Harry Reid

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, we have to be back here in 2 hours anyway. I would ask my friend if he would be willing to come to the floor at about 10 minutes to 10 again to renew his request. I have a few calls I need to make to make sure the matter about which this side has raised a concern is valid. So if Senator Moran would be willing to come back in a couple of hours, we can take a look at it.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have now three hours until 10 o'clock. I hope that during that period of time, people will do whatever they need to do to make sure they get anything they want in, whatever they are trying to get. The reason I say that is that we are going to continue, as the leader has indicated, working on a way to get out of here tonight. If not, we will get out of here tomorrow. I hope that--if someone has something they want to talk to me about, I will be happy to carry that message to anyone, including the Republican leader, but I think right now we have 3 hours to sit around, stand around, and talk about this and find out if there is anything more that can be done. I hope that at 10 o'clock, we will be in a position to let everybody know if we are going to have a vote before 1 o'clock in the morning because these votes will take at least an hour, the three votes that are scheduled, so that means 11 o'clock. By waiting around, you are delaying things by a couple of hours at a fairly late time at night. I think by now everyone has a pretty good idea of how they are going to vote.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Madam President, after a quarter of a century, Senator Glenn left the Senate, and here is what he said: ``Yeah, I'll miss it, sure. But you move on to other things. That's it.'' That was John Glenn. He moved on to other things. Until a couple of years ago, he flew his own airplane. When he was a Member of the Senate, he flew back to Columbus, OH. I think that is where he went. Every time he wanted to go, he didn't take commercial; he flew his own airplane. So I express my condolences to Annie. I admire the inspiration she has been to everybody who has ever known her. Of course, John Glenn, I repeat, is an icon of the Senate, an icon of the military, an icon of the space program, an icon in life, and a wonderful human being. I yield the floor.

Mr. REID. Madam President, our Nation and the world lost a historic figure yesterday, a legend, John Glenn. As a relatively new Senator, I had the good fortune to take a trip with him. He led the trip with Ted Stevens of Alaska. It was a wonderful trip. We were in Austria. The Iron Curtain was down. We went into Czechoslovakia and had all the Russian soldiers checking the train. They had dogs. But around the world, everyone knew that John Glenn was leading that trip, and a number--three, to be exact--of the soldiers, when none of the others were looking, asked if he would autograph for them just a piece of paper they had, and he did that. Everyplace we went, in Poland--we were all Senators, but there was only one John Glenn. Everyplace we went, he was beloved. He really was an icon. In reading the morning newspaper, I was disappointed it had a headline, John Glenn known for his space exploits. John Glenn was known for far more than that. Of course, he was our first to circumvent the globe. He told all of us he wore that space capsule, it was so small. In all the news last night, it showed him climbing into that. If you were claustrophobic, you could not get in that, it was so tight. He could reach out and touch both sides of it. Here this great aviator told me and whoever else was listening that when that came down in the ocean, if they had waited another minute to pick him up, he would have had to throw up. Here was a guy who never got sick any time, but he was getting sick then. I have so many fond memories of John Glenn. He was so nice to me, as he was nice to everyone. He was an ace in World War II, a fighter pilot. He was an ace in the Korean conflict. I think he had 90 missions there. This may upset some people, but it is a fact of war--war is tough. We were having a debate here on napalm, and someone asked John Glenn: Did you ever use that in World War II? He said: Yes, we did. When would you decide to drop your load? He said: When we could see the whites of the eyes on the people on the ground. That was John Glenn. He was so thoughtful of everyone else--but a soldier, a marine, a pilot. He held that record for flying across the United States faster than anyone else. He was known by far more than his space exploits. He served in the Senate for 24 years. In all the years I have been here, no one in the Senate had more respect than John Glenn. His story is legendary. He and Annie, who is a wonderful woman, knew each other when they were little kids, first and second graders. That was a love affair that was ongoing forever. To show the strength of this woman, we only had to look at what happened yesterday after John passed away. She is 96 years old, and she was worried about people coming to her home--with John having died and well-wishers coming--so she went grocery shopping so she would have food in her home when people came to visit. As a child, Annie was stricken with an inability to speak. She stammered so that no one could hear her--they could hear her, but they couldn't understand her. As she was growing up, John Glenn was her mouthpiece. He would take her phone calls because she couldn't talk on the phone, but she overcame that and became the Annie Glenn we all know who speaks very well. I am not going to go over the list of his many awards. The Distinguished Flying Cross is really a big deal in the military. He was awarded one six times. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a listing of the many awards he received, including the Congressional Gold Medal, be printed in the Record.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. I am winding down, everybody. I know you are glad, but it has been 34 years. I served with 281 different Senators during the time I have been here. I have such fond memories of so many. There was the hilarious and confident Fritz Hollings. I have never known a better joke teller than Frank Lautenberg. I asked him to tell the same story so many times, I could have told it. He had one about two wrestlers, but I am not going to repeat it. He was very, very funny. I am not going to go through the whole Ted Kennedy list and all of that, but I have had wonderful experiences with my Senate friends. When I came here as a Democratic Senator, there was only one woman, Barbara Mikulski, and that was it. I am very happy now that we have 17 Democratic women, and we have four Republican women. I want to make the record very clear that the Senate is a better place because of women being here. There is no question about that, for many different reasons, but they have added so much to the Senate. The only problem we have now is that there aren't enough of them, but we did our best this go-round. We have four new Democratic Senators. Leaders. I have already talked about Senator McConnell. It has been my good fortune to have served with such good leaders like Robert Byrd. I don't know if it is true. I accept it because that is what I want to believe, but a number of people told me I was his pet. As I said, I don't know if I was or not, but he sure was good to me. George Mitchell, what a wonderful extemporaneous speaker. He was the best. He was a Federal judge, U.S. attorney, and a good man. I was a junior Senator and didn't have a lot of interchange with Bob Dole when he was the leader, but I have had a lot lately. He calls me to talk about some issues he is working on now. One of the most moving times of my life was when Dan Inouye was lying in State in the Rotunda. Bob Dole called me and asked if I would go over there with him, and I said of course I would. He was in a wheelchair and somebody pushed him over there, and he said stop. There was a little alcove there, and Bob Dole, as hard as it was for him, walked over to the crypt where Danny was and he climbed up on the bier and said, ``Danny, I love you.'' If that doesn't bring a tear to your eye, nothing will. I will always remember that. Trent Lott was a really good leader. He was extremely conservative but extremely pragmatic. We got lots of stuff done. I was Senator Daschle's point person to get legislation out of this body, and we did some really good things. Tom Daschle always gave me lots of room to do things. I can remember one occasion when I was the whip, I thought he had been too generous with one of the other Senators and I complained. He said: Look, you are going to make this whip job whatever you want it to be. I took him at his word, and I did. I never left the floor. When the Senate opened, I was here, and when it was closed, I was here. Bill Frist is a fine human being. I really cared for him a lot. He wasn't an experienced legislator, but that is OK. He is an experienced human being, and I liked him a lot. I already talked about Mitch. Diversity. We don't have enough diversity in the Senate, but I do take credit for creating a diversity office here with Democrats. Senator Schumer has indicated he will continue that, and I am very happy he will do that. I repeat, we don't have enough diversity. I want to tell everyone here I am grateful to all of my Democratic Senators. They have been so good to me during my time as leader, but I have to mention Dick Durbin. He and I came here together 34 years ago. He has been so supportive of me. He has been my ``Cousin Jeff.'' Can I tell the story? Here I go. My brother still lives in Searchlight, and he is an interesting man. He had a girlfriend there who was married and brought her home one night. Her husband or boyfriend, whatever it was, jumped out of the tree on my brother's back, and they had a fight. My brother won. So a couple of weeks later, he is at the 49er Club, a bar, a little place in Searchlight. He is having a beer, whatever he drinks. He looks around, and he sees the guy he beat up, but the guy has a couple of people with him. He knew why they were there. They were there to work him over. He said: What am I going to do? Just about then a miracle happened. Our cousin Jeff walked in. He hadn't been to Searchlight for a couple of years. But Cousin Jeff was known as being a really tough guy. So Larry said: Here's the deal. Cousin Jeff looked them over and went over to the biggest one, grabbed his nose, twisted it as hard as he could. He said: Do you guys want any part of me or my cousin Larry? They said no. They left. The reason I mention that--the reason I say Durbin is my Cousin Jeff--I was in my office watching the floor, and McConnell was up there. I was so damn mad. He was talking about stuff. I was mad. I called my office: Why don't we have somebody out there saying something? They said: Senator, that was recorded earlier today. We are out of session. So Durbin has been my man, my Cousin Jeff. Whenever I have a problem, I call Dick Durbin, and he can come. Dick Durbin can talk about anything, and it sounds good. OK. Chuck Schumer. My kids said: Make sure you tell everybody about how smart you think he is. OK. I am going to do it. One day I said to Schumer--we have known each other for a long time. But I said: How the hell did you ever get into Harvard? He said: It helped that I got a perfect SAT and a perfect LSAT. That is true. He did. He is a brilliant man. He has a big heart. He works extremely hard. He has been so good to me. We have worked together. He took a job he did not want, the chair of the DSCC twice, but it worked out great. We were able to get the majority. So I will always have great affection for him, and I wish him well in being my replacement. I am confident he will do a good job. He will not be me, but he will go a good job. My staff. We checked yesterday--my staff did. It is hard to comprehend how many people I have had work for me over 34 years--almost 3,000, everybody. I feel so strongly about my staff. They are my family. I really, really do believe that. I feel they are my family. Chiefs of staff--I haven't had that many, surprisingly, over 34 years. Claude Zobell, Ray Martinez, Susan McCue, Gary Myrick, David Krone, Drew Willison, and, of course, Dave McCallum, who has done so much to make sure I did not overspin things, and my utility man, Bill Dauster. He can catch, pitch, play any position on the field. He has been great for me. I appreciate Bill's work very much. Thank you, Adelle, because I would be so embarrassed if I did not say something about Patty Murray. She has been part of this little leadership team I have had. We have never had anything like this before in the Senate. The leaders prior to me did it all on their own. But I have had these three wonderful human beings helping me for all these years. We meet every Monday night and get set up for the caucus on Tuesday, leadership meetings on Tuesday. So, Patty, you and Rob, I just care so much about. I want you to know how I appreciate your loyalty, your hard work. You have taken some jobs that you did not want to take: a budget job, that super--whatever the hell it was called. That was awful. I don't know how long she is going to live, but that took a few years off her life. You and Rob have been great. Loretta is my friend. Iris I love. So thank you very much, you guys. I have told everyone on my staff, with rare exception: You represent me. If you are on the phone, when you answer that phone, you are representing me. You are as if you are Harry Reid on the phone. I say the same to those who speak, write, and advocate for me. They represent me. They have done so well. They have helped me in good times and bad times. What is the future of the Senate? I hope that everyone will do everything they can to protect the Senate as an institution. As part of our Constitution, it should be given the dignity it deserves. I love the Senate. I don't need to dwell on that. I love the Senate. I care about it so very, very much. I have enjoyed Congress for 34 years. As the leader of the Senate, I have had such joy and times of awe. Wow. What are we going to do now? That is what these jobs are like. They are so exhilarating, until, oh, man, something happens, and I think all of you have done as I have just said: Wow. What are we going to do now? The Senate has changed, some for the good, some for the bad. I want to say this, though. It is not the same as when I first came here. There is change in everything. The biggest change has been the use of the filibuster. I do hope my colleagues are able to temper their use of the filibuster; otherwise it will be gone. It will be gone first on nominations, then it will be gone on legislation. This is something that you have