Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I would ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. For kids in CTE concentrations, it is a 90-percent graduation rate. That is because they are getting that real-world experience. So I think a good place to start, again, is with this legislation we are introducing today. This is legislation that begins with reforms to the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. It needs to be reauthorized. The reauthorization ought to include these reforms that Senator Kaine and I have talked about. This is the major source of Federal support for the development of CTE skills. It was last reauthorized in 2006. So it has to be modernized to meet the demands of this workforce today to ensure that students have access to these programs. It does a few different things. Senator Kaine has talked about it. It requires a more rigorous CTE curriculum, requiring Perkins grant participants to incorporate key elements into the programs; that is, things such as academic and technical skill assessments to measure student achievement, making sure they are actually accomplishing what they are supposed to be based on industry standards, making sure the CTE curriculum is in alignment with whatever the local and regional needs are in the workforce, what the demands are. Employers are looking for kids who have specific skills. We have to be sure we are providing them. It also increases flexibility for States and localities, allowing them to use these Perkins grant funds to establish academies such as the one Governor Kaine started when he was in Virginia. It also improves the link between high school and postsecondary education to ease the attainment of industry-recognized credentials, licensing, apprenticeship, postsecondary certificates. We do a lot of that in Ohio, the dual credit programs I talked about earlier. It promotes partnerships between local businesses, regional industries, and other community stakeholders to create pathways for students through more internships, service opportunities, and so on. I believe this legislation is urgently needed, and we have to move forward with it. If we do, we are going to be able to provide more opportunity for our young people and more jobs in this country because we will be filling that skills gap and we will be able to have more young people who will able to have this experience, such as these two young men I met earlier this week, where they are able to go out on their own, get a good job, good benefits, help themselves and their family, and help create a stronger economy for all of us. I thank my colleague from Virginia for his hard work on this legislation, and I look forward to working with him toward its passage.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia and appreciate his comments. He has a passion for this issue. It fits very well with what so many of us are trying to do in the Congress, which is to put in place policies that actually create more opportunities for our young people. We are living through the weakest economic recovery we have had in this country since the Great Depression. I know we have seen some improvement recently in the job numbers, but in fact unemployment remains way too high. If we take into account folks who have dropped out of the workforce altogether as compared to 4 or 5 years ago, we have unemployment rates at over 10 percent. Among young people coming out of school it is far higher. It is double digits, about 12 or 13 percent for 18 to 25 year olds, we are told. Again, the real numbers are worse than that when we take out the folks who have dropped out of the workforce altogether. Our GDP growth, the growth of our economy, is too low. So there are a number of things we ought to do, in my view. One is, we have to deal with ensuring that we have a workforce that is trained for these 21st century jobs that are out there. We also need to reform our Tax Code. We need to put regulatory relief in place that is sensible. We need to do much more to take advantage of the energy resources we have in this country. We need to get back in the business of exporting and trade. There are some things relatively quickly we could do to get the country back on track, but none is more important than having that workforce. Because we can have a great environment--which unfortunately we do not have now for many businesses because we have not created the climate for economic growth with good policy in Washington. But if we had that--if we do not have the workers in this increasingly competitive global economy we are in, jobs will be created somewhere else. That is happening right now. It is happening partly because we do not have the skilled workers to be able to attract those jobs here, those businesses here, and to fill the jobs here in America. Four and one-half million jobs are open right now, they say. That might surprise some people listening because they are thinking: Wow. I cannot get a job or my son or daughter cannot get a job or my neighbor cannot get a job. As I said, unemployment is high. Yet there are 4\1/2\ million jobs open. When we look at those jobs and what is available out there--and Senator Kaine talked some about this, a lot of them require skills that young people and workers who are shifting careers, maybe they have lost a job, are in their forties or fifties, skills they do not have. So it is IT, it is high-tech jobs, it is health care jobs, it is bioscience jobs. Yes, it is manufacturing jobs. My own State of Ohio is a big manufacturing State. We are particularly sensitive to this. There are lots of manufacturers in Ohio who are saying: If we had the workers, we could add new jobs, new opportunities, grow this economy. The spinoff from that, all of the other jobs that are created through a successful manufacturing company that makes something is the backbone of our higher economy, international economy. This is exciting for me to work with Senator Kaine and others who say: Let's take a piece of this, which is career and technical education, to encourage young people to get these skills, to be able to access these great jobs. Some of them, by the way, will do it right out of high school. I was in Ohio on Monday. We had a roundtable on this. We had a bunch of employers there. We had some educators there. We had some students there. One was a senior in high school who is currently in career and technical school. For those who do not follow this closely, you probably are more familiar with the word ``vocational'' school, because that is typically what it has been called over the years. That is the same thing as the career and technical schools. Again, Senator Kaine and I have cofounded this Career and Technical Education Caucus in the Senate over the last couple of months. We have a number of our colleagues now joining and so on. We are trying to raise this, let people know about this great opportunity out there. This young man is a senior. He is going back to his high school and saying: You Guys are crazy not to do this CTE stuff because I am getting great skills, where I can get a great job, and I am getting college credit because they have one of those dual credit programs in this particular CTE program. Then there were two students there who graduated earlier this year. They both have been in the CTE program. They both have been taking advantage of it to get the skills but also working part time as apprentices or interns--19 years old, two young men. Both of them are now out in the workforce, working for these manufacturers. One of their bosses was there, one of the executives from one of the small manufacturing companies. These young men at 19 years old are making $50,000 a year. They have benefits on top of that. They have the opportunity now to run very sophisticated machines. Both of them started off learning as apprentices. Now they are both running machines. These machines are worth over $1 million apiece. These are in CNC machines. In one case it is a plastic injecting molding machine. It is very exciting. By the way, they now have been encouraged to go back to their high school and say: Hey, 4-year college or university, that is great if you want to do that, but here is another opportunity. By the way, they may go back to school. They both have some credit where they could go back and maybe get an associate's degree or a 4- year degree or maybe a graduate engineering degree someday, but in the meantime they are providing the opportunities for these companies in Ohio to have skilled workers so they can compete globally. For them and their families, they are providing a tremendous opportunity, rather than graduating with a bunch of debt. The average debt is $20,000, $30,000 a year now. Instead of having debt, they are making money. For the next 4 years, even if they are not promoted 0--0 which I think they will be, having met these two young men--that is $200,000 they are going to be making and spending and investing in our economy. I am very excited about this opportunity to hold this up to say there is a way for us to help get this economy moving by helping to fill this skills gap. In Ohio alone, if you go on ohiomeansjobs.com right now, go on their Web site, you will see about 140,000 jobs open. Yet we have about 400,000 people out of work. If you look at these jobs, again, you will see a lot of them require skills that simply are not out there in the workforce now. Help provide these skills and we are going to see some of these jobs get filled. That helps our economy, keeps businesses here, and expands businesses here. We did, as Senator Kaine said, just pass the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, so-called WIOA. I was very pleased about that. The House just passed it this week. The Senate passed it 2 weeks ago. In that there is something called the CAREER Act that Senator Bennet and I have been promoting the last few years. We were able to include a number of our provisions in there to add more accountability, to add more performance measures to improve that legislation. I am happy that was done. That helps on retraining. That is critically important. We spend about $15 billion a year on that at the Federal Government level. What we are talking about is starting with the career and technical education even before we get into the WIOA programs and the retraining money that is necessary when somebody loses a job and needs to move to another job. We are talking about young people coming up and having this opportunity. