Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. How much time does the majority have remaining?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. And the minority has 8 minutes remaining?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I have no objection.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Would the Senator consider 15 minutes, given the inequity of the time?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, is there a consent order that was entered into yesterday?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 26, 2012, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on January 26, 2012, at 10:00 a.m., in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 26, 2012, at 10:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Compliance with Tax Limits on Mutual Fund Commodity Speculation.''

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on January 26, 2012, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, at the late hour, as the Senate continues to try to do its work, there is word that maybe--as the Good Book says: ``Come, let us reason together''--maybe there is some movement in bringing about some consensus-building so the people's work can be done and these issues that have kept us apart for so long can finally be resolved. Maybe they will be resolved only on a temporary basis. But at least we would be in a situation where we did not allow the tax cuts for Social Security payments that would be such--if those tax cuts did not continue, there would be an immediate amount more that people will have to pay out of their pocket. Maybe those will continue. It is certainly the right thing to do. It is also the right thing to do to keep unemployment compensation going in a time of a recession, when so many people are out of work, and they do not have the opportunity to get work or only get what they can piece together, which is not enough to sustain their families. That is the right thing to do. Certainly passing the funding bills to keep the government going past midnight tonight is clearly the right thing to do, instead of extraneous issues holding us up, to having us all wound around the axle where we can't even fund the Government of the United States. So maybe some reasonable minds are coming together to start working out these issues. I certainly hope so. In the meantime, what I wish to speak about is something that is even more pernicious and that is making it harder for our people to express their constitutional right of casting a vote. We have seen a pattern in 14 States, enacting new election laws that basically are a suppression of voter rights. One of those States that is glaringly, dubiously at the top of the list as being the most severe in cutting back on people's ability to vote and to know the vote they have cast is going to be counted as they intended it--and, in the first place, making it so they can register to vote--that very fundamental constitutional right for Americans is being threatened through these laws in the States, including my State, of suppressing the right to vote. If we look at the similarities of the laws in the 14 States, we will see an obvious pattern. But in my State of Florida, we see the most severe assault on the rights of voters of all the 14 States. The present issue is joined in a court in the District of Columbia, a suit ironically brought by the State of Florida against the Department of Justice over the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its implementation. A part of that suit actually questions the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That is a rather brazen attempt, but I think the courts will take care of that in short order. But the very issue, as brought in this new Florida elections law, does a number of things to cut back on the rights of voters. In the first place, the League of Women Voters, which has been registering voters for years, has stopped its registration of voters because of the new law. Why? Because the old law on the books for decades said that once an organization such as the League of Women Voters registered the new voters, they had 10 days to turn that in to the respective supervisors of elections in the 67 counties. The new elections law amended that to 48 hours, and they attached to that the possibility of a fine that could go up to $1,000 per person on the person doing the registration if they did not turn in the names in 48 hours. Of course, we had the two cases of two civics teachers in two different parts of the State who, being good teachers, in their government class were registering their students to vote and did not meet the 48-hour deadline and the State of Florida is looking at the possibility of fining these teachers. That is the height of hypocrisy. That is the height of an assault on the right of people to vote by impeding their ability to register to vote. The intended result is there. The League of Women Voters is just one organization. There are many. But it shows what has happened; that all the registrations that would occur of people being encouraged to participate in the political system is not being done and will not be done until this issue is settled in the courts, and that is probably going to be late summer. So for the period of over 1 year, since the passing of this new law in Florida, voters will not be registered by organizations such as the League of Women Voters. That is a sad commentary, but in fact that is what has happened. That is what has happened in the State of Florida. But that is not all. Let me tell my colleagues what else the law does. My colleagues remember how college students got so active for the first time in a Presidential election. When the Presiding Officer and I were coming up in college, we were taught that public service