to work on together because if you continue to use it the way it has been used recently, it is really going to affect this institution a lot. Something has to be done about the outrageous amount of money from sources that are dark, unknown, and now involved in our Federal elections. The Citizens United case in January 2010--if this does not change and if we don't do something about this vast money coming into our elections, in a couple of more election cycles, we are going to be just like Russia. We are going to have a plutocracy--a few rich guys telling our leader what to do. Leonard Cohen, who recently died, was one of America's great music geniuses. He recently died, as I said. In one of his songs called ``Anthem,'' he says it all: There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything) That's how the light gets in That is what he said. I believe there are cracks in what is happening with the huge amount of money currently in Federal elections and excessive partisanship. The cracks are that the American people don't like it. They don't like this money. They don't like the partisanship. So there are cracks--cracks, I repeat--because the American people are complaining big time about excessive use of money and objecting to the partisanship. That is the crack. That is how the light is going to get in. That is how America has an opportunity to become a better place, where money will not control our political system over partisanship. So just a little bit of advice to my colleagues: It has worked OK for me. It does not matter if I am in Elko, really a conservative place in Nevada, 400 miles from Las Vegas. If a question is asked of me in Elko, I give the same answer there as I give in Las Vegas. We should all do that. People in Nevada have never had to weigh how I stand on an issue. I tell them how I feel. That is why I have never had any big-bang elections. People at least know how I stand. People don't necessarily like how I vote, what I talk about, but at least they know how I feel. I think that is good advice for everybody. At least that has worked well for me. What is your formula for success? What do you recommend? I tell them the same thing about working hard. Of course that is important. Of course it is important, but also stay true to who you are--your roots. Now my social life. My time in Washington has been different than that of many. I am not saying it is better, but it has been different. Every year there are galas: White House Correspondents' Dinner, the Gridiron Club Dinner, Radio and Correspondents' Dinner, Alfalfa Club. So during my 34 years in Congress, I had approximately 135 to 136 of these. I have attended one of them. For me, that was enough. I have attended one Congressional picnic in 34 years. That was because my son Key had a girlfriend named Maile and he wanted to impress her. I guess he did because they are married. But one was enough for me. I have attended one State dinner. That is because I had a son who spent 2 years in Argentina. I wanted him to meet the President of Argentina. I did that for my son Rory. But one was enough. I have not been to another one. I have never been to a White House Congressional Ball. That is going to be held tonight. I guess I am inquisitive of how it would be, but I don't want to go. I have seen one World Series. That was enough. I have been to one Super Bowl. That was plenty. I have flown once in an F-18. That was enough. Over the years, I have gone to hundreds of fundraisers for my friends and colleagues, but everyone has to acknowledge, I can get in and out of those pretty quick. Let me talk about the press a little bit and their responsibility, as I see it. We are entering a new gilded age, and it has never been more important to be able to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. We have lawmakers pushing for tax cuts for billionaires and calling it populism. We have media outlets pushing conspiracy theories disguised as news. Separating real from fake has never been more important. I have met him, but I wish I could sit down and talk to him sometime because I so admire Pope Francis. Here is what he said yesterday: The media that focuses on scandals and spreads fake news to smear politicians risks becoming like people who have a morbid fascination with excrement. That is what Pope Francis said. He added that using communications for this rather than to educate the public amounted to a sin. Well, he can categorize sin; I can't. But I agree with him on what he said. I acknowledge the importance of the press. I admire what you do and understand the challenges ahead of you. But be vigilant, because you have as much to do with our democracy as any branch of government. This is best understood by listening to what George Orwell had to say a long time ago: ``Freedom of the press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose.'' So, press, criticize and oppose. Please do that. This really is the end of my speech. I have five children: Lana, Rory, Leif, Josh, and Key. They have been role models for me and for Landra. They were role models. We learned from them when we were young, and we are still learning from them. We appreciate the exemplary lives they have lived. I am confident, hopeful, and determined to make sure that they understand how much affection and admiration I have for each of them, for their wonderful spouses, and our 19 grandchildren. OK. Here goes. Whatever success I had in my educational life, my life as a lawyer, and my life as a politician, including my time in Congress, is directly attributable to my Landra, my wife. We met when Landra was a sophomore in high school and I was a junior. That was more than six decades ago. We married at the age of 19. As I have said, we have five children, and we have 19 wonderful grandchildren. She has been the being of my existence in my personal life and my public life. Disraeli, the great prime minister said in 1837--listen to what he said: ``The magic of first love is that it never ends.'' I believe that. She is my first love. It will never end. Landra and I have talked. We understand we are going to have a different life. We have said and we believe that we are not going to dwell on the past. We will be involved in the past any way we need to be, but we are going to look to the future. I wish everyone the best. I am sorry I have talked so long. I usually don't do that. I thank everyone for listening to my speech. I appreciate my wonderful family being here, my friends, my staff, and each of you. Thank you for your friendships over the years. (Applause, Senators rising.)

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that lots and lots of stuff I have done be printed in the Record.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the history of Searchlight starts this way, the first paragraph of that book: Searchlight is like many Nevada towns and cities: it would never have come to be had gold not been discovered. Situated on rocky, windy, and arid terrain without artisan wells or surface water of any kind, the place we call Searchlight was not a gathering spot for Indian or animal. Searchlight. It is a long way from Searchlight in the U.S. Senate. I grew up during World War II in Searchlight. As Senator McConnell mentioned, my dad was a miner, a hard-rock miner, an underground miner, but work wasn't very good in Searchlight. The mines during World War II were especially gone--all over America but especially in Nevada. There were a few things that went on after the war, promotions. He would work, and sometimes they would pay him, sometimes there were bad checks that would bounce. Sometimes they wouldn't pay him, they would just leave. My mom worked really hard. We had this old Maytag washer. There were lines outside. She worked really hard. Searchlight had about 250 people then. It had seen its better days. Searchlight was discovered in 1898 when gold was discovered, and for 15 or 18 years, it was a booming, booming town. It was one of the most modern cities in all of Nevada. It had electricity--turn of the century, electricity. It had a telegraph. It had telephones. It had a fire station, firetrucks. It had roads with signs on them designating the name of the street. It had a railroad. When I grew up, that was all gone. Searchlight, as I said, had 250 people. So people may ask: How did my mother work so hard in a town with 250 people? We had at that time no mines, but 13 brothels at one time in Searchlight--13, not over time but at one time. The biggest was the El Rey Club. So that tells everyone what wash my mom did, from the casinos and from the brothels. She worked really hard. She ironed. She washed. As I look back on my growing up in Searchlight, I never felt, during the time I was a boy, that I was deprived of anything. I never went hungry. Sometimes we didn't have, I guess, what my mom wanted, but we were fine. But as I look back, it wasn't that good, I guess. We had no inside toilet. We had a toilet outside. You had to walk about 50 yards to that because my dad didn't want it close to the house, and we had a good time, even with that. My poor mother, what a wonderful woman she was. Sometimes, my younger brother and I sometimes, just to be funny, when my mother would go to the toilet, which had tin walls--it was made out of tin--and we would throw rocks at that. ``Let me out,'' she would say. It doesn't sound like much fun, but it was fun at the time. When I started elementary school, there was one teacher for grades one through four and then another teacher for grades five through eight, but when I got to the fifth grade, there were not enough students for two teachers so one teacher taught all eight grades. I learned at that time in that little school that you can really learn. I have never ever forgotten a woman by the name of Mrs. Pickard. I can still see her with those glasses, just a stereotype spinster teacher-- but she was a teacher. She taught me that education was good, to learn is good. When I graduated, we had a large graduating class: six kids. The Presiding Officer from Nevada should feel good about me. I graduated in the top third of my class. My parents did the best they could. My dad never graduated from eighth grade. My mom didn't graduate from high school. In Searchlight-- this is probably no surprise to anyone--there was never ever a church service in Searchlight that I can ever remember. There was no church, no preachers, no nothing regarding religion. That is how I was raised. My brother and I were born in our house. There was no hospital. It had long since gone. I didn't go to a dentist until I was 14 years old, but I was fortunate. I was born with nice teeth, especially on the top. The bottoms aren't so good, but rarely have I had a cavity of any kind. I have just been fortunate in that regard. We didn't go to doctors. It was a rare occasion. There was no one to go to. I can remember my father having such a bad toothache, I watched him pull a tooth with a pair of pliers. My mother was hit in the face with a softball when she was a young woman in Searchlight and it ruined her teeth. As I was growing up, I saw her teeth disappear--a few, a few less, and finally no teeth. My mom had no teeth. My brother was riding his bicycle, slid on the dirt, broke his leg, never went to the doctor. I can remember it as if it were 10 minutes ago, my brother Larry in bed. We couldn't touch the bed, it hurt him so much, but it healed. The bottom part of one leg is bent, but it healed. I can remember once a TB wagon came through Searchlight, the only time I remember. People had tuberculosis, or TB. I can remember Con Hudgens had TB. I don't remember who else. We had miners who were there who had silicosis, some of them, my dad included. My mom had one of those tests. She went into the big truck and had her chest x-rayed--I guess that is what they did. A few weeks later, she got a postcard that said her test was positive and she should go see a doctor. She never went to see a doctor. I worried about that so much. I can't imagine how my mother must have felt, but obviously it was a false positive. Think about that, never going to the doctor when you are told you have tuberculosis. As I learned more about my dad, I know how important health care would have been for him, to be able to see somebody to try to explain more to my dad so he could understand himself a little better. I am sure I haven't done all the good in life I could do, but I am here to tell everyone that there is one thing I did in my life that I am so proud of, and I will always be. I hope I am not boasting; if I am, I am sorry. I worked long hours at a service station. As Mitch indicated, there was no high school in Searchlight so I went to school in Henderson, NV. I worked in a Standard station. I worked really hard, long hours. I took all the hours they would give me. I saved up enough money--I had $250--I was going to buy my mother some teeth. I went to a man--he was a big shot. They named a school after him, and he was on the school board in Las Vegas. He married this beautiful woman from Searchlight. I went to him. I had never met him before, but Dr. Smith knows who I am. His name was J.D. Smith. I said: I want to buy my mother some teeth. He said: I don't do credit here. He insulted me. So I went to Dr. Marshall in Henderson and bought my mom some teeth. It changed my mother's life. My mother had teeth. My parents lived in Searchlight until they both died. There are a number of people who know, at least my staff knows, that my dad killed himself. I can remember that day so plainly. I had been out and spent 2 hours with Muhammad Ali, he and I, one of his handlers and one of my staff. It was so--for me, as someone who has always wanted to be an athlete, an athlete want-to-be, that was great. Some of you know I fought, but he was in a different world than I, but he was nice. He was generous with his time and he was so much fun. He said: Pay no attention to me. I am fighting some White guy and I am going to cause some trouble out here. He kicked the walls and yelled and screamed, and I was happy. I walked to my car, got to my office, and my receptionist, Joanie, said to me, Mr. Reid, your mom is on the phone. I talked to my mother all the time--many, many times a week. She said: Your pop shot himself. So she lived in Searchlight. It took me an hour, an hour and a half to get out there. I can still remember seeing my dad on that bed. I was so sad because my dad never had a chance. He was depressed always. He was reclusive. I did things; he never came to anything that I did. I never felt bad that he didn't because I knew my dad. My mom came to everything she could. But I felt bad about that. I will talk a little more about suicide in a little bit, but I think everyone can understand a little bit of why