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio is gaining jobs in manufacturing. That is great news. But we also hear, in the latest skills gap report by the Manufacturing Institute, 74 percent of manufacturers are experiencing workforce shortages or skill deficiencies that keep them from expanding their plant and operations and improving productivity--74 percent. We could be doing much more to close that skills gap. The legislation that Senator Kaine and I talked about that we are introducing today is a very important step toward that. It is going to help open opportunities for the next generation of workers by ensuring that they have these skills to participate in the 21st century economy. We were talking a moment ago, some of us, about high school graduation rates. Unfortunately, we have unacceptably high numbers of people who do not graduate from high schools in this country. So there was a lot of discussion about postsecondary and so on. But we have a real problem: Our high school graduation rate is way too low. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 81 percent of high school dropouts say real-world learning opportunities would have kept them in school. That is interesting. The average high school graduation rate is now about 80 percent--way too low. In fact, it is closer to 50 percent in some of our great cities and in some of our poorer rural areas. But even 80 percent is the average--way too low for high school graduation. But what they say is they would have been more likely to stay in school if they had real-world learning opportunities. That is why the graduation rates for kids involved in CTE--

Mr. PORTMAN. I would ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Georgia and appreciate his work on this legislation. I know that he and the Senator from Tennessee have been talking about the legislation earlier today. I understand that Senator Alexander talked about some of the work we have done together to try to make sure this legislation does not just reauthorize an existing program but improves that program to give more focus on how to take our Federal worker retraining program to make it work for America's workers at a critical time. We just learned that the economy, in the first quarter, grew even less than we had thought. I think it now has been readjusted to almost minus 3 percent--minus 2.9 percent growth. We have big problems in terms of our economy getting moving. One of the problems we have is we do not have the trained workers for the 21st century jobs that are out there. I rise today as the Senate is on the verge of passing this first comprehensive reform of our Nation's primary workforce development programs in about 16 years, to say that I appreciate, again, the fact that Members on both sides of the aisle have worked with me and others to put some reforms into this program to ensure it works better for our workers and for our competitiveness and for our ability to actually get this economy moving again. We do have this weak economy. And sometimes we are sort of numb to it. We forget that this is not just a typical recovery; it is a very slow recovery. In fact, by measures of growth in economy or unemployment or other measures, it is the weakest economic recovery we have had since the Great Depression. We have become numb to some of the disappointing news. Almost 20 million Americans are out of work, 317,000 of our friends and neighbors in Ohio are now unemployed, and millions more have given up looking for work. In fact, the number of people who have given up looking for work is growing, so it is a high percentage. As to those who have given up looking for work, you would have to go back 34 years ago, to the 1970s, to find similar numbers of people as a percentage of the workforce. For men, they say it may go back to the 1940s when we started keeping track of this. So we have problems. We have problems that can be solved in part by closing what is called the skills gap. In other words, there are a whole bunch of jobs that are open, but they cannot be filled because people do not have the skills to take those jobs. By the way, you do not have to take my word for it. Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is someone I do not often have an opportunity to quote on the floor of the Senate, but he was at the White House recently. In addition to his work in the music industry, he is also known for his work with kids back in his hometown of Boyle Heights, CA. A lot of that is focused on job training, skills training. During an event at the White House a couple of weeks ago, I saw that he said the following: There are so many jobs in America we can't fill because people aren't brought up to speed with the skill sets that are needed. Will.i.am is right. The numbers back him up, by the way. Today, 4.5 million jobs remain open and unfilled in America. Yet we have these high levels of unemployment and all of these people who have left the workforce altogether. What is going on? Part of it is that we do not have the skills to be able to fill those jobs. In Ohio today, if you go to the OhioMeansJobs Web site, you will see 140,000 jobs advertised. Yet we have about 317,000 people out of work. If you look at these jobs, a lot of them require advanced manufacturing skills, information technology skills, and medical and bioscience skills for health care workers. We have to do better in terms of filling that gap so that American workers are able to meet the demands of the 21st century. There is a skills gap report by the Manufacturing Institute that came out recently. Based on a poll they did, it said that 74 percent of manufacturers are experiencing workforce shortages or skill deficiencies that keep them from expanding their operations and improving productivity. Seventy-four percent say they are looking for better skills to be able to fill those jobs. We could be doing so much better than we are to close that skills gap. For too many Americans, the only jobs available are those that they do not have the skills and qualifications to be able to fill. The Federal Government spends a lot of money on this. This is not for lack of funds. The Federal Government spends between $15 and $18 billion a year on these Federal worker retraining programs. As some of you know, there are 47 different programs spread over 9 different departments and agencies. We need to do more to try to consolidate and improve these programs, but in the meanwhile let's do what we can. That is what this legislation does. The Government Accountability Office or GAO--which looks at all Federal agencies and decides how they are doing, spent a lot of time looking at this. They have said that some of that money--the $18 billion I talked about of our taxpayer money that does provide the funding for these 47 different programs over 9 departments and agencies--they are not working very well. They say 45 of the 47 programs overlapped with at least 1 other program. Only five have conducted an impact study of their efforts since 2004, meaning that the assessments of outcomes or performance you would expect are not being done. Only five have conducted an impact study of their efforts since 2004. GAO concluded that ``little is known about the effectiveness of most of these programs.'' But actually we do know something about the effectiveness because these millions of unfilled jobs are an indictment of the program. In other words, we should be doing a better job of getting the skills we need to fill these jobs if we are spending $15 to $18 billion of hard-earned taxpayer money on it. I hear this story all across Ohio, and I know my colleagues hear it across their States. I hear from workers, from businesses, from educators. People are frustrated, and there is good reason for it. I think the way Washington has handled workforce development is simply inefficient. It is not working well. I think it is unfair to employers who have open positions because they cannot find qualified candidates to fill them. It is certainly unfair to taxpayers who send their money to Washington believing that their government will be good stewards of those funds and that we are going to use them effectively for worker retraining, getting the money into the hands of people to train them for jobs that are actually out there. I think it is unfair to, of course, millions of Americans who would like to build a better life for their families and find that the Federal resources allocated to them are not getting