was one of the highest callings a person could have. We were also taught that to be a participant in our democracy was a civic responsibility. But over the intervening years, after the Vietnam war, after a number of other circumstances, young people got turned off to politics and government. Then we saw them in this past Presidential election becoming energized once again. They went down in the cities where they went to school and they registered in great numbers. Then, on election day, they turned out in great numbers. Do my colleagues know what the State of Florida did in passing the new elections law? They changed the law which said that when a college student goes down there on election day to vote and they bring out their identification to show they are who they say they are and they compare their driver's license identification and address to the voting registration in the college town, if that driver's license, which likely shows their parents' address, if it is in a different county, they will not give them a ballot. They will give them a provisional ballot. As a result, we saw in the last Presidential election in Florida half the provisional ballots cast were not counted. This is a blatant attempt to cut out a certain element or to make it more difficult, all under the guise that they are trying to weed out fraud. We haven't had a lot of voter fraud in our State of Florida, and I daresay we would find the same in the other 13 States that enacted these very repressive laws. But that is not all. The law goes on further to restrict voters' rights by cutting back on the number of days of early voting. Why did we have early voting? In our State, we went through the trauma of the Presidential election of 2000, when there was so much confusion about whether the ballot was intended to be this way, and people were confused with the way the ballot was constructed. It went on and on and on. We know the high drama that ended in the Supreme Court of Bush v. Gore. Because of that trauma, many State legislatures decided to try to make it easier to vote. One way to vote so there was less confusion was to allow what other States have done, which is to let part of the voting occur before election day--early voting. Then a person can take their time going in. People don't have to be confined to voting within a 12-hour period from 7 o'clock in the morning until 7 o'clock at night, with the long lines and perhaps inclement weather, with a pouring down rainstorm or snowstorm, to inhibit people's ability to exercise their right to vote. So legislatures across this country started enacting early voting. In Florida, that early voting period was 2 weeks. The 2 weeks went all the way up through the Sunday before the Tuesday election. Lo and behold, in the last Presidential election, because of early voting, 40 percent of the electorate of Florida voted before election day. You certainly know the supervisors of election liked that because then on the election day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., there was 60 percent of the vote--not 100 percent of the vote--and, therefore, it was much more manageable, even though there was an extremely high turnout because it was in a Presidential election. Well, by constricting, as the Florida law did, from 14 days to 8 days, they are limiting that ability. They cut it back. Instead of the Sunday before the Tuesday election, the last day of the eighth day will be the Saturday before the Tuesday election. On the basis of the experience of the last decade, guess who voted in record numbers on the Sunday before the Tuesday election after church. Certain minority groups, in record numbers. Therefore, it is again an attempt at suppressing that particular vote. Why cannot we use walking-around common sense that would say we want to help people, to facilitate people, to make it easier for them to cast their vote, make it easier for them to register to vote; and then, once they have cast that vote, to do it in a manner where they know exactly what they are doing, lessen the amount of mistakes, and have the security of mind of knowing that the vote was going to be counted as they intended it? Yet we see laws have been passed in a number of States to the contrary. It is my hope--it is the hope of a lot of people across this country, who care about one of the most fundamental rights of being a citizen of the United States of America: the right to vote; a right, a constitutional right that casts us in contrast to a lot of other countries on the face of planet Earth--it is my hope, as the court deliberates and renders its judgment, the Constitution of the United States will be upheld.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I wish to thank the Senator from Tennessee for his graciousness to make a very few brief remarks. I wish to call to the attention of the Senate that there are some good things that are happening in Medicare. In the health care bill-- which was a very complicated piece of legislation--there are a lot of good things. There were some things that are implemented over time, that if mistakes had been made, we can correct those mistakes as they are starting to be implemented. I wish to point out some of the salutary things that are happening under the new health care reform bill with regard to Medicaid. It was just this week that the agency that runs Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, announced that more seniors and people with disabilities on Medicare are seeing significantly lower costs for important health care because of this new law. For example, what we are seeing for the first time is that millions of Americans on Medicare are now getting free physical exams as part of their preventive medicine. Because of the doughnut hole, which is that complicated black