I have been such an avid supporter of ObamaCare, health care. I was ashamed, embarrassed about Searchlight. When I went to college, when I was in high school, law school, I just didn't want to talk about Searchlight. I was kind of embarrassed about it. It was kind of a crummy place. I didn't show people pictures of my home. Many years later, I was a young man, and I was in government. Alex Haley, a famous writer who wrote the book ``Roots,'' was a speaker at the University of Nevada foundation dinner in Reno. He gave a speech that was stunning. It was so good. Basically, what he said to everyone there--he directed his remarks to me, I thought, and of course he didn't, but he said: Be proud of who you are. You can't escape who you are. I walked out of that event that night a different person, a new man. From that day forward, I was from Searchlight. When I got out of law school, I bought little pieces of property so I had contacts there. My parents lived there, and I went there all the time, but I became Harry Reid, the guy from Searchlight. So one thing people ask me all the time--they say: You have done OK. Tell me what you think are the important aspects--especially young people ask all the time--and ``young'' is a relative term--what would you recommend? What do you think is the way to success? I tell them all the same thing. I didn't make it in life because of my athletic prowess. I didn't make it because of my good looks. I didn't make it because I am a genius. I made it because I worked hard. I tell everyone, whatever you want to try to do, make sure you work as hard as you can to try to do what you want to do. I believe that is a lesson for everyone. The little boy from Searchlight has been able to be part of the changing State of Nevada. I am grateful I have been part of that change. When I graduated from law school, the population of Nevada was less than 300,000 people. The State of Nevada has now 3 million people. We grew from one Member of Congress in 1864 to 1882. One was all we had. Now we have four. During my 34 years in Congress, I have seen the country change. I have seen Nevada change. The change for the country and Nevada has been for the better. Now I am going to spend a little bit of time talking about some of the things I have been able to do as a Member of the United States Senate. I know it is long and I know it is somewhat tedious, but I have been here a long time, so please be patient. My legislation. Reducing tax burdens. I am sorry he is not here--David Pryor from Arkansas. I don't want to hurt the feelings of any of my very capable friends, but the best legislator I have ever served with in State government, Federal Government, was David Pryor. He was good. He was not a big speaker, but he was good at getting things done. The first speech I gave as a Member of the Senate was way back there where Cory Booker is right now. I gave a speech. I tried to do it in the House; it was called the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights. I couldn't get Jake Pickle, the chair of that subcommittee on Ways and Means, to even talk to me in the House. But I came over here and gave that speech, and David Pryor was presiding. He was subcommittee chair of the committee dealing with that in finance. Chuck Grassley was also listening to my speech. Pryor sent me a note when I finished and said: I want to help you with this. Grassley did the same thing. So my first speech led to the passage of the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, with the help of David Pryor and Chuck Grassley. It was landmark legislation. It put the taxpayer on more equal footing with the tax collector. Everybody liked it so much, we have done two more iterations of it since then to make it even stronger. Source tax. I am sure it is just a boring thing to everybody, but it wasn't boring to people who came from California and tried to retire someplace else. The State of California was merciless in going after people. They had the law on their side, they thought. If you had worked in California, it didn't matter where you went, they would go after you--for your pension, is what it amounted to. I tried for 15 years to get that changed, and I got it changed. No longer can California--with all due respect to Feinstein and Boxer--do that. They can't do that anymore. If you retire in California and move someplace else, they can't tax that money. Mortgage tax relief. We all participated in that. I initiated it when the collapse of Wall Street took place. That was a big help. Tax incentives for solar and geothermal--very important. I will talk a little bit more about that. Payment in lieu of taxes. All my western Senators will appreciate that. It was just 4 or 5 years ago that we were able to fully fund PILT, payment in lieu of taxes. I worked very hard with Baucus and Wyden, and we did things to take care of some issues they had. That is the first time it had ever been fully funded. Cancellation of indebtedness. Those are buzzwords for people who understand taxes a little better. But what happened is people-- everything collapsed. They would try to get out of the debt they had. They couldn't because the IRS would tax them at the value of it when they bought it. It was unfair, and we got that changed. That was in the stimulus bill. We got that changed. Let's talk about the economy a little bit. I know some of my Democratic colleagues will say: Why did you do that? Here is what I did. I worked with Republican Senator Don Nickles from Oklahoma. There was a Republican President. Don and I talked about this. We knew the administration would change and it would affect every President, Democratic and Republican. It was called the Congressional Review Act. What that said is the President promulgates a regulation and Congress has a chance to look it over to see if it is too burdensome, too costly, too unfair. And we have done that quite a few times. That was because of Reid and Nickles. That was legislation that I did, and it was great when we had Republican Presidents, not so great when we had Democratic Presidents, but it was fair. One person who has been so important to the State of Nevada is a man by the name of Kirk Kerkorian, an uneducated man. He flew over the North Atlantic during World War II for England at great personal sacrifice to himself. As I said, he had no education, but he became one of America's legendary entrepreneurs. Many years ago, as a young new lawyer, I met him, and for many years I helped him and especially his brother with their legal issues. He is the man who helped create Las Vegas the way it is. He did something unique. He decided he was going to build something on the Las Vegas Strip called CityCenter. When you go to Nevada, look at that sometime. You could be in the middle of New York City--you would think you were there, basically. This is a magnificent operation. Well, it started before the Recession. They were desperate to get it finished. More than 10,000 people worked on that project. I would drive by there and count the cranes--25, 30 cranes at one time there at work. Well, I interceded in that. I did some things that probably a lot of people wouldn't do, but I did it because I thought it was very important that the operation didn't shut down. Kerkorian had already put billions of dollars of his own money in it, and they had an investor from one of the Middle Eastern countries. I did a lot of things, I say, that a lot of you probably wouldn't do, but I did it and I saved that project. I won't go into detail, but I called people whom I doubt any of you would call. I called bank presidents, and I called leaders of countries. Anyway, it is completed now. I take some credit for that. The stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We got that done. Yesterday, the Presiding Officer was the senior Senator from Maine. Oh, she was so helpful. I will probably get her in trouble by boasting about her here today, but she and her colleague from Maine, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter--we only had 58 votes as Democrats, and they were the difference. We were able to get that passed only because of them, and it was so good for our country. President Obama--the first 2 months after having been elected, the country lost 800,000 jobs. Can you imagine that? One month. But because of the stimulus bill, we were able to reverse that. We did a lot of wonderfully good things in that that were important for the country. The Travel Promotion Act. Amy Klobuchar is here; she worked so hard helping get that done. It promoted travel to get foreigners to come here, come to America, and it worked out so well. Seven different clotures I had to file on that to get it done, but we got it done finally, and it has been remarkably good for America. Other countries-- you will see them on TV--are always advertising: Come visit Australia. Come visit the Bahamas. Come visit England. Come visit everyplace. But now there is advertising around the world: Come visit America. Now, everyone knows that Las Vegas gets more than its share, probably, of visitors, but it was good for Nevada and it was also good for the country. Nevada test site workers. We were the Cold War veterans in Nevada. That was a big project. We had 11,000, 12,000 workers there at one time. An aboveground test--I could remember seeing them. We were a long ways away in Searchlight, but you could see that flash. You wouldn't always feel it. Sometimes it would bounce over Searchlight. But it was a very big deal. We didn't know it was making people sick, but they were good enough to make sure the tests didn't go off when the wind was blowing toward Las Vegas. It blew up toward Utah, and Utah suffered terribly because those were aboveground tests. So we worked to make sure the test site workers were a part of it because they were the reason we were winning the Cold War, because what they did was dangerous. We passed that. It took a number of different segments to get it done. So we have done a lot to protect people. Nevada transportation. McCarran Airport. I have tried for years to get the name taken off--a Democratic Senator from Nevada who was an awful man. I tried to get his name off that, and it didn't work. I tried to get J. Edgar Hoover's name off the FBI Building; that didn't work. We had a vote here. I can still remember how mad Orrin Hatch was when I did that, but, anyway, everybody had to vote on it. I think I made a mistake. I tried to name it after Bobby Kennedy. That was a mistake I made on that. Anyway, McCarran Airport. It is I think the fifth busiest airport in America now. We have gotten money for a new air traffic control center. It is one of the largest structures in the Western United States. We have done a good job taking care of McCarran, with all kinds of construction funding for runways and rehabilitation of runways. In the stimulus bill, one of the last things we put in that was bonding capacity that allowed McCarran Field to build a big new terminal. More than $1 billion we got in that legislation. It was really important during the recession to have all those workers. There were thousands and thousands of them on that new terminal, which is now completed. Reno. I was also able to direct money toward getting a new traffic control center there, a new control tower. We have done all the construction funding. A lot of stuff, good stuff for the airport in Reno. So I feel good about what we have done to help Nevada transportation, not the least of which, everybody, are the billions of dollars in directed spending for roads and highways in Nevada. It has made a change in Northern Nevada and in Southern Nevada. It is important for us to be able to bring people to Las Vegas, so we made deals with the California State Department of Transportation, and we participated in big construction projects that took place in California, in Barstow and San Bernardino. We did that because it would make it easier for people to go to Las Vegas. So I wasn't just giving money to Las Vegas, NV; we also did it, of course, for California because it helped us. Health care. The Affordable Care Act. I have talked about that a little bit. It would have been wonderful if we had something like that around to help my family when we were growing up. I worked hard to help a number of you on the Children's Health Insurance Program. Orrin Hatch was certainly involved in that. Just like I had trouble coming to grips with my home in Searchlight, I had trouble coming to grips with the fact that my dad killed himself. I was like most--we are called victims. We shouldn't be, but that is what we are called. This year, about 32,000 people will kill themselves in America. That doesn't count the hunting accidents that are really suicides or the car accidents that are really suicides. So I couldn't get my arms around the suicide. Republican Senator Cohen from Maine was chairman of the Aging Committee upon which I served, and we were doing a hearing on senior depression. Mike Wallace came--the famous journalist--and here is what he said: I have wanted to die for years. I would take the most dangerous assignments I could hoping I wouldn't come back. You know, I am OK now, though. I want to live forever. He said: I take a pill once in a while, I see a doctor once in a while, and I am good. I am OK. I said for the first time publicly: Mr. Chairman, my dad killed himself. That was a long time ago, but I think it would be extremely important for this committee to hold a hearing on senior suicide because we have learned--since my focusing on suicide, we have done some good things as Members of Congress. We have directed spending to study why people kill themselves because we don't know for sure. Isn't it interesting that most suicides take place in the western part of the United States? You would think it would be in the dark places, like Maine and Vermont, where it is so dark and cold, but, no, it is in the bright sunshine of the West. We are learning a lot more. That has been so good to me as a person, and we have now funded projects around America where there are suicide prevention programs that are extremely important. There are suicide victims programs where people can get together after a loved one kills themself. That is something I am glad I worked on. Finally, health care. So 24 years ago, one of my friends from Las Vegas called me, Sandy Jolly, and she said: I would like you to look at this film I am going to send you. You are not going to want to watch it, but I want you to watch it. What it showed was a beautiful little girl in Africa in a white party dress. She looked so pretty. It was a party. Suddenly, two men grabbed her, spread her legs apart, and cut out her genitals--right there, with a razor blade. I thought: Man, that is hard to comprehend. My staff said