the job done. Because we believe we can do better, this Congress is going to act today. The Senate and the House are working together on this issue, which is good. It is bicameral. It is bipartisan. I have joined with Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado on what is called the CAREER Act. The CAREER Act is included, in most part, in this legislation. The CAREER Act first calls for a reduction in the wasteful and inefficient overlap in the system. I am pleased to see that the legislation before us today trims 15 programs from our Nation's workforce development program. I think that is a good start. I also think we can do even more. Understanding that there were a lot of constraints, different points of view, we need to consolidate further, in my view. Second, we called for an increased focus on helping unemployed workers attain high-quality credentials that give them a leg up in the local job market. I am pleased this bill includes our provisions that require those local boards, the workforce investment boards, to give priority consideration to programs that lead to credentials that are in demand in their local area. We worked hard to include a provision requiring the State and local boards to provide specific strategies for helping folks attain high- quality credentials. These are industry-recognized credentials that are in demand, that are portable--they can move from State to State--and that help them move up the career leader. That is important because we know that these credentials, based on all the research, are critical to getting people into these jobs. Third, we call for a new and innovative accountability program in the system called Pay for Success. Currently, the workforce development programs provide funding regardless of performance so long as certain rules are followed and input requirements are met--not output but input. This has resulted in this unaccountability the GAO talked about and many complacent programs that have fallen short. Pay for Success turns this model on its head by linking payments to outcome, to actual performance measures. Job-training service providers who do well will be rewarded under this model. Those who fail to deliver results are going to be held accountable. I am pleased that again this underlying legislation--the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act--before us today includes these Pay for Success provisions that allow local workforce boards to use their formula to engage in Pay for Success contracts. That is a step in the right direction. I would like to go even further, but I think it is historic and it is very important. Finally, we call for access to better data to make it less difficult and expensive for State and local officials to assess the effectiveness of their training activities in real time. I am pleased this legislation includes the provisions for a study on how to access better data that can help the system deliver better results for taxpayers and the unemployed. That is part of the CAREER Act. These four reforms can help change lives and turn around our economy. They are the kinds of reforms that can empower millions of Americans to get the kinds of jobs that do fund retirement, that do buy homes, that do pay for college educations. These reforms are long overdue. We live in a dynamic and ever-changing economy, no question about it. We have to be sure our workforce is also dynamic and ever-changing to be able to meet the demands. We should not be held back by a workforce development system that has not been reauthorized since 1998. For reference, that is the year Google was first incorporated as a company. So I strongly support the underlying legislation. Again, I commend my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--I see some of them here today on the floor--for their work. I thank them for working with Senator Michael Bennet and me to incorporate some of the bipartisan CAREER Act provisions. At a time when the two parties in Washington have been at odds on how to finally get our economy moving again, this is a jobs bill that is win-win. It is a win for everyone, especially those Americans who are still looking for jobs and those businesses that are desperate to fill the skills gap they see.

Mr. PORTMAN

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

Mr. PORTMAN. I rise today to put the Senate on record on something very important, and that is speaking to the decision by the Obama administration to release five top Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay without consulting Congress, as required by law--a decision that I believe endangers the lives of American personnel, not to mention the countless Afghans and the success of our mission in Afghanistan. It has been well reported in the press that this release was done without consulting Congress or congressional leaders on either side of the aisle--Republican or Democrat, by the way. This was in clear violation of a requirement to provide detailed notice to Congress before such action is taken--a requirement that is contained in both an authorization bill called the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act and a spending bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, both of which passed Congress with big bipartisan majorities. Both were bipartisan bills, and there was a bipartisan consensus about having this notification. Despite several closed-door briefings and public comments from the administration since we learned of the release, the administration has been unable to provide any legitimate justification for violating the requirement and for failing to consult with Congress. I believe the President's conduct raises a lot of questions-- questions which should concern every Member of this body on both sides of the aisle. This is not a partisan issue, nor is it about what kind of soldier SGT Bowe Bergdahl may have been. I trust the Army will handle that matter appropriately. This is about our role in the Congress, and it is about our national security. It is about protecting our men and women in Afghanistan. It is about ensuring that what they have fought for in the last decade and the gains they have made in our war against terrorism and for the people in Afghanistan will not be squandered, as we are seeing today in the country of Iraq. Congress enacted the bipartisan notice requirement to secure those interests and to prevent the release of dangerous terrorists who are likely to rejoin the fight if they are freed. It requires the President to give a detailed justification for the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, why such a release is in the country's national security interests, and what actions the administration will take to ensure that those released detainees do not return to the battlefield to threaten American lives--basically asking the administration to notify us, but to also provide a justification for the release and the conditions of that release. Had the President followed the law, I believe many of the dangers posed by this decision could have been avoided altogether. I think he would have heard on a bipartisan basis the concerns of the Congress, which were only voiced after the decisions were made, again, on both sides of the aisle. Make no mistake, these five men who were released are dangerous. Don't take my word for it. This is what the administration has said repeatedly. I was in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2012. I was a member of the committee at that time. Senator Levin, my colleague and chairman of the committee, who is here on the floor with us today, was at that committee hearing. In fact, he asked some very good questions, including questions to the President's own Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. What did Mr. Clapper say? He reiterated a 2010 administration assessment that these five Taliban leaders--these same five who were just released--posed a high risk of returning to the fight. On this very point, Director Clapper did not equivocate, saying: I do not think anyone harbors any illusions about these five Taliban members and what they might do if they were transferred. This was sworn testimony before our committee. Even if, as the President admits, there is ``absolutely a risk that these men will return to the battlefield,'' these men were senior members of the Taliban. They include the Taliban's deputy defense minister, deputy minister of intelligence, administrator of the interior, and some were closely associated with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda. Two are wanted by the United Nations for war crimes. Yet despite these red flags--which, according to reports from the press, were reiterated during internal White House debates of the transfer--President Obama released these men anyway without following the notice provided in the law. We need to know why. We need to know what security risks these five individuals pose. We need to know what measures have been put in place to mitigate those risks. I don't know why any Member of this body would oppose going on record saying that the law was violated and seeking answers to these good questions. In a moment I am going to ask for unanimous consent on a resolution which I have offered and many of my colleagues have cosponsored calling on Congress, through regular order and committee jurisdiction, to investigate the decision to authorize this release. This resolution has a very narrow purpose: It only seeks to ensure