last two Congresses, along with Senator Kirk. He and Senator Kirk have introduced the Safe Schools Improvement Act, which is included in the broader reauthorization of No Child Left Behind legislation--if we could then focus on this specific issue, if the broader bill is not going to pass, and get this out in the midst of this enormous personal tragedy. I cannot understand. For 2 years this has happened to a young child. Her mom is doing everything possible, even pulling her out of one school and putting her in another. Yet it continues and it drives this young lady to go into an abandoned cement plant and take her life because she doesn't think her life is worth living as a result of all of these taunts. I thank Senator Casey for his leadership. Let's see if we can move it.

Mr. NELSON. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I wish to address the subject of Syria. First of all, I wish to commend to anyone who is listening to my voice to view the videos the intelligence community has released. They came from social media. There are 13 videos that came from a body of in excess of 100 videos, but they show the horror of what happens to the human body with an attack by a weapon of mass destruction--in this case, chemical weapons, a gas called sarin. It is my hope the President, when he speaks to the Nation on Tuesday, will show clips of those videos because I think very few Americans have seen the extent of those videos, even though they have been shown on some cable shows in some limited amounts. They could see the range of why, almost a century ago, in 1925, the nations of the world came together in a treaty after the use of chemical weapons in World War I. This treaty banned the use of chemical weapons anywhere, any time, including in war, because of the horrific nature their use causes. In the 1990s this was subsequently reaffirmed in a convention or some kind of conclave which the nations of the world--I believe in excess of 180 nations--signed banning the use of chemical weapons. If you watch the videos, you will see why. You will see what happens to innocent human beings as they struggle for life before the throes of death overtake them. You will see this on the videos. Of course, parents may wish to use discretion because it is going to make a lasting impression. You will see how the body starts to shut down by the nerves being attacked. Interestingly, for the first time in a CBS interview today, President Asad of Syria has said, has admitted, today, that Syria has chemical weapons. Up to this point that was denied. No wonder he would want to deny, because when you see what happens in the use of them and what it does to the human nervous system--and I don't wish to be graphic, because I want anybody listening to what I am saying to watch them. I hope the President will show them Tuesday night, to see how the human body convulses when it attacks the nervous system--the convulsions, the twitching, what happens to the face, the respiratory system, and all of the evidence that comes from that. The American people need to know what we are dealing with, not only in Syria but in other nations that possess chemical weapons. This is not only sarin, which was the gas used here, but also mustard gas and a toxin called VX that directly attacks the nervous system. It does not have to be inhaled, like mustard gas or sarin, to do its evil deed. Instead, VX can be absorbed through the skin. If the American people understand the consequences of the use of this, they will understand why it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction, along with biological weapons of mass destruction introducing some plague among a community of innocents and, of course, the weapon of mass destruction that most everybody recognizes, the nuclear weapon. There are three weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological, and nuclear. This is why, in the family of civilized nations, we have said their use is so abhorrent that civilized humans say they should be banned. But they weren't. They were used extensively on August 21. Before I give the unclassified evidence, I wish to point out that maybe there is a little opening on the occasion of the Russian Foreign Minister today, since our Secretary of State, almost in an offhanded comment a few days ago, said it would certainly be a game changer if he, Asad, would allow the international community to come in and take control of his Syrian chemical weapons. The Russian Foreign Minister today picked that up. Supposedly there is a comment by an official out of Syria who says that is worth looking into. I can't speak to the authenticity of that comment. I have heard it was said. Whatever it is, of course, Asad is the decisionmaker and it is ultimately going to come down on him. But in the meantime, what the United States ought to do--and the Congress of the United States ought to authorize what the President of the United States has requested, that the Congress back him in giving him the authority to use a limited, short duration retaliation in degrading Asad's capability of utilizing these weapons in the future. If Congress will give the President that authority, it may well be the additional incentive for the ultimate decisionmaker, President Asad, to do what the Russian Foreign Minister has suggested. That would be a good thing. In the meantime, they are going to be debating this and we are going to be put to the question: Do we support the President in this time of peril? Let us look at the facts. I think when you see the videos, clearly, most every reasonable human being is going to conclude chemical weapons were used on innocents in the Damascus suburbs on the night of August 21. The question then, of course, is, is there a chain of custody to show in fact they came from the Syrian army? There is an unclassified body of evidence that clearly shows, to put it in the speak of the intelligence