it is something you shouldn't deal with; it should be something for a woman. But I went ahead, and I did something about it. We haven't done as much as we should do, and I hope that we have people who will pick up this issue. I had a meeting last Friday--the biggest audience I have ever had. There was a conference on female genital mutilation. I say that word because that is what it is. Millions of little girls have been cut. That is what it is called--``cut.'' Last year, no one knows for sure, but probably 250,000 little girls were cut. Last Friday, I had 200 people there. I said: This is wonderful. I said: I have had 10 people a couple of times. Two or three of the people were lost and didn't really want to be there. It is really important that we do something about it. We have some laws now. It is against the law in the United States. They can't go away for the purpose of being cut. There is a lot more that needs to be done. Our government has done almost nothing. I am going to spend a little bit on the environment. I have been chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee twice--not for very long. I gave it up once because I had to, because of the control of Congress, and one time I gave it away. Remember? I gave it away. I gave my chairmanship and my committee spot to Jim Jeffords. I love that committee. I have been involved in environment and energy issues since I came here. The State of Nevada is 87-percent owned by the Federal Government; 87 percent of the State of Nevada is Federal land. The rest, 13 percent, is private land. Of course, I should be concerned about it. As to Yucca Mountain, I am not going to get into a long dissertation about that. We spent about $8 billion there so far, maybe more. It is gone. Someone asked me the other day: Well, you know, Republicans are in power now. They are going to come back to Yucca Mountain now. I said: Well, they better bring a checkbook with them because there is nothing there. They would have to start all over again. With the big auger, they spent well over $1 billion digging that tunnel. That is scrap metal. There is nothing there. You can probably get it going again now for $10 billion, $12 billion. If you have a way to pay for it, good luck. If you were smart, what you would do is leave it where it is in dry cast storage containers, which is proven to be extremely safe and effective. That is what should be done. Renewable energy transmission. Part of the stimulus bill said one of the problems we have with energy is that we don't have a way of transmitting electricity to where it should go. We talk about all this renewable energy, which is produced in places where there aren't a lot of people, but you can't get it anyplace where there are a lot of people. That has been changed with the stimulus bill. For example, in Nevada we have Line One, and for the first time in the history of the State of Nevada, we can move power from the north to the south of Nevada. That is underway now. That line will go up into the north-northwest. That was good legislation. I have had clean energy summits for many, many years. We bring in national leaders. Democrats and Republicans have focused attention on the problems America has with energy. The Clintons have come. Obama has been there. We have had Republicans. Here is one who came and did a great job--Tom Donohue. Everybody knows him. We Democrats know him, for sure. He is head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I have no problem with coal. I have helped fund clean coal technology. The Tracy powerplant, outside of Reno, was a clean coal plant. It didn't work. So they had to go to another type of fuel. I have nothing against coal. However, I was upset about this. Nevada is very pristine. I have told a couple of people this. People don't understand Nevada. Everybody thinks it is the deserts of Las Vegas, but it is not. Nevada is the most mountainous State in the Union, except for Alaska. We have 314 separate mountain ranges. We have a mountain that is 14,000 feet high. We have 32 mountains over 11,000 feet high. It is a very mountainous State. When I learned from reading the papers that we were going to have power companies come to Nevada in the most pristine areas and they were going to build three or four new powerplants fueled by coal, I said no. My staff said: You can't do that. You are up for reelection, and they will destroy you. They tried. They left leaflets on all the cars in the parking lots and said I was running up the power bills. I won; they lost. There are no coal-fired powerplants in Nevada. There are two left. One of them is going out of business in 2 weeks; the other is on its way out, probably within a year. We are not going to have coal-fired plants in Nevada, but we do have a lot of renewable energy. I have done work, especially with John Ensign, when he was here, on major land bills--Clark County, Lincoln County, White Pine County, Carson County--and we were able to do a lot of good things to save land. He was a real conservative guy, and because of him, I had to make deals to make some of the 87-percent land private. I was able to do that. He was able to work with me to create more wilderness, and we worked together to get that done. I created the first national park in Nevada, Great Basin National Park. It is wonderful. Everything within the Great Basin is in that park. It is hard to believe, but in Nevada we now have a glacier. We have the oldest living trees in the world on that mountain. Those old pine trees are there. They are 6,000 or 7,000 years old--bristlecone pine. It is a beautiful, beautiful park. As to Basin and Range National Monument, I worked with President Clinton on this. There are more than 700,000 acres in a remote place of Nevada. It is a place where John Muir came as a young man, camping there, and talked in his diary about how beautiful this was. Now everyone can see that. In part of that wonderful place is a man who is a world famous artist. His name is Michael Heizer. He worked for 40 years building this monument in the middle of nowhere. It is in the middle of nowhere, and it is done. It is called the City. It is magnificent. We don't have roads coming there yet, but we will pretty soon. That is done. Tule Springs. People came to me and said: We have this place in Nevada where we have the oldest and most abundant source of fossils anyplace in America. To make a long story short, that is now a national monument. You can come to Las Vegas if you are an archaeologist, or if you are interested in old fossils, you can come there. I don't mean old people. You can come there. There are all these studies going on with Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument. When I came to Congress, we had about 70,000 acres of wilderness in Nevada. Now we have about 4 million. Those are legislative initiatives of mine. We have approximately 4 million acres of wilderness. We have a million, 1.5 million acres of additional conservation of land, and I mentioned some of it here. Water has been difficult for Nevada, in the north and the south. I knew I had been elected to the Senate, and I was leaving Reno, NV, on an airplane and someone asked me: What is the most difficult problem facing Nevada? I said: Water. Having said that--we have all done it--I thought: What am I going to do now? I had to do something. We did something. Now it is all done. We settled a 100-year water war between the States of California and Nevada. We settled all the litigation on the Truckee and Carson Rivers. It took 20 years to finally implement that. There were many water systems--the Lake Tahoe region--and they are gone. We had large wetlands that had gone dry, and that is now getting fresh water in it. It involved an irrigation district for Indian tribes and endangered species, and we were able to get all that done. It made a stable water supply for Northern Nevada, the Reno area. Southern Nevada is really a desert. It has 4 inches of rain a year in Las Vegas. We have worked hard with Pat Mulroy. She has done wonderful things. I see the junior Senator from Arizona here. When he was elected, the States of Arizona and California wouldn't speak to each other. They were fighting over water. Now we work together on water. It has been remarkable what we have been able to do as partners to get things done. We bank water for Arizona, and when they need the water and it is in our ground, we can give it back to them. It has been good for Nevada because we can use that water in the meantime. We have done good work with California. California got most of the water out of the Colorado River. They took a lot more than they should have, and we were able to work on that. We worked with California in a very positive way. We help pay for port reservoirs. We help line canals. We have done a lot of good things to help water in that whole area. I am happy about that. We share Lake Tahoe with California. Lake Tahoe is a stunningly beautiful place. There are only two alpine lakes in the world. One of them is in Siberia, and the other is there. I have had 20 summits there. We have gotten over $1 billion there with the cooperation of the California delegation and many others. We have done well in stabilizing and helping the clarity of that beautiful lake. Walker Lake is another lake that was originally controlled by the Indians. It has been stolen from them by us. We now have gotten hundreds of millions of dollars directed toward that, and we have bought up water rights, and we have saved Walker Lake. There are 21 desert terminus lakes in the world. There are two in America. They are both in Nevada, and we saved those two lakes--Walker and Pyramid Lakes. There was a great big gravel pit. It was 10, 15 times bigger than this Chamber--huge. There were spots of black that appeared on it. The State of Nevada didn't have the resources to take on the oil companies and airlines. So they didn't know what was wrong. I got Bill Bradley, who was chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, to hold a hearing. It was so important we did that because we determined that oil was coming from broken oil lines, fuel lines, going to the Reno airport. Had we not done something, it would have been awful. It was declared an emergency superfund site, and people immediately moved in and took care of that. I am giving a quick look at it. That gravel pit is now a beautiful lake. It is called the Sparks Marina. There are condos, apartments, and businesses all around there. People boat on it. It is wonderful. It all started out as a gravel pit. I appreciate Bill Bradley's good work on that. I want to talk about national security. There are people in this Chamber much better than I am on national security, and I know that, but I have worked hard. I worked hard. We have been a dumping ground for all things in the military. We have Nellis Air Force Base. It was named after Bill Nellis, who was from Searchlight. He was a war hero in World War II. It is the finest fighter training facility in the world. If you want to fly jet airplanes, then you must train at Nellis. They have a large gunnery range. The Navy does the same thing in Northern Nevada with the naval air training center. Frankly, I was able to get tens of millions of dollars for both of those operations because they have been important. We hear a lot about drones. Every drone attack that takes place in the world takes place 30 miles outside Las Vegas at Creech Air Force Base. We have all of these great servicemembers, mostly airmen, who take care of that. They protect us around the world. Barbara Mikulski is here. She was in a position to help me on appropriations. She said: This facility in Reno is awful, and I-- Barbara Mikulski--am going to do something about it, and she did, very quickly. We renovated that place. It was so bad. It was a little VA hospital with hallways so narrow they couldn't bring in new hospital equipment because they couldn't get it down the hall. I appreciate what Senator Mikulski did for that hospital. I requested money for two VA hospitals, and they were built in Southern Nevada. We had one that was an experiment. It was a joint venture between the Veterans' Administration and the Air Force. It worked great except we had a Middle East war and the veterans had to go someplace else so we don't have that hospital anymore, but we have a huge new one. It is the newest and best in the entire VA system. They don't have all of the equipment they need, but it has been functioning very well for the last couple of years. I feel very proud of that. The Nevada Test Site is part of our national security, and I have done everything I can to make sure that facility is taken care of, and it is. There are a lot of experiments going on there all the time. We have fuel spills and different tests that take place there. Finally, this is one of the best things I ever did. Yesterday I heard Barbara Mikulski say listen to what your constituents say. A group of veterans came--just a few feet from here--to talk to me a number of years ago. One of them said: Senator, this is somewhat strange. I am disabled from the military, and I am also retired from the military. I can't draw both benefits. I said: What are you talking about? He said: I can't. If you retire from the Forest Service and have a military disability, you can get your pension from the BLM, the Forest Service or whatever it is, and also get your disability, but not if it is both military. We changed that. Now, if you have a disability and you have retired from the military, you can draw both. It is called concurrent receipt. That took a long time, but we got it done. It is not perfect, but it is 80 percent complete. I talked earlier this morning about being a lawyer. I am proud of the fact that I was a trial lawyer. I hear Senators talk all the time about these judicial selection committees. They have to help pick whom they will have on the Federal bench. I am glad they do that because I also have a judicial selection committee. You know who is on that committee? Me. No one else is on it. I select all of my judges. I am the committee, and I am very happy with what I have been able to do. One of the things I did when I was in the House was name a Federal building in Las Vegas after a very famous family of lawyers, the Foley family. They had two Federal judges, a district attorney, and a State court judge. They were a wonderful family called the Foley family. I attended the 10th anniversary of that, and when I looked up there, I saw nothing but White males. I thought to myself, ``Gee, I hope someday I can change that,'' and as fortune would have it, Lloyd George decided to take senior staff and I had a chance to do something about that. I have sent names to the President and selected far more judges myself in the entire history