that, when Congress speaks, the President listens. I would remind us that this provision on Guantanamo transfer passed in an overwhelming bipartisan manner. This is not an issue of politics. No matter what party the President is from, our entire constitutional balance depends on adherence to the rule of law. This is about more than the President ignoring Congress. The American people are the ones who deserve these answers. We are their representatives. That is why that provision was put in place, so that we, representing them, could give the President better advice. The American people deserve these answers. So do, by the way, our men and women in uniform who continue to put their lives on the line for us every single day. Already this month, since the release of these detainees, eight American servicemen have lost their lives in Afghanistan. We still have over 30,000 troops in the theater--30,000 Americans putting their lives on the line for us every day. I think a lot of them are wondering: What was the justification? Why? What effect will it have on them and their safety? One could hardly doubt that the administration's decision to release these Taliban leaders will put even more Americans at risk. We should be under no illusions: If we take no action, I do not believe this will be the last unlawful transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay back to the battlefield. In other words, if we don't speak and go on record to say: Wait a minute; we had a law here; this is wrong; we need a detailed justification--I believe the wrong message will be sent to the administration. The sense is Congress didn't seem to care that we violated the authorization bill, the appropriations bill, and went ahead without providing the appropriate notice. President Obama has made it clear that closing Guantanamo is one of his top priorities in the waning days of his administration. I understand that. But he has provided no such clarity on what he intends to do with the dangerous men who are housed there--men such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. He is there. Will he be released? Into whose custody? The terrorist known as Hambali, the mastermind of the Bali bombing that killed 200 people, including 7 Americans; Ramsey bin Al-Shabab, a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative who helped coordinate the 9/11 attacks. We also need to remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place. Before 9/11, under Taliban rule the country had become a haven for Al Qaeda, a power base for Osama bin Laden, and a place from which to plan and launch attacks against the United States and our allies. We went to Afghanistan to seek justice for those who died on September 11, but we also went to remove the Taliban from power, to free the Afghan people, and to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes this base, this platform for terrorist activity which threatens us. We must not be blind to the fact that the Taliban aims to regain as much power as they can in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. That means a return to oppression, human rights abuses, the suppression of women's rights and, most importantly to us and our national security, the complicit harboring of their ally Al Qaeda. We have just returned to them the leadership team to help them achieve that goal. President Obama tells us the war in Afghanistan is coming to an end. We need to ensure that end is one of sustainable victory, not defeat. The deteriorating situation we see unfolding before us on our TV sets in Iraq today demonstrates what can happen when we rush to the exits without preparing for an appropriate exit. Today, the black flag of radical Islam flies over the second largest city in Iraq, and armed militants are advancing on Baghdad. Proclaiming victory in Iraq did not make it so. Many made it clear that if we failed to maintain appropriate forces in Iraq to help the government transition and establish its authority, the long-term stability of Iraq would be open to threats and radical groups. We chose not to complete a status-of-forces agreement with the Maliki government. President Obama did not heed the warnings from those who saw these threats, and unfortunately we are seeing some of these predictions come true. Whatever we do in Afghanistan, I hope we learn from the lessons of Iraq. The decisions to release high-ranking members of the Taliban while the fight against the Taliban continues to this day has shaken the trust of the American people, the trust of the Afghan people, and it opens the frightening possibility that what we are seeing today in Iraq may be a foreshadowing of Afghanistan's future. In my view, Congress has the responsibility to get to the bottom of how this release happened and to ensure it doesn't happen again. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support the resolution I have submitted so we can fulfill that responsibility. I ask unanimous consent that the Armed Services Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 469; that the Senate proceed to its consideration; that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. PORTMAN. It is unfortunate that we cannot at this point come to a bipartisan agreement on something even, it seems to me, as straightforward as this. To my friend from Michigan I would say a couple of things. One, this resolution does not prejudge the investigation. The resolution--and I have it in front of me now--does not talk about the President's article II powers. It very clearly says that transfer of these detainees violated the National Defense Authorization Act--legislation that you brought to the floor--and the appropriations bill. That is what it says. So that is clear by the very language in those bills, that it does violate those bills. It doesn't talk about the constitutional authorities the President may have. It does say that it violates the terms of this legislation. It does not prejudge the investigation, which is in the why, the investigation as to why it happened, with, again, the intent of trying to keep this from happening again. I do think the President could have used some reasoned judgment from some people who have been around a while, maybe even Senator Levin, who has some strong views on these national security matters and was involved earlier in the hearings that I was in where, under oath, the administration official talked about how dangerous these very men were. Second, Senator Levin correctly says the President cannot change the law, and that is all we are saying. He cannot change the law with a signing statement. If he didn't believe this law was appropriate, he should have vetoed it, and he has done that in the past--as have other Presidents--vetoed legislation with which he didn't agree. So I do believe that under article II, Chairman Levin is correct that the President does have certain authorities. That is why we were very careful when we drafted this legislation, this resolution, to say that this says the Congress shall go on record establishing that under the clear terms of these two laws that were passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President, the President did not follow the terms of those laws. That is clear. The investigation, then, is into why, and the Armed Services Committee would have the ability to do that. By the way, today I know many are celebrating the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala. Ahmed Abu Khattala was one of the terrorists who attacked the American compound in Benghazi, and I am glad to hear we have captured him and he may be deported back to the United States of America. It is interesting because we got notice. I don't know if the chairman was notified, but I know the intelligence committee was notified. And that wasn't required by law, by the way. It is just common practice that happens when you have a relationship between the administration and Congress that is confidential. We were notified, of course, with regard to the bin Laden capture. I cannot imagine the bin Laden capture was any less sensitive or any different in kind to make it something that we could do a notification on when we couldn't do it on the release of these five detainees from Guantanamo. So this is something I think is very reasonable. We are asking for justification not after the decision is made--that is not what the legislation says. It says before the decision is made so that Congress can have the opportunity to discuss this with the President and to make sure that, in fact, we are proceeding appropriately with these very dangerous detainees at Guantanamo. I would again make the point that some of these detainees who are at Guantanamo right now are people who--just as in the case of these five Taliban--have been considered to be extremely dangerous, and I would ask the question, If Congress isn't on record saying that we expect the law to be followed here and that the President ought to notify Congress before we release these people, what is going to happen with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? What is going to happen with Hambali? What is going to happen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, an architect of the 9/11 attacks? These are all people who are at Guantanamo. The President says he wants to shut it down. I think the legislation Senator Levin and others crafted--which, by the way, was legislation that changed over time. It evolved. The notification was a relatively slight