community, we have high confidence. That means it happened. How did that happen? The assessment is the Syrian chemical weapons personnel, who are associated with the chemical weapons part of the Syrian command, were preparing chemical munitions prior to the attack. This is all unclassified. There were streams of data of human signals and geospatial intelligence that revealed regime activities that were associated with the preparations for that chemical weapons attack. Syria chemical weapons personnel, we know, were operating in the Damascus suburb from August 18 all the way through August 21. That was the suburb that was attacked. Multiple streams of intelligence indicate the Syrian army executed the rocket and artillery attack against those suburbs in the early morning hours of August 21. We have satellite detections that corroborate those attacks from a regime-controlled neighborhood to where the attacks landed. At the same time, social media reports started exploding about a chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs. Those social media reports started coming at 2:30 in the morning. Three hospitals in Damascus received approximately 3,600 patients displaying the symptoms of a nerve agent exposure, and they received them in less than 3 hours on the morning of August 21. As I said earlier, there have been over 100 videos attributed to the attack. This has been distilled down into 13 videos, many of them showing large numbers of bodies exhibiting the physical signs of nerve agent exposure. Any Member of the Senate will have access to the classified information that shows the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate those videos or the physical symptoms verified by the medical personnel. So when we put all of this together, with past Syrian practice and some of the small-scale attacks they have done previously, the conclusion is obvious: The Syrian regime of Bashar Asad was willing and directed the attack on August 21. To this Senator, who has had the privilege of seeing and hearing classified information--and I have visited with President Asad three times, the last time being 6 years ago where the two of us had a sharp exchange over what was happening in Lebanon and the fact he was harboring Hamas and Hezbollah, which of course he denied--the conclusion is obvious: There is a substantial body of information that corroborates that the Syrian Government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack on August 21. There is additional information for the Senators to see, but the question is, Are we going to agree to the President's request that we authorize him to attack? If we don't, where does that leave the President on any kind of negotiations in the future? If the President decides to go ahead and attack, we automatically give to the opponents in these countries--especially President Asad and North Korea and Iran--the obvious scenario that the American people are so divided that they won't support the President. So if he were to decide to attack-- knowing it is his responsibility to provide for the national security, and he has sworn to provide for that national security--we will look so divided at that point, whatever the scenario is for the future. What about the mindset of other people who want to do harm to the United States? Does it give additional license to North Korea if we were to do nothing? North Korea is sitting on a huge stockpile of chemical weapons, not to mention their nuclear weapons. What about Iran? We are very concerned as they continue to energize weapons material and march down the road perhaps to building a nuclear weapon. What kind of message does it send to Iran? Just game that out. If Iran had a nuclear weapon or felt free to use chemical weapons, what would that do to the interests of the United States in that region of the world, not to mention our allies in the region, of which there are many. So it is clear to this Senator. I will admit I don't know why the President did not keep his own counsel and make the decision without saying he wanted to come to Congress, but he made that decision, and now it is up to us. Hopefully, there may be some validity to this report coming from the Russian Foreign Minister, but we won't know that for a long while, until, as we say, the proof is in the pudding with Asad turning over control of all the chemical weapons to an international body. In the meantime, are we going to support the President? Clearly, in the interest of the national security of this country and our allies, I think that is a position we must take. I will vote yes on the resolution. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, we passed the NASA authorization bill out of the Commerce Committee yesterday. Sadly, I must report that it is the first time the NASA bill has been a partisan vote that I can ever remember. NASA--this little program that is such a can-do agency--has always been not only bipartisan, but it has been nonpartisan. There was actually no real disagreement with the content, the policies set in the NASA authorization bill. It is very similar to what the Appropriations Committee indeed has already passed out of the full Appropriations Committee. But, sadly, there is an insistence that this artificial budget limitation, which is like a meat cleaver cutting across the board--some would describe it as a guillotine coming down across programs willy-nilly--cutting programs such as the National Institutes of Health and all of the medical research that is going on and, indeed, a broadly embraced bipartisan program such as our space program. So the vote was 13 to 12--specifically along partisan lines--not because of the content, not because of the policy, but because of the funding level. In the bill that passed, we had the NASA authorization for appropriations at the level provided in the budget resolution that passed the Senate--$18.1 billion. That is about level