of the State of Nevada. So what I did with the first one, I said, well, I want to get a woman judge, but we didn't have a Black judge on the court either. I wanted to nominate a Black judge and a woman judge, and that is what I did. Boy, was I criticized. They said: She doesn't have enough experience. You could have found somebody better. She was a dynamo. People loved this woman. She was so good that she is now on the Ninth Circuit, and she quickly went there. To make a long story short, she has been part of the talk about who could get appointed to the Supreme Court. She is a wonderful woman named Johnnie Rawlinson. I put Roger Hunt, great trial lawyer; Kent Dawson, one of my predecessors as city attorney; David Hagan, a wonderful trial lawyer, and I put him on the bench. I selected Brian Sandoval as a Federal judge, and he was a good Federal judge. Things were going great until he ran against my son for Governor, and I wish he hadn't because my son would now be Governor. He is my friend, and our family has accepted that. He was the first Hispanic on the bench. I appointed another Hispanic, Gloria Navarro. Her parents were born in Cuba, and she is now the chief judge. Miranda Du, how about that, a woman who was born in Vietnam is now on the bench in Nevada. How about that, Miranda Du. She was born in Vietnam and came over when she was 11 years old to Alabama. Jennifer Dorsey, a woman; Andrew Gordon, a Harvard law graduate; Richard Boulware, African American. I changed that Nevada Federal bench significantly. I had the pleasure of voting for and against all eight members of the Supreme Court who now sit there. I have had a chance to vote for every one of them during my career. Education. I worked hard for education in Nevada, and I have done OK. The Desert Research Institute is a unique organization. It is not helped by the University in Nevada at all. They all have Ph.D.s and they have been in existence for 50 years. Some of the most significant research in the world is done there. They have two supercomputers. Our earthquake center is the best in the world. They have more shake tables than anyplace in America. People come from all over the world to study what happens to earthquakes. Biodiversity study. For many years, I directed funding to the biodiversity study. It was the best science going on at the time on the environment and studying the Great Basin. Native Americans in Nevada. We have 26 different tribal organizations. I am really happy with what I have been able to do to help Native Americans, and, believe me, they haven't been treated well in Nevada or anyplace else. I have led the legislative efforts to make sure they have their water rights taken care of, settled longstanding claims against the United States. We have the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, and the Duck Valley Reservation have all been able to develop their water rights and economies. For example, Pyramid Lake will receive almost $100 million and Fallon will receive $60 million. I worked to get two new high schools built, and they were so long overdue. It took decades to get the Shoshone Claims Distribution Act done, and we finally got it done. Thanks to President Clinton, we were able to get the Indians who belonged up there, the Washoe Tribe, right on the lake. Working with the Obama administration for the last 8 years has been a dream job of mine, being the President's point man here in the Senate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have an extended speech on President Obama that I gave yesterday printed in the Record.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mitch, thank you very much for those nice remarks. Mr. President, I have heard for years--especially from the press and others--how do you get along with Mitch McConnell? It is obvious it is not very good. It is simple, everybody. He and I understand our relationship. We are both lawyers. I have been to court lots of times, over 100 jury trials, and when I would go to those trials, I would really fix on my opponent. How could he feel that way about an issue? He is wrong on the law, he is wrong on the facts, and we are going to take care of this in court. Fortunately, I was fairly blessed with my trials; it turned out OK most of the time. But Mitch and I understand that is what we do here. When the trial was over--I have walked out of a courtroom with Neil Galatz or whoever it was--it was over with. It was gone. We were friends. We were there, each doing our thing to effect our cause, and that is what we do here. McConnell and Reid don't need to be hugging out here every day. That is not what we do. We are advocates for our cause. I do the very best I can; he does the very best he can. And he laid that out just fine a few minutes ago. So this is not a love session for Reid and McConnell, although I want everyone here to know that Mitch McConnell is my friend. He and his wonderful wife have been kind and thoughtful to us. I have said that before; let me repeat it. When Landra was in that very dreadful accident, they were there--letters, flowers. They took care of us. When Landra had the devastating breast cancer, they were there. When I hurt myself, Mitch called me. So everybody go ahead and make up all the stories you want about how we hate each other. Go ahead. But we don't. If it makes a better story, go ahead and do it, but maybe somebody should write this. Thank you very much, Mitch. OK, everybody, now my final speech.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, to everyone listening, Joe Biden's life has been the material of which movies are made. Joe was born in Scranton, PA, to Joe and Jean Biden, the first of four children. As a young man, as we have heard about today--once in a while, though not very often, Senator Biden talks about his stammering. He didn't get any professional help, no therapy. He did it on his own, long hours of reading, mostly poetry. He would stand in front of a mirror and recite poetry time after time after time, watching himself to make sure he didn't contort his face when he stammered or stuttered. This wasn't easy for a young man. People made fun of him, but he knew he could do it on his own. He felt that, and he did it. He worked hard. He developed a rhythm and a cadence of speaking that helped him overcome his stammer to become one of the United States Senate's all- time great orators, without any qualification. Joe was an outstanding high school running back and wide receiver. His coach said he had never seen anyone with such hands. His coach saw in Joe what we all see, a hard worker who refuses to fail. His coach said: Joe was a skinny kid. But he was one of the best pass receivers I had in 16 years as a coach. In college, Joe continued to display his athletic prowess, playing football for the University of Delaware. This is quite a story. During spring break, his junior year--Joe and I were traveling from Indianapolis to Reno, NV, and he talked to me about this, just the two of us. I will never forget that conversation. He and one of his college buddies had gotten a tax return, and they were going to take a little vacation away from the cold of Delaware. They went to Florida. Frankly, they didn't like it. They had a few dollars left over from their tax returns, and I believe they went to the Bahamas. They got an inexpensive hotel. I was going to say ``cheap,'' but I will say ``inexpensive'' hotel. Right next to them was an exclusive hotel, and they noticed when the people came out of the fancy hotel off that private beach, many times they would lay their towels on the fence. Joe and his pal said: Well, those towels aren't even wet. They went down to that private beach, and it was there that he met a young woman by the name of Neilia, Neilia Hunter. I am sure that, just like Jill, she must have been a knockout to look at. She went to the University of Syracuse. She was on the dean's list. She had been homecoming queen. That was the beginning of the relationship that they had. Joe had been smitten. After graduating from the University of Delaware, he enrolled in law school in Syracuse to be closer to her. The story of his and Neilia's relationship is stunning. I repeat, it was something that movies are made of. Without being too personal, I will say it the way it is because it is a wonderful story, and I can identify with it so well because of Landra and me. There came a time when her father came to her and said: You know, he is not that much. He comes from a family that is not like ours. And she said: Dad, stop. If you make me choose between you and Joe, I am going to choose Joe. So that was that relationship. I repeat, Landra and I understand that story quite well. They were married a short time later. They had three children, Beau, Hunter, and Naomi. After starting his law practice and serving as city councilman in New Castle, DE, Joe stunned and embarrassed a few of his friends and relatives by saying he was going to run for the Senate. You will run for the Senate against a two-term incumbent, Caleb Boggs? I think I can do it. I am sure he said to himself: A lot of people said I couldn't overcome certain things, and I did, and I am going to do my best to overcome this race I am in. I am starting way behind. Joe and his family went at this as hard as they could. They canvassed the entire State. They pulled off an incredible upset. Joe Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate. In every respect, Joe's life has been unique. It has been special. His election to the Senate was no different. The great Constitution that leads this Nation stipulates that the person must be 30 years old to be elected to the Senate. Joe was 29 on election day. He turned 30 2 weeks after the election. Just a few weeks later, tragedy struck and struck really hard. Neilia and their three children were in a terrible car accident just days before Christmas. He had not been sworn in as a Senator yet. His wife was killed, their baby girl was killed, and Beau and Hunter were grievously injured--hospitalized, of course. To say Joe was grief- stricken is an understatement. How can you describe how he felt? I am sure, as I have heard, he didn't know what to do. He had two boys to raise. He wasn't a man of great means. He strongly considered: I shouldn't be sworn in to the Senate; I can't do this. He had friends, people who didn't know him who were Senators, who treated him as fathers. Without the help of Valerie, his sister, Joe Biden's life may have been completely different because with the support he got from her, the encouragement he got from Democratic and Republican Senators, and the fact that she moved in, took care of Beau and Hunter to replace their mom--she was there for 4 years helping with those boys. Joe is a remarkable man. When I was in the House of Representatives, he agreed to come to the house in Nevada for me. It was a big deal to get this senior Senator to come to Nevada. He came. Every place he traveled, he had one of his boys with him. With the support of his sister and other members of his family, Joe embarked on a long, storied, 36-year career that was productive and unsurpassed in the history of the Senate. That was not the end of Joe's difficulties. Joe is, as you can see now, a very well-conditioned man. He always has been. As a Senator, he suffered a massive bleed on the brain, and he was hospitalized for a long time. He didn't come to the Senate for a long time. When I got hurt, one of the first people to call me was Joe. He said: Look, the fact you are going to be missing a little time in the Senate doesn't mean you can't be a good Senator. That was the example that Joe Biden set. He recovered, and he became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Foreign Relations chair, author of many pieces of legislation--Violence Against Women--too numerous to mention. In a love story unsurpassed, he also met a woman who has been by his side for 40 years, Jill Biden. It is an incredible love story. Joe says it was love at first sight. It was the same for his boys. Joe remembers the day that Beau and Hunter came to him with the recommendation: ``Daddy, we were talking and we think we should marry Jill,'' not he should marry Jill. ``We should marry Jill,'' a direct quote. Joe and Jill were married, and before long, Beau and Hunter had a new sister, Ashley, and a new mom. There is not a family that I know of who is any closer, more tight-knit than the Bidens. Joe Biden loves his family above all else. He is a good Senator, a terrific Vice President, but he is a family man. For the last 8 years as Vice President, he has traveled the world, meeting with dignitaries in trouble spots on behalf of this country, oftentimes at the direction of President Obama. He has done it with dignity--more than a million miles. As we have heard from the junior Senator from Delaware, that pales in comparison to the miles he has traveled on Amtrak. He has traveled more than 2 million miles on Amtrak. He took the train home every night to Delaware. If we worked late, he would go to a hotel here. If it had been necessary, he would have gone more than 2 million miles to take care of his boys and to be with Jill. Vice President Biden's time serving at President Obama's side has been historic. He has been the President's rock, his confidant, and his friend. I have been told that not by Joe Biden but by the President. Joe has had a stellar career as Vice President of our great country. He has used his skills and his experience to help shape American diplomacy. Vice President Biden is helping lead the quest for a cure for cancer. His Moonshot initiative is the most ambitious plan ever to accelerate cancer research. I say, through the Chair, to my friend Lamar Alexander, that this would not have happened but for the good man from Tennessee. We know that Joe and Jill know firsthand the pain and heartache caused by cancer and the toll it takes on families. Tragically, just last year, Beau was diagnosed with terminal cancer, which took his life. He was somebody I knew well. He was an Iraq veteran. He didn't have to go to Iraq, but he did. He was attorney general of the State of Delaware. Beau was a light to everyone who knew him but especially to his family. Beau's passing broke Joe's, Hunter's, and Jill's hearts and, of course, their sister's. As with all the other heartbreaking challenges and setbacks, Joe Biden continues his life's work. He is still the same kid that his coach praised. His No. 1 asset is that he works hard; he does the best he can. Joe Biden continues to serve his country, and he will continue after January 20. He continues to do what is right. And above all, he continues to love and take care of his family. I have been gratified to call Senator Biden a man of the Senate, Senator Biden, Vice President Biden, Joe. He is an awe-inspiring man, so Steven Spielberg, Hollywood, you should be listening. Joe Biden's life is that which movies are made of. I yield the floor.