requirement on the President compared to the previous legislation when I was on the Armed Services Committee with Chairman Levin. So this was something we thought about. We decided notification was appropriate, notifying Congress and providing a detailed justification. It is not too much to ask. Again, we required the President to tell the Congress before releasing Guantanamo detainees. We spoke with one voice in the Congress. The President ignored that legal requirement. He ignored the voice of Congress. He ignored the law. If we are not going to hold him accountable, I don't know who will. Again, what does it say about the separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution, which simply says Congress has a role as one of the branches of government. No declaration, no investigation, no recourse? I don't think that is going to be helpful in terms of ensuring that balance of power continues and that we don't have this situation recur, as the President is talking about shutting down Guantanamo Bay and releasing other detainees. I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will reconsider their course of action today and take a careful look at this resolution, which was carefully drafted--including not to impinge on the President's constitutional powers under article II. I think the stakes are simply too high to do otherwise. I yield back my time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I hear the remarks from my colleagues from Alaska and appreciate her leadership on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where I have the privilege to serve, and she makes a lot of great points with regard to some of the student loan issues that affect our State of Ohio as well as Alaska. But today I am here to talk about something else, and that is the 90th birthday of a mentor of mine, a former boss of mine, and the 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush. In addition to honoring him by wearing some colorful socks today, I also want to make a statement in the Congressional Record, so this statement can go down in the ages and some of the young folks who are in the Chamber today and their kids and grandkids will have this as part of the Congressional Record, talking about truly one of our great American patriots and public servants in the history of our country. Like so many in his generation, President George H.W. Bush, when he heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor, answered the call to serve his country. He was 18 years old. So his service started long before he was sworn in as President of the United States. At 18 years old he became the youngest naval aviator in the U.S. Navy. He served greatly in the Pacific, famously completing one bombing after his aircraft was fired upon. In fact, his aircraft was on fire. Yet he completed that mission. For that and many other examples of heroism he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the highest honors any aviator could receive. But he went home, went out to Texas, had a successful business career, raised a growing family, and started to engage in politics. He became a successful politician and was an accomplished Congressman from Texas and then became a very respected international figure as Ambassador to the United Nations, and as envoy to China. He also headed up the Central Intelligence Agency at a very difficult time and helped to improve the morale and effectiveness of that agency. He then, of course, became Vice President of the United States. Then on January 20, 1989, he was sworn in as the 41st President. President Reagan, 27 years ago today, in fact, made the famous statement that Mikhail Gorbachev should tear down the Berlin Wall. It was Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush who actually saw it done and brought an end to the Cold War. He removed a brutal dictator in Panama and gathered the whole world with the United States in the lead to remove Saddam Hussein and turn back the invasion of Kuwait. At home in a time of divided government, when at the time one party was in control of the Congress and one party in control of the Executive Branch--as we have now to a certain extent--a divided government--he showed how we could work together, how to reach across the aisle and get things done and he did so. But of all the things he has accomplished, there is probably nothing he is prouder of than his call to volunteerism. He championed and established the Points of Light Foundation, which has been enormously successful in getting Americans in all walks of life more engaged in helping their fellow citizens. He inspired the Nation when he spoke of a thousand points of light to promote volunteerism and community action by all of us. It turns out that a thousand points of light was not as ambitious as he could have been because he underestimated what he would accomplish. It hasn't been a thousand; it has been a million. The latest year I was able to find information was in 2012. In that year alone, the Points of Light Foundation engaged millions of volunteers. It has supported thousands of nonprofits and volunteer organizations across 250 cities in America, providing volunteer services that have been estimated to be valued at over $635 million. That sort of generosity reflects the heart of the man I have come to know since I first had the honor of meeting him over 30 years ago. That generosity is what I experienced when President Bush took a chance on me--a young, inexperienced lawyer from Cincinnati, OH--when he made me Associate Counsel to the President. The experience I gained in that job was invaluable, and I continue to draw on it today. But even more valuable was what I learned from President Bush. I learned about being a father, being a husband, being a public servant, and serving--serving the folks we are honored to represent in the U.S. Senate. Today we honor a true American hero, selfless public servant, and a person I consider to be the most honorable and decent person in politics in my lifetime. I wish him the best for a truly happy birthday and blessings on him and his entire family as they celebrate an amazing year. He is apparently jumping out of an airplane again today on his 90th birthday, and he has received numerous awards this year. It has been a terrific 90th year. I hope he understands the American response to him, which is one of great appreciation, gratitude, and respect. I hope he has a very happy birthday, and I hope God continues to bless him and his family for years to come. I thank the Presiding Officer and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, that was the prayer that Franklin Roosevelt gave on that fateful day. Of course, many of the men who fought that day have gone on to their eternal reward, and some of them will mark tomorrow with quiet remembrances with families and friends. Senator Landrieu has noted that there will be people from Louisiana going over to the D-day celebrations--it sounds like some by boat--also from Ohio and from all over the country. Our President will be there. Some will go there to retrace their steps and to see where they were on those beaches. Others will go just to see the cemeteries and remember their fallen comrades. There is a 93-year-old gentleman from Ohio named Jim Martin. He will be there too. He will be jumping from an airplane at 93 years old and parachuting onto the same soil he took back from the Nazis 70 years ago. On behalf of all of us, I wish Jim Godspeed. There is very little we can add to the legacy they have created for themselves, but we can honor it and we can remember it, and that is what this bipartisan legislation is all about. Again, I crafted it originally with then-Senator Joe Lieberman and now have joined with Senator Landrieu to introduce it in this Congress. It directs the Secretary of the Interior to install in the area of the World War II Memorial a plaque with the inscription of the prayer we have just read. Last Congress, the House of Representatives passed this legislation with an overwhelming vote of 386 to 26, and after a hearing on May 29, they are moving forward with doing so again. Today, on the eve of this historic anniversary, it is time for the Senate to lead the way toward enshrining this singular moment in the history of our great country. Senator Landrieu and I intend to call up Calendar No. 339 later this afternoon, and we hope in doing so we will achieve unanimous consent to be able to have the Senate proceed to consideration of this legislation, and then ask unanimous consent for it to be passed by this body. This is legislation we have worked on carefully. It has gone through the process of working with the Department of the Interior. We have ensured that it is consistent not just with the Department of Interior but also specifically with the Commemorative Works Act. It is something that, again, has been bipartisan and something that helps to bring this Congress and this country together during a critical time. I thank my colleague from Louisiana for working with me. I think it is an incredibly important opportunity for us, on the eve of the 70th anniversary, to pass this legislation here in the Senate, thereby doing something positive for the future by telling them the importance of the past. This prayer is certainly part of that. I yield for my colleague from Louisiana.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I commend my colleague from Alaska, who is the ranking member, and thank her for her hard work. She mentioned the energy efficiency bill. I know she strongly supports that bill, and I hope it will come back to the floor. It is a more logical way to get at some of these issues. I come to the floor to follow up on the conversation I had earlier with Senator Landrieu. She and I announced earlier this afternoon that we were going to offer unanimous consent in the Senate on bipartisan and noncontroversial legislation. I had hoped Senator Landrieu would come back to the floor, but apparently she can't, so I will offer this on behalf of both of us. Directing the Secretary of the Interior to Install a World War II Memorial Plaque