funding for NASA, this little agency that is trying to do so much. However, our Republican friends wanted it cut to $16.8 billion, and some spoke favorably toward the House bill that has it cut back to $16.6 billion. If we cut $1.5 billion out of this little agency, it can't do what it is attempting to do to get us ready to go to Mars in the decade of the 2030s and in the meantime to get our human-rated rockets in the commercial sector so we can send our astronauts to and from the international space station where six human beings are doing research right now. The multiplicity of science projects, the planetary exploration that is going on, and the aeronautics research that is going on--all of that is within this little agency. My hope is that as we get further along in the fiscal year, we are going to hit some grand design, some grand bargain, some great bipartisan agreement on funding that maybe will include tax reform but that will then allow us to operate with common sense instead of some artificial budgetary mechanism called sequester. Yesterday it was stated that indeed the NASA authorization bill violated the Budget Control Act of 2011. I tried to explain in the committee that it did not. As a matter of fact, the Budget Control Act is an overall level on compressing appropriations. It has no effect on the authorization for appropriations. That is where we set policy, and then we leave it up to the Appropriations Committee to set the actual funding. So I am happy to say that we made the step that we needed to make. We have the bill proceeding now out of the committee. I am sad to say that for the first time ever this broadly based, wildly popular, not only bipartisan but nonpartisan program, called America's space program, has come out of the committee with a partisan vote. Let's turn this around, and let's not have this excessive partisanship and this ideological rigidity that is gripping this country's politics. Let's not have that infect our Nation's space program. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I rise to eulogize a great American about whom Senator McCain has just spoken. It has been said it is the soldier who has given us our most important freedoms over the course of our history. That is certainly a true statement in the case of Air Force Col. George ``Bud'' Day. Colonel Day was a good friend of Senator McCain's. He was a resident of Florida, living in the Fort Walton Beach area. Sadly, he passed away, but at the very extended life's age of 88. I want to--in addition to Senator McCain's comments--take a moment to honor and remember this American hero, who was one of the most highly decorated service members this country has ever seen. He was a Medal of Honor recipient. He was a veteran of three wars--World War II, the Korean war, and the war in Vietnam. Because his F-100 fighter jet was shot down, he ended up being a prisoner of war in Vietnam for nearly 6 years, and there in Hanoi he and Senator McCain became cellmates. When asked about their experience together, Senator McCain said: I owe my life to Bud, and much of what I know about character and patriotism. He was the bravest man I ever knew. Senator McCain has just recounted a number of those things. I do not know, but I have heard it said, either from Colonel Day or Senator McCain, that it was John McCain who was put into that cell nearly dead--after his arm was broken when he ejected from his aircraft, and after he had been beaten--and Bud Day nursed him back to health. After the POWs were released from Vietnam, interestingly, Colonel Day returned to active duty, and he returned to active flying status. He retired in 1977 as the Air Force's most decorated officer. It has also been said that a nation can be judged by how it treats those who have borne its battles. After he left the Air Force, Colonel Day--listen to this--continued public service. He went to law school. He practiced law and he championed veterans' issues. So I wanted to take a moment, after an emotional speech by Senator McCain, to say that I say, and many are saying, a little prayer of thanks that Colonel Bud Day helped preserve the freedoms of this country with his service to this country. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, what we have seen is a recognition that these are tough times and we need some belt-tightening. But to go back to this level of sequestration is not the right thing to do because that is taking a meat cleaver approach, across-the-board, on cutting Federal programs. It is just not a responsible way of belt-tightening. Fortunately, this motion to recommit, to in essence go to the level of appropriations for Transportation and Housing and Urban Development that was to take it to the level of the House, which is considerably lower than what has come out of our Appropriations Committee in the Senate--fortunately, this motion to recommit was defeated. Why do we want to cut funding, as the House bill does, to critical areas such as air traffic controllers? It is dangerous, shortsighted, and we have been to this rodeo before. As a matter of fact, doesn't anyone remember that earlier in the year we had to fix the sequestration cuts that went into effect in the current fiscal year because it was cutting out all kinds of air traffic controllers and furloughed a number of them and closed the contract towers for the small airports? We had to reverse that. The public rose and said: This is not the right nor intelligent thing to do when it comes to the public safety. In addition to compromising the safety of the traveling public, those air traffic cuts would have increased the flight delays by hours and hours and caused a lot of cancellations. Lo and behold, when the American traveling public saw that was exactly what was happening, they rose and they said: Enough. The body politic responded. Here was an attempt to repeat that. If we reduce the top line of funding for this