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Delaware amend his request so that Senator McConnell and I will use our leader time. That will not count against his hour.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Madam President, I apologize to Senator Boxer and Senator Mikulski. They are going to give their final speeches, but I would like to have this opportunity to speak a few words about President Obama. Of course I will be here for their full speeches. It is hard to imagine today, but it wasn't that long ago that Barack Obama was a little-known Illinois legislator with a very unusual name. I still remember the first time I heard that name. I was in the House gym, where Members congregated, and one of the people I shared the room with was Abner Mikva, a longtime Illinois Congressman, an appellate court judge, and President Clinton's chief legal officer. I had known that Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald decided not to run for reelection after one term. Judge Mikva turned to me and said he knew the perfect person to fill that open seat. I said: Who could that be? He said: Barack Obama. I said: What? He said: Barack Obama. I said: Who? What kind of a name is that? He said: He is one of the most talented people I have ever met in all of my years. That said a lot to me, even though at that time I smiled and left the room. It didn't take long, though, before I understood what Abner Mikva said to me. Barack Obama won that election in the Senate. He came from nowhere, a man with an unusual name, but once he was here, it was obvious he was the real deal. His ability to communicate was, and is, stunning. I can remember one of the first floor speeches he gave here in the Senate on George Bush's policy regarding the Middle East war. It was eloquent, thoughtful, powerful. I was so impressed that following his speech--there had been a quorum call--his seat was way back there, and I walked up to him and I said--he was sitting, I was standing looking over him, and I said: Senator, that was really terrific. That was really good. I will never forget his response. Without hesitation, without any braggadocio, no conceit, but with humility, he looked up to me and said: I have a gift. It wasn't a boast; it was a fact. I have never met anyone with the ability to communicate as well as Barack Obama. Whether it is in his writing, speaking to huge crowds of tens of thousands of people or small crowds, or someone on a one-on-one basis, he is without equal when it comes to communicating. His reputation was well known even before he came to the Senate. He had written a book--a bestseller called ``Dreams from My Father''--a decade before arriving here in the Senate. Like his 2006 book--also a bestseller--called ``The Audacity of Hope,'' this book was full of lyrical and insightful writing. In ``Dreams from My Father,'' he outlined the remarkable story of his life we have all come to know. Born in Kenya in faraway Africa was his father. His mother was from Kansas. He was raised by his grandparents in Hawaii. His mother and grandparents set positive examples for him. They pushed him to always do better, to be the man he was born to be. That upbringing would serve him well. Barack Obama went to some of the most elite schools in the world. He was an undergraduate at Columbia, where, of course, he was an honor student, then Harvard Law School. He graduated with distinction. He made history as the first African American to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review. Just to be a member of the Harvard Law Review-- having gone to law school myself--is significant, but he was the No. 1 guy in that very prestigious law school. Even then, his reputation for bringing people together and his gift of communication were renowned. He continued to excel after law school. He became a professor of constitutional law at one of America's great law schools. He became a community organizer, as he has spoken about a lot. He became an Illinois State senator before giving one of the most dramatic convention speeches in American history at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston. Throughout it all, his ability to communicate and connect with people fueled his ascendancy. Those skills made Barack Obama a terrific Senator, and they have greatly benefited our country over the past 8 years. In just a few weeks, Barack Obama will finish his term as the 44th President of our great country. He will be leaving office. I don't know if I am leaving with him or if he is leaving with me. I guess I leave a few days before he does, but we are leaving together. I cannot think of a better person with whom to leave public service than Barack Obama. For 8 years I was his point man, and it has been an honor and an effort of pleasure. What this man accomplished, despite unprecedented obstruction from the Republicans, is remarkable. History will remember President Barack Obama's many accomplishments. I don't want to get the Presiding Officer in trouble, but it was because of her and two other Republican Senators that his first congressional session was remarkably historic. We wanted to do more, but this good woman presiding over the Senate today said: Enough is enough. We had to retract some of the things we wanted to do. It was hard, but I do say this: It would not have happened but for the Presiding Officer. President Obama saved the country from economic collapse, ushering in a new era of growth. Since 2010, the economic recovery has added more than 16 million private sector jobs. Median household incomes have risen significantly. The unemployment rate is now 4.6 percent. In some States, like the State of Nevada, it is more than 14 percent. President Obama brought the American auto and manufacturing industries back from the brink of collapse with unique programs--Cash for Clunkers--and more than 800,000 new manufacturing jobs since 2010. The auto industry has added almost 700,000 jobs since 2009. Domestic production of automobiles doubled from below 6 million units per year to 12 million per year in 2015. President Obama brought health care to tens of millions of Americans through the Affordable Care Act. Every day, we learn how important this bill has been. We heard from the very conservative American Hospital Association today that doing away with ObamaCare would bankrupt the hospital industry. We would lose over the next few years almost $200 billion. Through the Affordable Care Act, 21 million more Americans now have affordable health care. The uninsured rate is at an all-time low, and 92 percent of Americans now have coverage. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage and charge more to cover people with preexisting conditions. How many of us have gone out to our home States and had people with tears in their eyes say: You know, Debbie has been sick since she was a little girl with diabetes, and now, for the first time in her life, she can have health insurance. Insurance companies can't discriminate anymore against anyone because of their gender. All women were discriminated against before. Every American with insurance has access to preventive care without cost sharing. That means no copays for immunizations, cancer screenings, contraceptive coverage for women, diabetes screenings, or blood pressure and cholesterol tests. President Obama held Wall Street accountable. He signed into law the most comprehensive Wall Street and financial reform legislation since the Great Depression. His administration established a new watchdog to help protect consumers from unfair financial practices. He signed legislation into law that protects homeowners from mortgage fraud. President Obama took more action to protect our planet from a changing climate, including the historic Paris Agreement. I met yesterday with Native Alaskans. It was scary to talk to a Native Alaskan woman. In her town of 800, people are having trouble getting in and out of the town. She told me the animals are confused because the seasons are changing. The caribou have traveled for 20,000 years, we believe, 3,000 miles to migrate every year. They walk in single file, not in large herds jammed together. She said they are having such difficulty. They used to be able to walk over the ice. They can't. There is no ice. They have to swim. President Obama made the largest investment ever in renewable energy. He tripled wind power and increased solar power by 30 times, creating more than 200,000 jobs in solar alone, with hundreds of thousands more jobs in the next few years. President Obama protected more than 260 million acres of public lands and waters. That includes more than 700,000 acres in Nevada with one order that he signed called the Basin and Range National Monument, a place where John Muir came looking around for special places in America. He camped in hills in the Basin and Range. Hopefully, some day every Senator can go to this magnificent place in the desert. It has taken 40 years to build. One man has done it, a famous artist by the name of Michael Heizer. It is called the City. It is stunning. When I talk about 40 years, it wasn't work done on weekends. It was days, weekends, overtime, and large contingencies of people he directed. This magnificent thing in the middle of the desert is now protected forever. President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have made our Nation's children a top priority. In 2010, President Obama signed a bill into law to fight child hunger and improve school meals to ensure children receive the nutrition they need to have healthy, successful futures. President Obama made strides on education. Our Nation's high school graduation rate is the highest in the history of our country. He reformed student loan programs, increased Pell grants, made student loan repayment more affordable, and expanded loan forgiveness for graduates who enter public service professions. President Obama granted deferred action to immigrant youth who would have qualified under the DREAM Act, bringing nearly 800,000 young people out of the shadows. President Obama made our country more inclusive. He signed the repeal of don't ask, don't tell. He signed Executive orders protecting LGBT workers. Americans are now free to marry the person they love, regardless of their gender. As Commander in Chief, President Obama brought bin Laden to justice. These are just a few aspects of President Obama's storied legacy, and it is still growing--what a record. It is a legacy of which he should be satisfied. America is better because of this good man being 8 years in the White House. I am even more impressed by who he is as a person than who he is as President. He is a man of integrity and honesty. I have learned so much from him. I have never heard Barack Obama denigrate anyone, ever. There have been times he could have. Perhaps, I thought a negative word should have been said and I suggested that to him, but he would never take it. No, he wouldn't do that. That is Barack Obama. Above all, I admire the attention he has given his family. He may be President of the United States, but nothing gets in the way of his family. He is a terrific husband to Michelle and an outstanding father to Sasha and Malia. He arrives home for dinner with his family virtually every night he is in Washington. He goes to their plays and games. President or not, he is a husband and a father. His devotion extends to his staff as well, and he has had a terrific staff working for him. I can't mention all of them, but I will mention his present Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough. He and I have a very close relationship. Close relationships come with a lot of difficulty sometimes. It has been tough, but we tried to work through it together. Pete Rouse is one of the nicest people I have ever known. He also worked with the President very closely. He was his chief of staff as Senator, and, of course, a chief adviser when he was in the White House. Rahm Emanuel, now the leader of Chicago, IL, was former Chief of Staff, and is currently mayor of Chicago. He is a man known for his bluntness and his productivity as a Member of Congress and as Chief of Staff. Alyssa Mastromonaco was former Deputy Chief of Staff and I hope that I had something to do with the romance that wound up with her marrying my chief of staff, David Krone. These are just a few of the incredible people I have had the pleasure of working with. They are all wonderful. Then there is President Obama's Cabinet--a Cabinet of quality. That includes my friend, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, a wonderful man and a terrific public servant, a man of substance like no other ever known. After 8 years leading the country, President Obama is leaving office on a high point. When he first took office, our country was in an economic free fall and hemorrhaging jobs. Now the country is experiencing the longest streak of private sector job growth ever. We have the lowest unemployment rate in nearly a decade. After 8 years of President Obama, we are now as a country on a sustainable path to fight climate change and grow renewable energy sources. We are more respected around the world. We reached international agreements to curb climate change, stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and we are on the path to normalizing relations with our neighbor Cuba. Our country has made significant strides in nearly every way. There is no doubt that the United States is better now than we were 8 years ago, and we have Barack Obama to thank for that. Thank you, President Obama, for being the person you are.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to all my colleagues, the Presiding Officer served in the Senate for 36 years. During that time he was here, he was about as much a man of the Senate as anyone could be. He was a Democrat, but he was also available to anybody anytime, and I so admire him. I know that he has worked very closely with the Republican leader on some very important issues the last 8 years. I want the record to be spread with the fact that the Presiding Officer is as proud of his family as anyone could be, and doing this for Beau only furthers the effect that this man, the Presiding Officer, has had on this country. I am grateful to the Republican leader for allowing me to cosponsor this important amendment, changing the name of this bill to the Beau Biden Memorial Moonshot. I am grateful to you, the Republican leader. All of the Senators understand that the man presiding is really a man of the Senate and always will be. (Applause.)

Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a brief statement?