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, the clerk just read part of the description of this legislation, and I thank this body on both sides of the aisle for working with us. Tomorrow we mark a momentous occasion. It is the 70th anniversary of D-day. It is a day, of course, that will go down in history as one of the greatest naval invasions in the history of our country but also a day when we lost many brave American soldiers and one where the country came together to pray for them and give them the strength they would need not just on that D-day but to go through Europe to ultimately vanquish the Nazis and liberate that continent. On that day, 70 years ago tomorrow, Franklin D. Roosevelt decided not to give a speech at the White House but instead to give a prayer for the troops and for the Nation. This body has just passed legislation to make that prayer a part of the World War II Memorial. That prayer will help to give it some additional context and interpretation at a critical time. The prayer helps us look at our history and shows how our country came together at a critical time. It is a very powerful prayer. My dad was a World War II veteran, and I always found it to be one of the most moving prayers in our Nation's history. I will mention a couple of aspects of this prayer. President Roosevelt explained--I thought in very powerful words--why America fought. When talking about the troops, he said: They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest--until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. That is why we fight. Again, I think that prayer is an important part of our history but also an important message for us even today. The prayer also includes a number of other very powerful messages that brought the Nation together in a single day for prayer and thanksgiving. It asks for God's help in a number of ways, and one that I think is particularly poignant is where it asks God to give us the ability to deepen our faith. It says: And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee, faith in our sons; faith in each other . . . Again, I appreciate the work of Senator Landrieu and, before her, Senator Lieberman, who was the original cosponsor with me on this legislation. I thank my friends from Ohio, the Christian Alliance, and others who have brought this to my attention over the years. I thank my colleagues in the House, who passed this legislation last year with a resounding vote. I hope they will take up this legislation and pass it again in the House this year so we can indeed move to have this inscription placed in the World War II Memorial in order to remind us of a day in our Nation's history where our country did come together and where we, as Americans--not as conquerors but as liberators-- provided for the liberation of a continent and established this precedent for our country that with God so much is possible. I yield back my time and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, as if in legislative session, that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 339, S. 1044.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, a momentous occasion is occurring tomorrow; that is, the 70th anniversary of D-day. Seventy years ago tomorrow, as the American people slept in their beds, the greatest naval invasion in history was underway. On D-day, June 6, 1944, tens of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, and airmen joined allies from around the free world to begin what General Eisenhower called a great crusade--one that sought to free a continent. They came by amphibious landing craft, and I think my colleague from Louisiana is going to talk more about that in a moment. They also came by gliders laden with men and materiel and by parachutes deployed deep behind enemy lines. At beaches called Omaha and Utah and at the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, they struck a mortal blow to the Nazi regime. Thousands would give their lives that day for that noble cause. Like many in this Chamber, I have seen the American cemetery over there with rows of white crosses and Stars of David. They are a stark reminder of the price those brave heroes paid for all of us. These men did not go into battle alone. General Eisenhower said to the Allied Expeditionary Force on the eve of the battle, ``The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you.'' Eisenhower was not exaggerating. As word of the invasion spread through the predawn hours of Tuesday morning, people gathered all over this country in churches, synagogues, meeting houses, public places large and small, to seek God's blessing on men who were even then in harm's way. As the battle raged on that day, President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the Nation. He did not choose to address the American people with a speech; instead, he delivered words of prayer by radio address as the fate of Europe and, indeed, the entire free world hung in the balance. It is a very powerful prayer, transcending all faiths. It is a prayer that tells the story of why America fought and makes evident the sacrifices we were willing to make to see through to victory with God's help. It is a prayer that speaks to the horrors of war and the beauty of peace. It is a prayer that captures--perhaps better than anything else written since--the magnitude of what happened that day as we hit the beaches of Normandy. I hope that prayer will never be forgotten, and that is why Senator Landrieu and I believe that prayer should be added as part of the World War II monument pursuant to bipartisan legislation we have been working on for a few years. I previously cosponsored it with Senator Lieberman and now with Senator Landrieu. It has gone through the Energy Committee twice with unanimous votes. It is called the World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2013. This legislation also passed the House of Representatives by a significant vote, 286 to 26. I would like to recite that prayer now with my colleague from Louisiana. I would like her to begin this prayer. After nearly 70 years, it still has the power to bring us together as a people and remind us that while we may have differences at times, there are so many things that do unite us. Mr. President, I defer to my colleague from Louisiana.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, the prayer continues: And for us at home--fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength, too--strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces. And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be. And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment--let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace--a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, almighty God. Amen.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Louisiana and I look forward to being back on the floor shortly to propound the unanimous consent request to pass this legislation and to do so prior to this momentous 70th anniversary tomorrow. I yield back my time, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, my colleague from Wyoming, Dr. Barrasso, has been talking about a lot of the issues related to the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare. He has talked about the fact that the mandates in this legislation don't work for many Americans. The one-size-fits-all approach that was taken doesn't work in my State of Ohio and around the country. He also spoke about the cost. Unfortunately, it is not the Affordable Care Act; it tends to be, for a lot of people, the unaffordable care act. Costs have gone up already too high. We are now finding a lot of small businesses in my home State of Ohio are simply squeezed to the point where they are worried whether they will be able to provide health care at all, given the huge increases in cost. These are all very serious concerns and reasons that I think we need to repeal and replace with policies that work better to provide people more choices and provide people lower cost of care so they can get health care for themselves and their families. I want to talk about a very specific aspect of ObamaCare and its implementation that concerns me. I came to the floor a couple of days ago to talk about this because I had just learned, actually from some press reports, about some potential problems with implementation. Unfortunately, since that time it has been confirmed through other sources that many of my concerns are legitimate. The concern is very simple: That despite assurances by the administration to the contrary, they have yet to put in place a mechanism to assure that the people who are getting the subsidies under ObamaCare are eligible for them. This is a major problem because we are talking about billions and billions of dollars. It is a surprise, probably, to a lot of my constituents and other