hole senior citizens would fall into when they were getting assistance for their prescription drugs, well, lo and behold, that doughnut hole is being filled by the Federal Government assisting them in paying for those drugs. Therefore, they are getting a lot more of their drugs without having to pay for them. For example, Nationwide has over 2.5 million people on Medicare who have saved more than $1.5 billion on their prescriptions. If we boil that down to my State of Florida, we have 172,000 Medicare recipients who save $96 million, which is an average for the senior citizen in Florida of $563 per person per year. In the case of physical exams, we have over 24 million people in the country who now have taken advantage of having one of these free physical exams in order to help with the preventive health care aspects that the bill was aimed at. In my State, where there are a lot of senior citizens, close to 2 million senior citizens have taken advantage of those physical exams. Remember how we were discussing the doom and gloom of Medicare Advantage? What has happened to Medicare Advantage? We had to change it because Medicare Advantage before, under the previous law, had a 14- percent bump over and above Medicare fee-for-service. The Federal Government was going to go broke if we did not do something about that. Where was that money going? It was going to the insurance company because Medicare Advantage is a fancy term for Medicare given through an insurance company and HMO. What has happened? If we look all across the country at Medicare Advantage, enrollments are up and the premiums senior citizens pay are down. Look at the State of Florida in this last year. Enrollment was up by 6 percent, premiums decreased by about 10 percent. What is happening now in 2012? Enrollments are up almost 20 percent and the premiums are going down by a whopping 26 percent. That means more seniors are going to have access to higher quality care while paying less, and it is a win-win-win. It is clearly a win for the country that we are leveling out all of the excess bumps. It is clearly a win to the senior citizen and, in the process, the insurance companies are giving better quality care. I wanted to bring this to the attention of the Senate, and I do thank my colleague from Tennessee for his generosity in allowing me to make these comments prior to his. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wanted to share with the Senate today what should be a collective outrage because an American citizen has now been held behind bars in Cuba for exactly 2 years. Alan Gross was working in Cuba under a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. He has devoted his career to helping thousands of people around the world, working in development for over 25 years in more than 50 countries. In Cuba, Alan Gross was trying to make a difference in the lives of people who share his Jewish faith by bringing them modern communication tools. For that simple act, he has now languished in a Cuban prison for 2 years. His health worsens each day and his family, of course, misses him. His wife Judy spoke to him just days ago and said that Alan sounded ``more hopeless and more depressed,'' as one would expect. The release of Alan Gross must remain front and center in any discussion with or about the Cuban regime. That is why many of us in this Chamber have joined in writing to the Ambassador of Cuba here--and since we don't have diplomatic relations, that individual is called the Chief of the Cuban Interests Section--and asking the Castro regime to immediately and unconditionally release Alan Gross as a humanitarian gesture and a sign of compassion for his family. We have been met, however, with stonewalling silence. While we remember Mr. Gross and we keep pressure on the Castro regime, the Senate must also fulfill its duties toward the rest of the Western Hemisphere. A case in point: Four countries in Latin America-- Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador--are currently without a U.S. Ambassador. That is the job of the Senate--to confirm appointments of the President. In the case of Venezuela, it is not because we don't have a nominee, it is because, in fact, we are having some trouble with the Chavez government. We have been without an Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs since July. It isn't in the interest of the United States not to have these people in place. The Senate has basically 2 weeks to go if we get out a week before the Christmas holiday--and that is an ``if,'' by the way. During this time, while we go through all of what we have to do in the next 10 legislative days--such as solving the doctors problem, extending this payroll tax cut, appropriations bills, extending unemployment compensation for people who desperately need it, and extending a lot of the tax extenders--we must also fulfill our constitutional duty to consider these important Presidential appointments. There is one in front of the Senate right now; that is, the Ambassador to El Salvador. Mari Carmen Aponte is the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. She is well known all over the United States in Hispanic circles because she has held, as a Foreign Service officer, a number of posts. During the August 2010 congressional recess, the President named her Ambassador to El Salvador. That recess appointment is going to expire at the end of this year. Before joining the State Department, Ms. Aponte served as Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Administration and president of the very respected Hispanic National Bar Association. Typical of the sentiment in Florida, an editorial in a recent Miami Herald editorial expressed support for her confirmation, saying that ``her diplomatic success has earned her the unprecedented