next fiscal year on this bill, we are going to be right back in the same situation where we were last spring: scrambling to keep our aviation system functioning safely and again delaying the next generation of air traffic controllers which we are desperately trying to set up. This House of Representatives sequestration budget--outside of aviation--is going to mean more crumbling roads and bridges, more families unable to put a roof over their heads, and our infrastructure will continue to be falling into further disrepair. So it is our responsibility to keep our country safe and the economy moving. Thank goodness we rejected this attempt to go back to the Dark Ages, but we are going to have more and more of this. We have a bill that is coming up next Tuesday in a markup in the Commerce Committee of the NASA authorization bill. Here is a bill that has never been partisan. It is not only bipartisan, it has been nonpartisan. We have never had a partisan vote on a NASA authorization bill. Three years ago on the NASA authorization bill that broke a lot of new ground, we passed it out of the committee and out of the whole Senate unanimously. I am very saddened to report to the Senate that next Tuesday we are going to have a markup of the NASA authorization bill. There is not a disagreement as to the balance we have in the bill between the big rocket called the Space Launch System, its capsule, its spacecraft, Orion, or what we balance against commercial rockets trying to get cargo and crew to the International Space Station. There is not a disagreement on that. There is not a disagreement on keeping up the programs on our weather satellites--all of the stuff we put up for NOAA so that, in fact, we can predict our weather, and in hurricane season that becomes especially important. There is not a disagreement about continuing the exploration program with the robotic spacecraft to Mars and to other planets as well as putting up a satellite, in part for the Department of Defense, to warn us against the solar nuclear explosions on the surface of the Sun so we can get ready to save our satellites by the time that nuclear radiation gets to Earth. There is no disagreement on that. There is no disagreement on the future of the new space telescope called the James Webb Space Telescope that is going to replace the existing one when it goes on the blink. It has uncovered all of these secrets of the universe as we peer back into time on the universe. There is no disagreement on the substance of this bill. The partisan vote that is going to occur on Tuesday in the Commerce Committee is going to be because of the funding level. The bill Senator Rockefeller and I have offered that will be voted on will be, unfortunately, a partisan vote because it takes the level of funding of the budget resolution which is $18.1 billion. The vote will be partisan because of those who want the sequester to apply, and as such they want $16.8 billion instead of $18.1 billion or even lower, as the House of Representatives has done, $16.6 billion. I can tell everyone that little agency, NASA, can't do all of these things I just mentioned that there is no disagreement we need to do. Getting humans back into space, preparing for the next major exploration with humans in the decade of the 2030s, going to the planet Mars--there is no disagreement with that. But we can't do it if we don't provide the funds now to develop the techniques, the technology, the procedures, and build our way like building blocks to ultimately where we can send humans multiples of millions of miles away from the home planet and bring them back safely. Sadly, I am afraid we are going to have a partisan vote because of that disagreement on the level of funding. It will be the first time ever we are going to have that kind of vote recorded on that little agency called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. So, just like today, here we go. Down the road, this is going to have to be decided, and it probably will come very late in the year. It will probably come when we come to another crisis point of having to raise the debt ceiling. It will probably come to the point where we have all kinds of good and new ideas on tax reform that will be coming out--a major tax reform--of the Finance Committee. We are limping along on appropriations bills just to keep us funded and to keep the government functioning after October 1 in the new fiscal year. At some point, all of this is coming to a head, including what level of funding is it going to be. I hope we will start using some common sense and act accordingly. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, the men and women of our armed services sacrifice a great deal for this country and when their service ends they should not have to worry about retaking medical tests or jumping through bureaucratic hoops to make sure their health records are complete. We need a modern health record system, and it needs to happen without further delay. Each year 150,000 servicemembers make the transition from military service to veteran status. When a servicemember makes that change their health records should go with them and transition seamlessly from the Department of Defense to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Unfortunately, as it stands today, the two Departments operate separate health record systems that do not communicate with each other. This can cause gaps in a servicemember's health record, meaning more medical tests that lead to greater costs and an increase in the backlog of cases at the Department of Veterans Affairs. For fifteen years we have tried to fix this problem, and in the past 5 years the Departments have spent around $1 billion but we are not there yet. Recently, Secretary Hagel announced that the two Departments were abandoning the goal of creating a single health system. Instead, the Department of Defense will invest in a commercial system that will be able to communicate with the system being used by the Department of Veterans Affairs. These recent efforts are a positive sign, but we must make sure the Departments continue to make progress towards a cohesive health system. That is why I am filing legislation that will provide a timeline for the health record systems to be able to talk to one another. In addition, this legislation encourages innovation in the sharing of electronic records and will provide patients greater access to their health records.