folks who might be listening today that the administration hasn't even put in place the basic processes, the mechanisms we would expect in an automated system, to ensure that when people apply for these subsidies--which are substantial; up to 400 percent of poverty, remember, and up to 10,000 bucks for a family of 4, for instance--that they may or may not be eligible and yet they may be getting these payments. Some people may be overstating their income and some people may be understating their income, and some folks may get a very unfortunate surprise of a big tax bill because of it. It is unbelievable that after a few years of implementation, still there is not in place some sort of a system to ensure that the right people are getting these huge amounts of taxpayer dollars. Improper payments of these subsidies may be going, we are told, to over a million people who aren't eligible to receive them. Yesterday the Associated Press reported that the number is actually closer to 2 million people who are receiving subsidies, despite apparent discrepancies between what they are submitting--the data they are giving about their income information--and what the IRS already has. By the way, the Health and Human Services folks and CMS confirmed this report yesterday when they said: ``The typical family of four generated 21 separate pieces of information that required verification, and all were attested to under penalty of perjury.'' Given that we expect this subsidy program to cost about $36 billion this year alone, these improper payments would likely result in billions of wasted taxpayer dollars. So at the very least, I am concerned that folks are going to find they have some very unpleasant and unexpected tax bills coming up, and the most we are seeing is a lot of taxpayer dollars that aren't going to the intended purpose. It is not as if we did not anticipate this problem. This is obviously something a lot of people thought about and talked about. In fact, we knew it would be difficult to verify all these dozens of pieces of information we just heard about from CMS. That is why last year Congress acted in a bipartisan fashion to require the Department of Health and Human Services to certify that it had these controls in place to verify the eligibility of subsidy recipients. We enshrined that requirement in law as part of what was called the Continuing Appropriations Act--better known as the Ryan-Murray budget agreement-- at the end of last year. Part of the Ryan-Murray budget agreement was to say that CMS at HHS had to have in place these controls to ensure people were getting the funds that were appropriate for them. On January 1, as required by law, Secretary Sebelius certified to Congress ``that the American Health Benefit Exchanges [the so-called marketplaces] verify that applicants for advance payments of the premium tax credit and cost-sharing reductions are eligible for such payments and reductions, consistent with the requirements of [the Affordable Care Act].'' So Secretary Sebelius made certain commitments there. She also further told Congress that the exchanges had ``implemented numerous systems and processes to carry out'' their verification responsibilities, including their income verification responsibilities. So this is an assurance given to us by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. We are now learning through reports in the press--which were spurred by confidential sources within HHS, by the way--that these verification methods are not in place or, if they are, they are very poorly functioning at best. In fact, HHS is planning to begin the verification process--here we are 5 months later--for some of this information by hand at some point in the future. When I learned of these reports--and they have been in the Washington Post and they have been in Politico--I hoped they were mistaken. So I wrote to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I also wrote to the IRS Commissioner--this was last month--asking if these allegations were true and, if they were, what HHS was planning on doing about them. If the Post or Politico got the story wrong, I would have expected a quick response saying: No, these reports are wrong. The internal reports they are referring to are inaccurate. But instead I did not get an answer. I gave them until June 1 to give me an answer, to give them some time to get back to me. It is now June 5 and I have received nothing--nothing to address my concerns. In fact, I have received no answer at all. I know some of my colleagues have raised similar concerns without receiving answers. Like so many issues that have arisen with the implementation of ObamaCare, the administration's response has been nothing but silence and stonewalling--no transparency. We do not have time for political games. The American people do not have time for it. We have true budget pressures. Folks are already paying a lot in terms of income taxes. They do not want to pay more. They certainly do not want the income taxes they are paying going to folks who are not eligible for this $36 billion worth of benefits going out this year. Since the administration refuses to voluntarily provide the information we need to do our job overseeing the expenditure of these funds, I think serious action is necessary. That is why today I am making a formal written request to HHS Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson to begin an investigation into these reports which call into question the accuracy of the Secretary's certification required, again, by the Continuing Appropriations Act, the Ryan-Murray legislation at the end of the year. I know the IG is scheduled to provide a report to Congress next month regarding how effective HHS has been in preventing subsidy payments on the basis of inaccurate or fraudulent information, but in light of the apparent inconsistencies between the Secretary's certification and the recent media reports, I think a more in-depth and targeted investigation is warranted. The IG's office has promised that ``ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent for their intended purposes'' under ObamaCare is its ``top priority.'' That is what that said. So these allegations certainly should strike at the very heart of that mission. If it is true that HHS has failed to implement a modern, effective system for verifying the eligibility of folks seeking subsidies, we need know about it. They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Well, I think that is the case here. The best way to ensure that these tax dollars are not wasted is to simply get the information. Let us know what is going on. I hope the Obama administration and, after her confirmation--I think she will be confirmed--Secretary Burwell will show their commitment to responsible government by joining me in calling for this investigation and responding quickly and accurately to whatever shortcomings it uncovers. But if the administration does not, then it will fall to those of us in this Chamber on both sides of the aisle to take action. I sincerely hope it will not come to that. I plan to support Director Burwell's nomination today because I think she is a manager, and I think that is what we need right now at the Department of Health and Human Services. I would say this ought to be one of her top priorities as the new manager at HHS--to ensure that the problems we have seen with the implementation of ObamaCare do not continue and specifically that we are not seeing huge amounts of taxpayer dollars being misspent, being wasted through inaccurate verification of these subsidies. With that, I yield the floor for my colleague from Nebraska.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the Presiding Officer allowing me to speak this afternoon. I am speaking in the context of a nomination we are likely to consider on the floor this week. I am told on Thursday we are going to be asked to confirm the President's nomination of Sylvia Burwell to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is a very important job for a number of reasons. One reason is it is the job in charge of implementing the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare. Therefore, I think it is an appropriate time to talk about the urgent need for us to address some of the continuing problems we have had with implementation. This whole subject of ObamaCare of course has divided this Chamber pretty sharply over the last few years. Part of the reason is it was forced through the Congress without a single bipartisan vote; in other words, all Democratic votes and not a single Republican vote. Also, it was pushed through quickly, so it resulted in a lot of problems. We have seen that in terms of the implementation of ObamaCare generally, including some of the computer problems and some of the concerns people have about having their health care canceled and so on. I wish to speak about a specific issue with regard to implementation, one on which I hope we could be together, that this issue would unite us as Republicans and Democrats--that we would take forceful action to deal with it. It is an issue I think all of us agree on because it has to do with the taxpayers. It has to do with money that might be going out under ObamaCare that is not appropriate. It is ensuring that the subsidy payments in ObamaCare are going to the people who actually qualify for them. As this Chamber knows, the subsidies started to flow on January 1. ObamaCare provides subsidies to health care premiums