support of the private sector and of the most prominent political leaders in El Salvador.'' It was unprecedented that three former Presidents of El Salvador came all the way to Washington to show their support during her nomination hearing. My wife Grace and I were recently visited by the First Lady of El Salvador. She pointed out all of the terrible events that have taken place in her country: struggling to recover from the tropical depression that made landfall this past fall, the heavy rains that have caused major damage throughout Central America, and the 70,000 Salvadorans still living in shelters. That little country faces many challenges. So if for no other reason than those I mentioned, we do not want to continue into next year without our having an ambassador there. We need to confirm Ms. Aponte as soon as possible so that she can continue exercising the necessary U.S. leadership. Latin American countries continue to be America's fastest growing trade partners. We need to continue to promote that trade. It helps our economy. It deepens the economic linkages. We can explore clean energy initiatives, and we can help them as they continue to strengthen transparency in government and the rule of law. We need to pay more attention to Latin America, not less. Disengagement is not the answer. This is just another reason we need to confirm this nomination as quickly as possible for Ambassador to El Salvador. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it is my understanding that both leaders have decided to accept this. So I don't see any need for a rollcall vote.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, here we are, stuck again, and I want to speak just a little bit about getting this country moving again and getting Americans earning again. This great country of ours has endured a lot. We have endured despite the Civil War, the Great Depression, the two World Wars we have been in, the assassination of leaders, and the slaughter of innocents by terrorists. This great Nation of ours has confronted racism and civil unrest and political scandal at all levels, and always we have endured. In the throes of the Great Depression, the words of President Roosevelt reassured most Americans when he said: This great Nation will endure as it has endured. It will revive and it will prosper. Today, we are once again walking a rugged path, and the most recent example of the failure of the supercommittee has been the latest crash caused by super-rigid ideology and hyperpolitical partisanship. Truth be told, we are in a most difficult time in our Nation's economic life--still facing a decision of how to pay for an enormous debt. We owe this money mostly due to the misconduct of the money changers, the misuse of the Tax Code that favors special interests, and years of excessive spending. Yet there are Members of this Congress who propose we should first not address those underlying causes, and that those most responsible should not even have to pay their fair share toward reducing the debt. Instead, they propose we first take away from Social Security savings and Medicare health coverage for the elderly, and that we pull back the hand this Nation compassionately extends to those among us who are less fortunate. That would seem somewhat to erase all the progress we have made since those words of President Roosevelt by declaring war not on poverty but on the poor, the middle class, and the elderly. Because a host of our citizens face the grim problems of unemployment, the loss of their homes, and depletion of their savings, this Congress should fight any measure that unfairly inflicts pain on those least responsible for our present economic condition. The American people deserve a lot from their Congress. They deserve honesty. They expect us to work together, and they want action that is evenhanded. So as we move forward, I hope all my colleagues in the Senate and in the House will be guided by the words of a young President Kennedy, who said: Let us not seek the Republican answer nor the Democratic answer--but the right answer. In this spirit, can't we work to pull our Nation out of its financial doldrums? Can't we just ask: What is the right thing to do? Is it right that household income for the average American is actually in decline? Is it right that a hedge fund manager pays a lower tax rate than the person who cleans his office? Is it right that an oil company gets to write off $11 billion on its tax return because it polluted the Gulf of Mexico? Is it right that the Congress cannot agree on a deficit reduction plan because of partisan politics? The American people know what is right and they know what is not right. If we could just for 1 minute put all this partisanship aside and do what is right, then we might be able to balance our Nation's books to get this country moving again and to get Americans employed and earning again. While we are at it, we might just restore the American public's confidence in our government. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, musicians Bono and Alicia Keys are in Washington, DC, today to meet with Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Bush about what is next in the global battle against AIDS. They note that we are reaching a tipping point on combating HIV/AIDS worldwide, which is why they and many others, including myself, believe continued U.S. leadership is critical. It is fitting that this gathering is taking place today--World AIDS Day. We all should remember that HIV/AIDS has claimed the lives of more than 550,000 Americans so far, while 1.1 million others are living with the disease. Florida has been hit particularly hard: about 100,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS. Florida has the longest waiting list of low- income residents waiting for assistance with the high cost of lifesaving medications. More than 3,000 Floridians are on that list; and, alarmingly, the number could grow as the State considers cutting more than 1,600 who already are in the government-backed program. Federal, State, and local governments must understandably tighten their belts. But focusing on such short-term savings is horribly shortsighted. For several reasons, these cuts will only lead to higher costs to taxpayers in the long run--cases will become more difficult to manage, transmission rates are likely to increase, and patients will more frequently need expensive care in emergency rooms and hospitals. We must also remain committed to the goals of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief globally. Among the goals are to prevent more than 12 million new HIV infections and provide care for more than 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and children around the world.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I want to speak while we are in this pause on the Defense bill about a looming problem that the entire eastern seaboard of the United States has; that is, the Spanish drilling company Repsol is bringing a rig in that has been constructed over in Asia, and sometime early next year they are going to drill in deep water off the north coast of Cuba. The Spanish drilling company is a very competent company. As a matter of fact, they adhere to safety standards that are required by the United States because they drill in the Gulf of Mexico in American waters. So if there is a responsible party in drilling, then we have one. However, there are other leases the Cuban Government is granting to other countries for drilling that may not adhere to the safe standards that are set that Repsol will agree to abide by, the same safety standards that they use drilling in American waters and have agreed in principle that they will follow a plan of action with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the case that there should be a spill. All of that is well and good, but there are other companies coming down the line drilling in other leases that may not adhere to their standards. If there were a spill off the north coast of Cuba, guess who is going to be affected because that is where the Gulf Stream comes along, and then flows northeast, parallels the Florida Keys and all those delicate coral reefs, comes in and hugs the east coast of Florida from Miami all the way to Palm Beach, goes off the coast a few miles, hugs the coast all the way up to the middle of the peninsula at Fort Pierce, FL, and then parallels the eastern seaboard all the way up past Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and then leaves, paralleling the eastern seaboard at Cape Hatteras, and goes off across the Atlantic and ends up in the northern part of Europe. Now, if there were a major spill--it doesn't have to be to the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon spill off of Louisiana. If there were a major spill and all that oil is carried in the Gulf Stream and it comes into the coast at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Beach--you know what happened to the tourism industry all along the gulf coast when, in fact, on some of those coasts there was not much oil at all, but people didn't come as tourists because they thought the beaches were covered. Can you imagine the economic calamity that would occur as a result of a spill? Therefore, my colleague, Marco Rubio, and I and other Senators--in particular, Senator Menendez of New Jersey--have filed legislation that will require financial responsibility from a foreign source. If they spill in foreign waters, there would be a cause of action against them if damage is done to the interest of the United States, be it the governments of the United States, be it private individuals, or be it private companies. If we do not have a cause of action where there is liability as a result of a spill, by whomever, in foreign waters, and if it comes in the scenario that I have laid out, which is real spilling oil off the north coast of Cuba in a major oil disaster that is carried by the Gulf Stream up the eastern seaboard of the United States--if we do not have financial responsibility, then there is no incentive for those foreign oil companies drilling to adhere to safety standards and, if there is a spill, to quickly adhere to a spill cleanup plan. Talking about the economic disaster that occurred as a result of the gulf oilspill in the Deepwater Horizon, it would pale in comparison to the economic disaster that would occur in such a spill that would be carried by the Gulf Stream. It would not only affect Florida, it would affect Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. If there were any eddy current that would carry it back in, it would take it right on into the Chesapeake on up into Cape May in New Jersey, and you see the particular consequences. As a matter of fact, the gulf stream goes by Bermuda. It could have devastating effects on that country. I hope our Senators, coming to this new reality, will realize that we have to remember the terrible consequences as a result of a major oil spill. Remember, this was a company off of Louisiana that was not adhering to the highest safety standards, and look at the disaster that occurred from that. Remember how they tried to hide the amount of oil that was being spilled because it was 5,000 feet below the surface of the water? It was not until we got the streaming video that the scientists could calculate that it wasn't 1,000 barrels a day it was dumping into the gulf, it was 50,000 barrels a day. As a result, before they got that well capped, it ended up being almost 5 million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. We don't even know the future consequences because there is a lot of oil out there sloshing around, and there is a lot of it down there deep. We don't know what is happening down there. We don't know what is happening to the critters. We know what is happening to some of the critters in the marshes where the oil has now mixed up into the sediment and the critters are down there digging around, and we are seeing the effect of that when we check the gills of these fish that are being hatched, living off the sediment. The consequences are not good. It is the responsible thing to do, to make foreign oil companies drilling in foreign waters understand there is going to be an economic consequence if they damage the economic interests of the United States. That is the bill Senator Menendez, Senator Marco Rubio, and I have filed. I commend it to the consideration of the Senate. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, with the chairman's permission, I would like to speak on the Defense bill. Mr. President, I wish to thank Chairman Levin. I wish to thank Senator McCain. I wish to thank the entire Armed Services Committee and all the dedicated staff for their efforts in crafting this National Defense Authorization Act. I am going to continue to work with all of my colleagues to resolve some of the very challenging provisions, one of which we just voted on, having to do with what courts the detainees are going to be prosecuted in. I am hopeful compromises will be reached in the days ahead so this bill can be passed and signed into law. There are five amendments I and others have offered that I wish to talk about. The first is amendment No. 1210. It has been crafted in consultation with the Government Accountability Office and it would require the Department of the Navy to evaluate the cost and benefits of stationing additional destroyers at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fl. One may ask why. Well, the frigates at Mayport that will all be decommissioned by 2015, but the ships that will replace them, the Littoral combat ships, will not arrive until 2016. Therefore, there is a hiatus of a year in which the ship repair industry, that was built up to take care of the Navy's fleet, will be without work. From the standpoint of keeping the maintenance and repair of the Navy's fleet, we need to determine if it will be more cost effective for the Navy to mitigate this problem by bringing additional destroyers to Mayport during that timeframe, extending the service lives of the existing frigates, or by boosting the industry by bringing ships from around the country to the Jacksonville ship repair industry for repair. Doing nothing is not an option because the ship repair business would take too big of a hit. In order to provide some oversight of the Navy's methodology, so that we can get the greatest bang for the buck and keep the Navy fleet at the level of readiness it needs, I am asking for the GAO to assess and report independently on these measures. My colleague from Florida, Senator Rubio, has joined as a cosponsor. I urge support of this amendment. It should not be a controversial amendment. I hope the committee will be able to accept it. I have also proposed amendment No. 1236, which requires the Department of the Air Force to further explain their plan to change the flag officer positions at the Air Force Materiel Command. Reducing oversight and eliminating officers with vital experience could damage the Air Force's weapons testing mission. So this amendment simply requires the Air Force to submit a report which would be assessed by the GAO. Again, this should not be a controversial amendment and ought to be accepted by the committee. Senator Schumer of New York and I are working to ensure that the Department of Defense and the Veterans Affairs Department continue to study and evaluate the harmful effects of the garbage burn pits at our base in Balad in Iraq. This has gotten some attention in the press. It is horrible. What we are seeing is when our troops are exposed to these toxic fumes from these open burn pits, we see the consequences in their health that turn up later. Obviously, it is not only a diminution of the health of our troops which we ought to first and foremost protect, but of course there is a continuing cost to the U.S. Government, because years later, what we are finding is--and this comes out of the first gulf war experience with those open burn pits--we have determined that serious health problems could be traced back to the breathing in of those toxic substances because the troops were exposed to the fumes coming out of those burn pits. What this amendment does--and it should not be controversial--is it requires a study be designed to take a look at those burn pits and further focus on the serious medical effects on our troops. So far, the reports have been inconclusive, but troops are still getting sick and it needs to be understood; thus, the reason for that study. Next year we will work to have the actual study funded. But Senator Schumer and I want to get on with this study and we ask and it should be accepted by the committee as a noncontroversial amendment. After all, it is what we all want, the protection of our troops. Let me talk about amendment No. 1209. This addresses the longstanding problem faced by relatives of those who have been killed in action or whose death is related to service in the military, and that is the current law of a dollar-for-dollar reduction of Department of Defense Survivor Benefit Plan annuity offset, dollar for dollar, by the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation which comes from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The stand-alone bill, S. 260, filed by Senator Inhofe and myself, is cosponsored by--get this--49 Senators. The