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, 15 years ago Senator Dick Durbin introduced the DREAM Act in the U.S. Senate. This legislation provided a path to citizenship for young people brought to the U.S. as children. These young people call themselves DREAMers. And they are as American as you or me. They belong to this country culturally and linguistically and are American in all but paperwork. For many of them, this is the only country they have ever known. In 2010, the DREAM Act passed the House and came to the Senate for a vote. Sadly, Republicans killed the bill--eliminating the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of DREAMers. Because Republicans refused to act, it was up to President Obama. In 2011, I joined 21 other Senators in asking President Obama to grant deferred action to immigrant youth who would have qualified under the DREAM Act and who are not an enforcement priority. And in 2012, President Obama's administration did just that. They announced that young people who were brought to the United States as children could apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA. This brought nearly 800,000 young people out of the shadows. These young men and women are our newest college students, teachers, engineers, and small business owners. They contribute to our communities and make America better. In Nevada alone, DACA has helped over 12,000 DREAMers--DREAMers like Brenda Romero. Brenda was just 2 years old when she crossed the border in southern California with her mother to reunite with members of their family. Growing up in Las Vegas, Brenda was like any other American kid. She excelled in school, participated in student government and played the cello in the orchestra. But soon enough, she realized what it truly meant to be undocumented. Her friends could get their driver's licenses; Brenda could not. Her peers could get legally paying jobs; Brenda could not. Her classmates could speak with recruiters from the Armed Services about career opportunities; Brenda could not. Brenda described the months after graduating high school as one of the lowest points in her life. But that all changed with DACA. She was finally able to get a job and enrolled in the College of Southern Nevada as soon as she saved enough money. Brenda became student body president her second year at the College of Southern Nevada, working to help other students who faced struggles similar to hers. During her time as student body president, Brenda helped award $10,000 to her fellow classmates in scholarship funds. Brenda graduated from CSN with an associate's degree in art and is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in human services at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She wants to be a higher education counselor, and she is already well on her way. She is already making her mark on the UNLV campus. As part of the Undocu-network Club, Brenda is helping to bring counseling and services to students in need and promoting visibility for undocumented students to the school administration. Brenda's story is impressive, but it is not unique. Every Senator has a story to tell like Brenda's. There are young men and women just like her in all 50 states. In addition to the moral reasons for supporting DACA, there are strong economic reasons. DACA recipients will add $433 billion to the economy over 10 years. After DACA, more than two-thirds of recipients were able to secure a job and their wages rose by 42 percent. Six percent of recipients started their own businesses, a rate that is nearly double the rate among the entire U.S. population. Fifty-four percent of recipients bought cars, and 12 percent bought houses, all of which means significant new tax revenue for States and localities. DACA recipients will add $433 billion to the economy over 10 years. It is not surprising that the majority of Americans--almost 60 percent-- oppose repeal of DACA. As with Brenda, DACA has opened doors of opportunity for hundreds of thousands of young people. We hoped that it would be a stop-gap measure until we passed immigration reform. The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill but the House refused to bring it to a vote. With the outcome of the election, it isn't likely that comprehensive immigration reform will happen over the next 4 years. That is why it is so important for the next administration to continue this vital program. For Brenda and hundreds of thousands like her, losing DACA status means being adrift in the only country she calls home. I urge the next administration: Don't put almost 800,000 young people back in the shadows where they are afraid. Don't force hundreds of thousands of DREAMers to lose their jobs. And don't squander the huge economic benefits to this country. If Republicans want to do something, then they should pass the DREAM Act.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, in the bitter cold of a North Dakota December yesterday--and it can be cold up there--there was a celebration at Standing Rock. Why? Along the banks of the Missouri River, in this heavy snow, there were hugs and tears of joy and drumming and dancing as the people of the Standing Rock Tribe and others heard the good news. The Army Corps of Engineers did not--did not--approve the easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline. Instead, the Corps of Engineers determined that the pipeline must be rerouted. I am so glad. It is so important. This is a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux. We know the long history Native Americans have in the State of the Presiding Officer. We know that around the country--I have 26 Indian entities in Nevada--they have been treated so poorly. Nevada is no different from any other State. They were pushed off of the lands they dwelt on before we showed up, we White folks here in America. They have been pushed around. So when the Standing Rock people heard the good news that the Corps of Engineers had finally given them at least some small victory, it was very exciting for them. It is a victory for them. They have been objecting to this construction for more than 2 years. The tribe was concerned about a number of issues, not the least of which were their ancestral grounds, some of which land has their ancestors buried there. They were afraid of water contamination and other problems. In a statement to the press, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said: We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and do the right thing. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian country will be forever grateful to the Obama administration for this historic decision. Indians have taken one loss after another. Rare are there any victories for the Indians. I agree with the chairman of the tribe. This is a historic decision, and it was a momentous step toward correcting the course of a disgraceful history. As I said last week here on the floor, the treatment of the Standing Rock Sioux by our government has been shameful--not only recently but for more than a century. The Sioux were pushed to reservations first. I say ``reservations''--plural. But even that land was taken--most of it--and then massive dams were built that put the tribe's best farmland underwater. The result of these actions was a crippling poverty that plagued the tribe for generations--even this generation. This mistreatment was not unique, as I have indicated, to Standing Rock. Indeed, there are tribes all across the Nation with very similar histories. We have them in Nevada. Yesterday's decision will not make up for the past, but the President's action was a huge step toward correcting a terrible wrong. Money, profits, and not human dignity, was the direction of the pipeline. The Obama administration changed that. For far too long, the pleas for justice for Native Americans have gone unanswered. At least now, on this occasion, the Standing Rock Sioux and Native Americans throughout this country know that someone is listening and their concerns are being addressed by the U.S. Government. I admire the support of those who locked arms with the Standing Rock Sioux. Appropriately enough, these people call themselves water protectors. Native Americans from all over America, politicians from all over America, entertainers from all over America, and other celebrities were some of the water protectors, and we must recognize the more than 2,000 veterans who traveled to Standing Rock from across America to protect the protestors from violence. It is also important to note that speech after speech and demonstration after demonstration were peaceful. All the leaders of this demonstration said time after time after time that it would be peaceful, and it has been. The only aggression has not been from the Indians but from those people who are pushing the pipeline. It is no surprise that many of these veterans are Native Americans because American Indians serve in our Nation's Armed Forces in greater numbers per capita than any other ethnic group. Going back to World War II, of course, the great Ira Hayes, who was made famous by Johnny Cash--they have a long history of serving in all of our wars and stepping forward. I am gratified at the strength of the Standing Rock Sioux. Their ancestral burial grounds will remain protected and their water clean. I thank President Obama and his administration and the Army Corps of Engineers for their action. This victory was the culmination of months and months of analysis and deliberation. I appreciate the conclusion reached. But everyone should know that this fight isn't over. We know from long experience that our decisionmakers keel over for fossil fuel interests. We must remain vigilant. My only hope is that the Trump administration will not undo the justice the Native Americans have finally received. All of us must support the Standing Rock Sioux and help them protect their history and their land and their water. As one aside, many decades ago I was the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Nevada, and we had our Lieutenant Governors' conference in Oklahoma. It was a wonderful week that we spent in Oklahoma. One of the highlights of that trip was an education that I received one night of a--I assume it is still going on; I don't know--a wonderful pageant that took place in a place that I believe is called Tahlequah--I believe that was the name of the place--where in such detail and in such magnificence was described how Oklahoma has so many Native Americans who came from Florida. It was a wonderful story. I was very impressed with the Native Americans whom I met and have met since that time in Oklahoma. And a memento I was given there in Oklahoma--frankly, someone stole it from me, but each one of us, each Lieutenant Governor, was given a little painting by a famous Oklahoman--at the time, at least--whose time was Tiger. I don't know what his real name was, but he was a famous artist. It was a beautiful Indian scene he had painted. We all got one. It was an original. I am sorry someone took it out of my office. But I have fond memories of that convention in Oklahoma where I learned so much about the people of Oklahoma. Some of us in the West have had over the years kind of a negative impression of Oklahoma--the Okies coming into California, all of these uneducated people causing trouble--but that was a wonderful trip to Oklahoma. I was terribly impressed at the time and have always been impressed with the people of Oklahoma. Just a little aside here: I have had some good fortune at being able to legislate things here in Washington. One of the things that can be looked at as good or bad--and maybe I won't get a lot of pats on the back for this with the new administration--but a Senator from Oklahoma and I did some very good work. The Congressional Review Act was Reid- Nichols legislation. That was hard to do, but what it basically said is if there is a regulation promulgated by an administration, we as a Congress have an opportunity to look it over again to determine if, in fact, we have the ability, with enough folks, to overturn that regulation. So, again, as the Presiding Officer is from Oklahoma, I want him to understand my affection for the State of Oklahoma and the people of Oklahoma. I have had some difficult tussles with people from Oklahoma over the years. There is no better example of that than Dr. Coburn. But having said that, I have never found more of a gentleman than Dr. Coburn. Even though we disagreed on some policy issues, he was always a gentleman and I have appreciated the things I learned from him. I yield the floor.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, before I give my remarks, as I planned, I wish to say a brief word about Senator Alexander, the senior Senator from Tennessee. During my time in Congress, he has always been one of the most pleasant people I have dealt with. He is always very thorough in whatever he wants to talk to you about, and I have found him to be a remarkably good Senator. He has a background that is stunningly important--a longtime Governor of the State of Tennessee and someone who has served in one of the Republican administrations as Secretary of Education. This Cures bill is not everything I would wish it to be. I think it is too weak in some parts. I think we could have done better. But I have been around for a long time, and I understand what legislation is all about. We have gotten money. We have been trying for a couple years to get money for opioids. There should be far more, and it should be given in a different way than we have it here, but it is money. We have people-- as we are sitting here for a few minutes today--dying as a result of this scourge that is sweeping America. It is in Oklahoma, it is in Tennessee, and it is in places such as New Hampshire. It is all over. So that part of it is excellent. As to the resources we give the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, there is not enough we can do. I would hope there would be much more. I am pleased to report that this is the beginning of the Moonshot that Senator Biden will lead in research to defeat cancer. It can be done. We have made tremendous progress, and we are making it on a monthly basis now. There are a lot of good things in this legislation. One of the things that the senior Senator from Tennessee and I have spoken about is clinical trials. Sometimes you don't understand the importance of those until they could personally affect you. With the injury that I suffered almost 2 years ago, I am hopeful that in my lifetime there will be something done to be able to take care of retinas that are damaged. We have a lot of those that are damaged--a lot of retinas that are damaged as a result of diabetes and other maladies--but not a lot has been done on injuries to retinas. But there is work being done on that now. I had a very good meeting on Saturday with one of the foremost people in the world dealing with retinas, Dr. Bressler of Johns Hopkins, and they are doing some stuff. They are doing stem cell work. They are doing some transplants. They are doing some good things. On a very personal basis, Senator Alexander came and talked to me one evening. He asked if I had time. Of course, I always have time for any Senator who wants to see me. He came with tears in his eyes to talk to me about some things he had learned about people who had damaged their eyes and how some work is being done with these people who once could not see and, as in the Biblical passages, can now see. It was a very wonderful meeting, and I had the opportunity to meet one individual he introduced me to--a man named Doug Oliver, who was basically blind. Because of work done with stem cells, he can now see. He is off disability, he can drive a car, and he can read. He could not do that before. I appreciate it. It perhaps could have passed without him, but I doubt it, and I admire his legislative skills. I hope, with the new Congress coming, he will pull even those skills he doesn't have now out of his back pocket so perhaps we can do even more. There is going to be a lot more that needs to be done in the new Republican Congress. So I express my public admiration to the senior Senator from Tennessee for the good work he has done for his State and for the country for many decades.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am going to give a speech here in a minute regarding Senator Mikulski. But the reason I mention that is I want the record to reflect that Chairman Rogers has been so nice to me whenever we have gone to public events and events dealing with the work of the Hill. He has been always a gentleman--I mean first class. In meetings with just Democrats, I have heard Senator Mikulski talk about her great relationship with this good man, so it has been pleasant for me to listen to the description of the relationship of the Republican leader and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I just wanted to take a minute and let everyone know that I have also been honored by his presence wherever it has been.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, will my friend yield for a brief comment?