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, the men and women of our armed services sacrifice a great deal for this country and when their service ends they should not have to worry about retaking medical tests or jumping through bureaucratic hoops to make sure their health records are complete. We need a modern health record system, and it needs to happen without further delay. Each year 150,000 servicemembers make the transition from military service to veteran status. When a servicemember makes that change their health records should go with them and transition seamlessly from the Department of Defense to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Unfortunately, as it stands today, the two Departments operate separate health record systems that do not communicate with each other. This can cause gaps in a servicemember's health record, meaning more medical tests that lead to greater costs and an increase in the backlog of cases at the Department of Veterans Affairs. For fifteen years we have tried to fix this problem, and in the past 5 years the Departments have spent around $1 billion but we are not there yet. Recently, Secretary Hagel announced that the two Departments were abandoning the goal of creating a single health system. Instead, the Department of Defense will invest in a commercial system that will be able to communicate with the system being used by the Department of Veterans Affairs. These recent efforts are a positive sign, but we must make sure the Departments continue to make progress towards a cohesive health system. That is why I am filing legislation that will provide a timeline for the health record systems to be able to talk to one another. In addition, this legislation encourages innovation in the sharing of electronic records and will provide patients greater access to their health records.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I want to speak about a subject that is on the hearts of most of us now as we approach not what is a coming constitutional crisis, but what is already a constitutional crisis because this body is not functioning as the Constitution intended. The minority, under the rules of the Senate, is protected and has been. In the early days of the Senate, there was no cutting off of debate. In the early 1900s, a level, a threshold of 67 was established in order to cut off debate. Then, after the abuses of that filibuster requirement to cut off debate in the abuses in the civil rights era, indeed, the threshold was lowered to what we have in the Senate rules today--60. But we are seeing that it is being abused. Under the Constitution we have the checks and balances of the separate branches. But when a President is elected, the President is entitled to have the people he wants to advise him to be a part of his team to be confirmed. It has always been the practice under the Constitution to have, not a supermajority vote, as is required for treaties, but a simple majority vote in the approval of the nominations. The issue in front of us is whether the President will be entitled to have approved by the Senate the people he has put forth to head the agencies and the Departments of his administration. That is what has brought us to the constitutional crisis where we are now finding ourselves ready to act. Congress has failed to put aside political differences to find commonsense solutions not only on the issue of the approval of the President's appointments, but on so many of our Nation's pressing problems. Let's start out with the charade that we call the sequester. The sequester is a meat cleaver approach to budgeting. I daresay in the minds of most of the Senators it was never intended to go into effect. It was the meat cleaver hanging over the head, a year and a half ago, of the appointed supercommittee that--after the initial $1 trillion of spending cuts were made on the budget over a 10-year period, which was done--the supercommittee was to come along and work out deficit reduction with a target somewhere around $4 trillion in total. What was to encourage the supercommittee was this meat cleaver hanging over their heads, or guillotine hanging over all the heads that nobody wanted, which was cuts across the board without regard to programs--across the board in discretionary programs, defense and nondefense discretionary programs. Such across-the-board budget cuts, is that the way to go about making proper appropriations decisions? Those kinds of meat cleaver approaches do real damage to people's everyday lives. In the long run, the sequester is certainly going to hurt our national defense, our national security, and our Nation's ability to compete economically with other countries. If we see these kinds of cuts continue in this ideological fashion without regard to programs, then we are going to be in serious trouble. We can continue to have both sides of the aisle point fingers at each other, but isn't it about time we get rid of this approach to the budget--the sequester--and start talking about how we can get the job done? Well, the ranking member of the Finance Committee is here. He is one of my dear personal friends. I believe he is very sincere, along with the chairman of the Finance Committee, to really take on tax reform. Are we happy with the Tax Code we have? Do we think it has much too much complication? And couldn't its streamlining-- particularly