for low- and middle-income Americans who don't qualify for Medicaid. They are not under the poverty line but are above the poverty line; actually, above 133 percent of the poverty line. In fact, people who earn up to 400 percent of the poverty line are eligible for these subsidies. Recently, the Kaiser Foundation estimated the number of people who can legally qualify for these funds and receive them is about 6.6 million Americans. These subsidies can be fairly large. They can exceed $10,000 a year, for instance, for a family of four. So we are talking about billions of dollars of taxpayer money. The question is, Are they going to the right people? I think, because there is so much money involved, the American people should be able to rightly expect that the government has in place a system to ensure that the people who are supposed to get it are getting it and to ensure that those who are claiming the subsidies and receiving the taxpayer dollars are eligible for them. In January of this year, in response to a requirement actually attached to legislation that passed the Senate called the Ryan-Murray budget--in response to that legislation where there was a requirement that there be some sort of process put in place--the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, ensured Congress in a letter that HHS had ``implemented numerous systems and processes to carry out'' income verification procedures. So she sent a letter to the Congress saying: Don't worry about it. We have it covered. We have implemented numerous systems and processes to carry out income verification procedures. Unfortunately, what we are finding out now--and here we are, gosh, 6 months later--is that a lot of those assurances might not be accurate, that it appears as though they have not put in place these processes. The Washington Post wrote a recent article that got my attention. It got my attention because it reported that, in fact, no permanent system has been built that is capable of verifying those eligible to receive the subsidies. In fact, according to internal reports that were obtained by the Washington Post, since no computer capability for verifying eligibility yet exists, Health and Human Services will begin sorting through all these applications by hand at some indefinite date in the future. So this is concerning. These internal reports are not reports we have here in Congress. They are not reports my constituents have. The American people have not been able to see these reports. But the Washington Post got hold of some that showed, in fact, they have not put in this permanent system or an automated system of any kind that you would normally expect with this kind of money going out the door. So here we are in 2014 and the U.S. Government is going to comb through, I guess by hand, literally millions of documents of people who are claiming subsidies--by hand--and try to figure out how to deal with it. It is like something out of a bad movie, but it is not a laughing matter because the consequences are significant. The Washington Post reports that the government may already be paying incorrect subsidies to more than 1 million people, although that is just a best guess. These fraudulent payments--if that is accurate--of course, would then be costing the American taxpayers millions, maybe billions of dollars. When news broke about this problem last month through this story in the Washington Post, I wrote a letter to Secretary Sebelius at the Health and Human Services agency. I also wrote it to the IRS Commissioner because the obvious thing to do would be to check the information that is given with the IRS records to see whether the 1040 matches up with what you are saying your income is. In the letter, I said: Can you give us the answers about these very serious questions that have been raised, and can you tell us what the Department of Health and Human Services is doing about this? I asked for a response by June 1. It is now past June 1 and I have received nothing but silence in response. That is why I have come to the floor today to say, look, I do not think anybody on either side of the aisle in the Senate thinks this is acceptable. Some on the other side might say: Well, we are more concerned about people who are not getting the subsidies they are eligible for because the verification is not in place to help them. That is fine. The point is that the subsidies ought to go to the people who are eligible. Whether they are overstating or understating their income and therefore made eligible or not eligible, there ought to be a system in place. That is a minimum requirement, I would think, that we would all want to have in place to be able to, again, save these payments from going out in a fraudulent way, to the tune of what could be billions of dollars. I cannot imagine anyone thinks the current situation is acceptable. So we are going to see if HHS gets its act together and gets serious about enforcing these rules. I think it is going to require new leadership. That is why I am hoping that with the nomination and debate this week of Sylvia Burwell to be the next Secretary of HHS, we can have a discussion about this issue and that she can provide some of that new leadership from the top to ensure that indeed we do have accountability through the system and we can figure out whether this situation will be resolved. Unfortunately, I think it is also going to require leadership from the top-top, meaning from the White House as well. This is not an isolated incident, unfortunately, of incompetence, I would say, on behalf of our Federal Government in implementing in this case a very complicated law. We have seen this recently with the scandal that has involved the VA--the VA health system--another big complicated system that is obviously not working to take care of the needs of our veterans, who should be at the front of the line receiving the best care and too often we find out are at the back of the line or maybe are not on the list at all, as we saw with regard to the Phoenix VA center, where 1,700 people were just taken off the list altogether. We have seen it with regard to the IRS scandal, where you have the Internal Revenue Service actually going after Americans because of their political beliefs. Nothing could be more wrong in terms of building faith and trust in our Federal system than to think that the tax collector is going after folks because of their political beliefs. So all these recent issues that have come up of incompetence and of the government not keeping the trust are bad. It is bad even in good times. Today is not good times because already that faith in the Federal Government is at record lows. The faith in this institution is at a record low, they say. It should be our responsibility to begin to rebuild that faith by doing what makes sense. What is going on at HHS does not make sense. Everyone knows there needs to be a system in place and a permanent automated system to deal with this; the same with the VA, the same with the IRS. I hope we see that kind of leadership. I hope we can do that because it is the right thing to do for taxpayers, but it also rebuilds trust in the American Government system. To do that is going to require some serious and immediate action. In the case of HHS, I call on the administration today to make good on the promise they made in January where they said: No problem. We have it covered. We have a system in place to ensure that there are not mispayments going out, that only folks who are eligible are going to get these payments. In the process of Sylvia Burwell's nomination, let's raise this issue. Let's encourage her to show leadership at HHS to be able to deal with this issue. Let's ensure that subsidies are going to the right people and that taxpayers are being protected. I thank the Presiding Officer for the time. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 9 minutes.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I wish to recognize Rabbi Aaron Panken, on the occasion of his inauguration as president of the widely- respected Hebrew Union College, HUC,-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform movement's rabbinical school, on June 8, 2014. HUC was founded in Cincinnati in 1875 by Rabbi Isaac Wise. As president, Panken will serve as the chief executive officer of Hebrew Union College's four campuses--in Cincinnati, Jerusalem, Los Angeles and New York. The 12th president in HUC's 138-year history, Panken succeeds Rabbi David Ellenson, who served from 2001 to 2013, and has been named chancellor upon his retirement. Rabbi Panken, 49, of Mamaroneck, N.Y., brings an impressive record to HUC. He has taught rabbinic and Second Temple literature at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York since 1995. He has also served as vice president for strategic initiatives, dean of the New York campus and dean of students. Rabbi Panken grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side, went straight from college to a job as regional director of the North American Federation of Temple Youth, was ordained by Hebrew Union College, worked as an associate rabbi at Manhattan's Congregation Rodeph Shalom and earned a doctorate in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. I congratulate Aaron Panken as he begins this new chapter in his distinguished career.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, we yield back all time.

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask for the yeas and nays.