Senate has supported eliminating this offset for years. I hope that in the Senate, on this Defense authorization bill, we are going to remain steadfast in support of military widows and family members. Why? Because the Survivor Benefit Plan is an optional program for military retirees offered by the Defense Department. It is like an insurance plan. Military retirees pay premiums out of their retirement pay to ensure that their survivors will have adequate support when that retired military person passes away. For many retirees, reasonably priced insurance from the public marketplace is not available due to their service-related disabilities and their health issues; thus, the reason for this insurance plan, the Survivors Benefit Plan. SBP is a way for retirees to provide some income insurance for their survivors. It pays survivors 55 percent of the servicemember's retired pay. That is for the survivors of the retired military person when that person dies. It is an insurance policy. The Dependency and Indemnity Compensation--DIC--is a completely different survivor benefit and it is administered by the Veterans' Administration. When a servicemember dies, either due to a service- related disability or illness or active-duty death, surviving spouses are entitled to monthly compensation of $1,154 from the Veterans' Administration. But here is the rub: Of the 270,000 survivors receiving the SBP--the insurance policy that the military retiree has paid for--about 54,000 are subject to the offset, meaning some of their SBP is taken away. According to the Defense Actuary, 31,000 survivors' SBP is completely offset by the VA's Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, meaning they only have $1,154 a month to live on. These survivors are entitled to both under two different laws, but then there is a law that says you have to offset one from the other. Military retirees in good faith bought into the insurance plan--the SBP. They were planning for the future for their families. The government now says we are going to take some of that money away. What it means is we are not taking care of those who were left behind in the same manner as these servicemembers thought they were going to get when they took care of our country. I know of no purchased annuity plan that would deny payout based on receipt of a different benefit. I say that having had some experience in insurance in my former life years and years ago as the elected insurance commissioner of the State of Florida. It was said best by President Lincoln when he said in his second inaugural address that one of the greatest obligations in war is to ``finish the work we are in; to bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.'' That is the whole intention of these two laws, but we are not doing it. We are not honoring our servicemembers. The government must take care of our veterans, their widows and their orphans. Almost every year in the Senate we have passed this, eliminating the offset. What happens is it goes down to the conference and they eliminate it because it is going to cost money. We have had a couple of times where important little steps were taken in the right direction with some lessening of the offset, but we must meet our obligations to military families with the same sense of honor their loved one rendered during their service to this country, so we must eliminate this offset. Finally, there is an amendment to sanction the Central Bank of Iran. In just the previous 2 months, Iran has attempted a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, while continuing to develop its nuclear capability back home, and it has done so in complete disregard for the Non- Proliferation Treaty. The United States has led the international community in enacting crippling sanctions against the Iranian regime. We need to tighten down the screws more. We have done so in 1996 with the Iran Sanctions Act and again in 2009 with the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act. So we must continue these efforts. By sanctioning the Central Bank of Iran, we will make it clear to Iran's religious leaders--and that is what we have to say--that there are real consequences to their support for terrorism and their attempts to develop nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran would be disastrous for the region. It would be disastrous for Europe. It clearly would be a threat against Israel, one of our strongest allies, and it clearly is a threat to the national security interests of the United States. The cost of inaction is too great. That is why we ought to go after the Central Bank of Iran by sanctioning them. I think I have offered a number of amendments along with and on behalf of our colleagues that should be able to be accepted, and I would implore the leadership of the committee to please consider these. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I would ask consent that the Defense fellow in my office, MAJ John Flynn, be granted floor privileges for the duration of S. 1867, the Defense authorization bill.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the majority leader. I will not take the 3 minutes but just to say my objection is the same as the Senator from New Jersey and my colleague from Florida, Senator Rubio. The fact is, the provision in the bill would allow direct payments between U.S. sellers and Cuban buyers of agricultural goods. Under the existing restrictions, U.S. exports to Cuba have fallen dramatically in the last few years, largely due to the regime's shortage of hard currency. In other words, the sanctions are working. Now is not the time to relax U.S. economic sanctions, particularly while we see on this planet Earth in 2011 a repressive regime such as the one in Cuba and the one that continues to hold Alan Gross.