with tax expenditures, which are tax deductions and tax credits, and almost every special interest in the world has their own special tax expenditure--could we not clear out a lot of them, which produces revenue, and use that revenue in order to lower tax rates and also use some of it to lower the deficit? Well, we need to close some of those loopholes, and I am hopeful, with the leadership of Senator Baucus and Senator Hatch, we are going to be able to do that. But there are a lot of other things in there. It is no surprise that I have been speaking of subsidies that go to companies, such as oil companies, that have outlived their usefulness that were given a century ago in the Tax Code as incentives to drill for oil. Do we think oil companies need those financial incentives now? What about the offshore tax dodges? I think it is also obvious that when you look at the Medicare drug program, you know the taxpayers of this country, through their government, got a break on the cost of prescription drugs that we supply to Medicaid and to the Department of Defense and to the Veterans' Administration. But when it comes to if you have been getting that price break on your drugs through Medicaid, but you now turn 65, and you get your drugs through Medicare, the U.S. Government does not get the break, the discount on the drugs through Medicare. The very same people who were getting them under Medicaid now are getting them by Medicare because they passed the threshold of age 65--same drug, same people; the government is paying it--but the government is paying a much higher price. That could be worth a savings of $150 billion to the U.S. taxpayer over the course of a decade. You do the math on just these few examples I have given in this short little speech, and it adds up to well over $1 trillion. And that is just a starter. There are hundreds of billions of dollars more that might be saved by closing some of these tax loopholes. I think we need to keep in mind that not all tax deductions are bad. Some serve very legitimate purposes. But here we are, and we come back to the gridlock we are experiencing. We passed a budget resolution in the Budget Committee. It passed out here on the floor of the Senate. The House of Representatives has passed a budget resolution, albeit much different than ours. The normal process around here is to try to work out our differences and to do it as ladies and gentlemen with comity. But we cannot even get a motion approved in order to go to a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and the Senate budget resolutions. So I would continue to plead with our colleagues to allow this to move forward. No less than one of the most stellar Members of this body, Senator McCain, has called for the naming of the conference committee. My Republican colleague who helps me lead the Aging Committee, Senator Collins, has called for the naming of the conference committee. So let's do it. Let's end the gridlock on this one little thing. Let's compromise. And let's start using some common sense. If we do, you will see a chorus of amens from our fellow countrymen. 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, 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. Mr. President, I wish to speak about the immigration bill we passed a couple weeks ago. It was a significant achievement. I have already congratulated all of those in the so-called Gang of 8 who put together the initial draft. It was an example of bipartisanship and recognizing that the other fellow has a point of view--that you respect that--and then you work out your differences. That was an example of the Senate at its finest and what we ought to be doing on every piece of legislation around here. The final result: 68 votes to 32 votes. Its prospects we know not what because of the different approach in the House and the inability on so many things we have passed here to go to the conference committee to iron out the differences between the House and the Senate. So I am very appreciative, and I have given my congratulations to all of those who have participated in that immigration bill. There is a huge flaw. It is a huge flaw in not recognizing that when we want to secure the border, as supposedly was done in order to gain 14 Republican votes to get us to the huge vote of 68 votes for the bill, a major amount of money was added for border security. That is not the flaw. Some may question the amount of money. Indeed, there was $6.5 billion in the initial Gang of 8 compromise for border security. But when it came with the Corker-Hoeven amendment, there was $46.3 billion more, of which over $44 billion was for border security. That is not what is the flaw, although one can argue it. The flaw is that the amendment that was offered by the Senator from Mississippi and me was not even allowed to be considered, which was to increase not some $50-plus billion for border security--which was the land border--but to add a mere $1 billion for maritime security. That is the flaw. As a matter of fact, if you want border security, it is a fatal flaw. Why? You put up an impenetrable wall--whether it be a fence, an electric fence, an electronic fence, whether it be UAVs, more Border Patrol agents--as a matter of fact, in the Corker-Hoeven amendment, $30 billion of that additional border security was just for Border Patrol agents--all of which is going to make it fairly effective in border security of not allowing people to pass, but it is the land border. So what is going to happen? You go right around the land border on the maritime border. It is either going to be on the west coast, on the Pacific, or it is going to be on the east coast, either the Gulf of Mexico and all the Gulf States or the Atlantic, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Because if someone can be smuggled into one of them and therefore get an identity, then they have free access. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. They have free access to get to the rest of the United States. So maritime security becomes paramount. But we could not get people here who wanted to spend over $50 billion on border security, which is the land border, which, in fact, is in the bill--they would not allow a Republican Senator, Mr. Wicker, and me to add $1 billion for maritime security. Specifically, under our amendment, it would have addressed just that part of border security with regard to the Department of Homeland Security. But if we want an effective border security, we have to then get into a whole host of things other than Customs and Border Patrol. We have to get additional resources for the Coast Guard. We have to consider not only UAVs being flown by the Department of Homeland Security, through Customs, et cetera, over the maritime border, we have to put more Coast Guard out there. I would suggest a new platform that would be very effective would be what the Navy is testing right now, which is blimps. It is a very cost- effective, long dwell time, that gives enormous coverage at sea by one blimp. I have ridden in those blimps. The Navy is testing them. I went with the Navy out of Fernandina Beach as they were doing the testing for Mayport Naval Station. It is incredible what you can do on the dwell time of a blimp. Of course, the fuel used is de minimus. The cost of an entire mission for a blimp, some 24 hours of fuel, is the same as cranking up an F-16 taxing out to the runway. That amount of energy, fuel spent is what would be spent on a blimp for an entire 24-hour period as it is doing surveillance. So if we are going to be sincere about border effectiveness, then, in fact, we are going to have to pay attention to the maritime border as well as the land border. Why are Senator Wicker and I concerned about this? He comes from a Gulf Coast State, Mississippi. I come from the State that has the longest coastline of any State save for the State of Alaska. My State of Florida has over some 1,500 miles of coast. It is a place that will be a haven for smugglers of people and drugs. If we think we are tightening border security by over $50 billion being applied to the land border, where are the smugglers going to go? They are going to go right around. It is just like water will flow and it will meet the place of least resistance. It will continue to flow. So, too, will the smugglers. I wish to say I am disappointed that people on that side of the aisle would not allow Senator Wicker's and my amendment to be considered in the last minute. It obviously is not controversial. Yet, for whatever reason, it was denied. I hope as we proceed on the immigration bill-- and I hope we are able to proceed if the House will act--I hope in the final product it will be considered and added so we can truly have a secure border, a maritime border as well as a land border. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Would the Senator yield. The Senator--the esteemed chairman whose leadership has brought us to this point, that we are on the brink of passing a major immigration reform bill--the Senator heard my comments earlier. Does it not make common sense that if we are making as secure as possible the southern land border of the United States for illegal immigration--which also includes drugs, by the way-- would it not make sense that we would want to increase the maritime border security?

Mr. NELSON. I thank the Senator, the esteemed chairman of the Judiciary Committee. It is common sense. I appreciate him underscoring that. I hope our brethren and sistren on the other side who are questioning whether they are going to allow my and Senator Wicker's amendment to be considered will reconsider their decisions.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I would like to speak about the immigration bill, but first I wish to make a comment about this international drama that is going on from Hong Kong to--well, I guess it started in Hawaii--from Hawaii to Hong Kong, now Hong Kong to Moscow. Then the question is, Where does the fugitive go from there? I think we ought to face facts that the Government of China would not have let him go without making the decision with regard to Hong Kong. I would not have been surprised if they did not get certain information from him if, in fact, he has anything. But the fact that he is now in Moscow and did not get on the airplane for Cuba tells me that the old KGB officer--now President of Russia--Putin is directing the show. I would not be surprised if the President of Russia is giving the orders to milk him for every piece of information he has. If he does not have anything, then I think the President of Russia is going to decide whether he wants to have a good relationship with the United States and might allow him to be extradited to the United States. It may well be that since he was released from Hong Kong--which is under the direction, in this case, of President Xi of China--that he may not have all the information he is claiming to have. Presumably, he is carrying a bunch of laptops. One would have thought they would have taken them into custody, and maybe that is what is happening right now in Moscow. However it plays out, as I have said from the beginning, I think his behavior is treasonous behavior and that the full extent of the law ought to be applied and those countries that have a formal legal relationship with the United States ought to obey the law and have him extradited to the United States so he can face the charges. By virtue of his escapades all over the globe, I think it is clearly indicative that he does not want to face the full extent of the law. I think all the more that would justify the Department of Justice in the charge they have brought already on espionage. I wish to say a word or two about the immigration bill. Clearly, on the first day of the debate I came out here and embraced it. Clearly, we need comprehensive immigration reform. When I was a young Congressman back in the 1980s, I voted for it then. The big difference back then was that we only had about 2 million illegal folks in the country. Now the new term is ``undocumented.'' Of course, that has swelled now to over 11 million undocumented. In large part, the law that was passed back in the 1980s was never observed. Businesses did not obey the law, and that is one of the things we are looking at in this comprehensive immigration package-- that businesses will have to obey the law and still will be able to get the labor source they need in order to conduct business and that through a series of E-Verify and other provisions they can then have the security of knowing that the individual they have hired is in legal status. I think it is clearly the right thing to do. There are 11 million people here. These folks who are saying, oh, well, deport them, that is not common sense. We cannot deport 11 million people; the economy would collapse. Just look at the agricultural community. We have to have the source of labor to pick the crops when the crops are ripe; otherwise, the whole crop is lost. So too as we go through so many of the nuances of this bill--it is all put together, and I think they have done a good job. I have one bone of contention. I came to the floor today absolutely shocked that the amendment Senator Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, and I have offered is--it is questionable whether, with all this falderal that is going on about not accepting any additional amendments, if it is going to be accepted. This amendment says that in addition to the land border security, which has been the story for the last week, laboring over how do we increase border security--and the estimate on this new amendment we are going to vote on today is that it is costing an additional $20 to $46 billion; that will really tighten up border security--but if you have made the land border almost foolproof, what do you think is going to happen? How are the smugglers going to get the illegal immigrants across? How are the smugglers going to continue to try to get across all the illegal drugs? Similar to water, if you dam it up in one place, it is going to try to go around. Where is ``going around''? The maritime border. If you make the land border on the southern United States foolproof, where do you think the smugglers and the illegal immigrants are going to go? They are going to go to a very porous border that is from Texas to Louisiana, to Mississippi, to Alabama, to my State of Florida, which has the longest coastline of the continental United States, and then up the eastern seaboard: Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, et cetera. They are going to do it also by going in through some of the Caribbean Islands, including U.S. territories--Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands--because if they get there, then they are on U.S. territory. So if we are spending--this is where the common sense comes in--if we are spending $46 billion additional to secure the land border, why wouldn't we want to spend an additional $1 billion to help secure the maritime border? California would be another one. You can come up the coast of Central America into California. It, perhaps, is a more daunting task because of the waters of the Pacific. But look at all the opportunities on the coast of a State such as mine, Florida, of bringing in smugglers. Of course, we have seen this over the years. So what do we do? What is the $1 billion for? Simple, real simple. We already have an unmanned aerial vehicle like a drone, such as we read about over in Afghanistan--a Predator or some version thereof, unarmed. Today, it is flying out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But that is one. When it is down for maintenance, there is zero. So why wouldn't we enhance one UAV with more stationed strategically around the coastal maritime border to stop what is supposedly going to happen if this impregnable land border is there? No. 2, the U.S. Navy is experimenting with a stable platform that is very cheap to operate called a blimp. I have flown in this blimp. You can station blimps with a long dwell time because the amount of fuel that is used in a blimp from start to finish for upward of a 24-hour mission, if you had two crews on board--that amount of fuel is the same that it takes to crank up an F-16 just to get it out there on the runway. It is a huge cost savings, and it gives us a lot of dwell time. So why wouldn't we enhance for the U.S. Navy the blimp that is being tested for the 4th Fleet headquartered at Mayport Naval Station? We should. Thirdly, the U.S. Coast Guard. Why wouldn't we enhance the Coast Guard's ability to patrol not just for drugs, but for some of those who are trying to come into the United States illegally now through the maritime border, so why wouldn't we enhance the Coast Guard? With $20 billion to $46 billion extra for this amendment that we are going to vote on this afternoon, why wouldn't we add another $1 billion to stop the illegal immigration and drug smuggling that is going to occur on the maritime border? Just think about it. Just think, when you try to stop water from rushing forward and you put some kind of dam that stops it, if there is any break or leak or hole, where is that water going to go? It is going to go in the place of least resistance. So, too, smuggling of illegal aliens and drugs. If they do not get across the land border because of my friends insisting that it become impregnable, why would they want to block Senator Wicker's and my amendment that says we are going to enhance modestly because we can handle it with overhead and on-the-sea assets through the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy? It is common sense. Common sense ought to rule. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.