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, at times it seems that Democrats and Republicans in the Senate don't agree on very much, but the one thing we all agree on without any exception is this: Our colleague Barbara Mikulski of Maryland can turn a phrase better than anyone else. It is one of her many gifts. Just listen to some of the memorable lines we have heard her utter. Running for her first term in the Senate, Barbara said: I might be short, but I won't be overlooked. Just prior to the 2013 government shutdown, she told Senate Republicans: You can huff and puff for 21 hours, but you can't be the magic dragon that blows the Affordable Care Act away. Earlier this year, she spoke of the Zika virus as follows: The mosquitoes are coming. The mosquitoes are already here. You can't build a fence to keep them out, and the mosquitoes won't pay for it. The mosquitoes are here--this is not an Obama fantasy. My personal favorite was something she said at a welcome reception for the 1986 class. We gathered in the Russell Building, and it was a festive occasion for Democrats. We had many new Democrats. It was a huge class--Daschle, Shelby, Breaux, Graham, Conrad, and Fowler. There were many Democratic Senators, but the day was stolen by Barbara Mikulski. We were all asked to say a word. About her opponent, she stood and said: ``I may be short, but it sure wasn't hard for me to slam dunk Linda Chavez,'' her opponent. It is safe to say that with that quip, Barbara immediately hit it off with all the Members of the Senate class. From the moment she first set foot in the Senate, Senator Mikulski was determined to be herself--honest, disciplined, principled, undaunted, with an incredible wit and a fierce love of Maryland. You will not find a Member of this body more devoted to her circumstances--and we will talk about those in a little bit--devoted to her constituents and her State than Senator Barbara Mikulski. She served the State of Maryland for more than 50 years. A graduate of Mount Saint Agnes College and the University of Maryland, she made her name as a social worker and a political activist. Her grandparents are well known, especially her grandmother. They ran a bakery. I have heard her talk about that bakery so many times, how the people in the neighborhood would come and wait for that bakery to open. Her grandparents went there very early, as bakers do. She speaks with nostalgia, warmth, and love of her grandparents. Her own parents ran a little grocery store next to a steel mill. They would get there early in the morning, and the steelworkers would come and get their lunches and sometimes their breakfasts in that grocery store. Her parents were part of her life, as were her grandparents. She is so proud of them. In 1966 the Baltimore City Council proposed building a large highway through the center of the city of Baltimore. There was a downside to the plan: It would have razed entire neighborhoods, African-American neighborhoods and especially immigrant neighborhoods. They would have to leave their homes. The city's leaders, political bosses, and, of course, the wealthy real estate interests and many others--the power brokers of the State of Maryland, the city of Baltimore--knew this was a done deal, but the power brokers didn't count on a young social worker named Mikulski to fight for these families. It was her first political activism, and activism it was. It was her alone. Because of her magnetism, her warmth, and her ability to organize, she organized an effort to stop the highway. Everyone said it couldn't be done, but no one bothered to tell Barbara. She rallied the citizens of Baltimore in opposing the highway, and what a rally it was--not one rally, not two, but many of them until it was determined that she had won and the power brokers had lost. These people got to keep their homes, and today there is no superhighway towering over the center of Baltimore. People remember Barbara Mikulski for that. Barbara's fight against the highway made her a hero in Baltimore and propelled her to the city council in 1971. In 1976 Barbara Mikulski fought her way to the Congress of the United States as a Member of the House of Representatives. After five terms in the House, Barbara Mikulski ran for a seat in the Senate, in the one I just told you about. She slam-dunked her opponent, making her the first Democratic woman in history to win seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. Today Senator Mikulski is the longest serving woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. For more than 40 years she has served the people of Maryland. She is the first woman and first Marylander to chair the prestigious Senate Appropriations Committee. Her legislative record reflects her hard work for women and for equality. She worked with then-Senator Joe Biden to pass the first Violence Against Women Act in 1994. She was the architect of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. She was repeatedly in the forefront to fight for paycheck fairness, which determined that men and women who do the same work should be paid the same money. When so many of us were duped by misinformation about the Iraq war, Barbara Mikulski was not duped. She voted against the war. Barbara's career in the Senate has been historic, but I would be remiss if I failed to note her impact on my life and my career. As I said, we came to the Senate together. We served together. We got the same committees. We, of course, served together in the House, but that is a huge body--435 Members. Frankly, I served there two terms. I know the Presiding Officer served in the House. It is a huge body. When I left there after 4 years, I can remember a vote taking place. Where did these people come from? It is hard to get to know 435 people, but I knew Barbara. Everybody knew Barbara. But in the Senate we came together, served on the same committees, and we got to know each other very well early on. Barbara Mikulski has always protected me, looked out for me. One of my first memories took place right here in the well. I was new, she was new, and it was a very close vote. It was an issue that was her issue, and I couldn't vote her way. That happens here. It was a close vote. People were nudging me: You have to change. You are going to upset everybody. You are a Democrat; you can't do that. In walked Barbara Mikulski into this crowd. I was there. I was really kind of afraid, but she wasn't. She walked in. People moved away. She said: ``Leave him alone. It is a matter of principle.'' People left me alone. That is who she is. Was she disappointed? I know she would have been disappointed had I not done what I believed in. I served for 10 years with John Ensign, the Senator from Nevada. John and I had a unique relationship. In 1998 I won an election for the Senate between Ensign and Reid by 428 votes. That was a close election. But as fate would have it, 2 years later he came to the Senate. Senator Bryan retired, and he came to the Senate. Well, John had some personal issues. He hadn't been here very long at all and had some personal issues. I called him at home, and he said: Yes, I have some problems here. I thought how I could help him. Here in the Senate we have the right to do what is called pair. Senator Ensign and I rarely voted alike anyway. So I said: Well, John, what I will do, so it won't affect your voting record, is that I will just pair with you and that way it won't show you have missed votes. So I agreed to do that, and for 2 weeks I told him I would do that. Well, it worked out fine because we voted differently on everything, except there came an issue that affected Senator Mikulski. She came to me and said: Why are you voting that way? I told her: Senator Ensign has a personal issue, and I told him I would pair with him. She said: If you had done anything else--and I won't use her exact language--you would have been a fool. I wasn't a fool in her mind. Even though it was not good for her, she was supportive of me. She would not have been satisfied that I had done something that was wrong in her mind, and she accepted my explanation and that I had to do what I did. We have always had a lot of respect for each other. Senator David Pryor of Arkansas had a heart attack and became very, very ill. He was a wonderful Senator. Everyone liked him. But he announced he couldn't serve as secretary of the Democratic caucus, and that was something that I was interested in. But I also heard Barbara Mikulski was interested in it. She had been so good to me so often that I immediately went to Barbara, and with the two of us together, I said: Barbara, do you want this secretary's job? She said: Yes. I said: You have it. That was the end of that. Nobody opposed her. Well, surprisingly, a few years later, out of nowhere, Wendell Ford, who was the whip, decided he wasn't going to run for reelection. It was a surprise to everyone. He was assistant Democratic leader, and that was something I was interested in, but again there was Mikulski. I didn't say a word. The word was out there that I was interested in it. So as fate would have it, I was walking from my office in the Hart Building over toward the Russell Building, and she was coming in the other direction. Those of us who know Barbara know that a lot of times she is a person of few words. She is not a gadfly. Sometimes she talks a lot, but sometimes she doesn't want to talk. We were passing each other in the hall, and she said: I want to talk to you for a minute. She said: You took care of me in the Senate; the whip's job is yours. That ended it. It was all over. When that was done, I had a clear route to be the whip of the Senate--the Democratic Senate. That is the relationship I have with Barbara Mikulski. So she is as responsible as anyone for my years in Democratic leadership. Without her friendship and her loyalty my last 20 years in the Senate would have been much, much different. Working with Barbara Mikulski is one of the highlights of my congressional career. Just hearing her speak is a privilege. I have seen and listened to good orators. When I was in the House-- and my friend, the Democratic whip is here--we heard Jim Wright. Jim Wright was a great orator. He was the majority leader and the Speaker of the House. He was really good. Tom Lantos, an immigrant from Hungary, could speak. He was so dynamic, so good. Claude Pepper had a different style but was someone you listened to. Here in the Senate I have listened to some great orators. Back there was Dale Bumpers. I can still see him. He had a long cord here. He had an extra-long one, and he would walk up and down these aisles speaking. He was a great orator. I listened to him. George Mitchell, one of my predecessors, was so good, so articulate--and Dick Durbin, from Illinois. They are all terrific orators. But in my estimation, there is no better orator who I have come across in my congressional service than Barbara Mikulski. We have talked about her one-liners, but I would like, just for a minute, to talk about a trip I took with a congressional delegation led by the very famous John Glenn--war hero, astronaut, and gentleman. We went to places in Europe. The Iron Curtain was down. We went to Poland. Barbara Mikulski's heritage is Polish. They called in John Glenn to give a speech. Ted Stevens from Alaska was also on that trip. I said: We have someone here who is of Polish heritage. Let's listen to her. Oh, what a speech--I mean it was spellbinding. She talked about how she felt about who she was and about her grandparents and her parents. So I know there is no better orator than Barbara Mikulski. That is because she speaks from the heart. She is honest and so genuine. As the Baltimore Sun wrote: ``People know authenticity when they see it, and there's nothing fake about Barbara Mikulski, most especially her love of her job.'' That is pretty good, coming from the biggest newspaper in the State. Barbara has loved her job in the Senate, and the people of Maryland and the United States have loved having her as their advocate and defender. She leaves the Senate as she entered it, as a political activist and a fighter. So, Barbara, thank you very much for your guidance, your mentoring, your friendship. It has been an honor to work by your side. We are forever friends. Godspeed, Barbara Mikulski. I yield the floor.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have served in Congress now for 34 years. Throughout that time, I have tried to be pleasant and helpful to my colleagues. I feel very fortunate to have become personally close and friends with Members of Congress from all over this great country. Barbara Boxer and I were Members of the House class of 1982. Such fond memories do I have of that class--Tom Carper, Dick Durbin, and scores of others. We had a huge class. At first glance, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid had very little in common. She was from California. It is a heavily populated and liberal State. I was from Nevada, a much smaller State in area and in population. I was the only Democrat in my State's Congressional delegation. But I was stunned when I was asked to join this huge California Congressional delegation. Being from Nevada and being part of the largest Congressional delegation in America was extremely helpful to me. The Californians were good to me in so many different ways, just allowing me to be part of their meetings every Wednesday morning. I was flattered when I was asked to be secretary-treasurer of that large delegation. I have so many memories of the work we did together, California and Nevada. Howard Berman, who was the leader of that freshman class from California, was the head of the steering committee. Don Edwards was the chairman of the delegation at those meetings we had every morning. The Burton brothers and just so many others went out of their way to help me. I came to know quickly that Barbara Boxer was no ordinary public servant. She was relentless--I mean relentless--and dedicated and very principled. She was raised by hard-working, first-generation immigrants in Brooklyn, NY. She attended Brooklyn College, graduated with a degree in economics. Over the decades, we have gotten to know each other's families very well. We talk about each other's children. We have exchanged family experiences many, many times. My favorite story of Barbara Boxer's family is the time when she was a girl coming home from elementary school, with her mom, from a window that was up high, yelling down to her little daughter coming home from school--excitedly yelling out the window of the upstairs apartment: Daddy passed the bar. Daddy passed the bar. Barbara knew that her dad did not go to bars. But she quickly learned from her excited mother that she was talking about her dad having passed the very, very difficult New York bar examination. I always remember that story. In 1965, Barbara moved to Northern California from faraway New York. But in California, they sat down their roots and raised their two children, Doug and Nicole. Stew became a very prominent lawyer and Barbara, a stockbroker. It was in California where Barbara began to make her mark very quickly as a trailblazer. In 1976, after having been in California not very long, in that very big county, part of the metropolitan area of San Francisco, she became a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors. She was elected to that post. She quickly became the board's first woman president. Shortly thereafter in 1982, Barbara ran successfully for Congress. Her campaign slogan tells us all you need to know about her because that year her slogan was: ``Barbara Boxer Gives a Damn.'' That was on all of her campaign literature, posters, everything. So I guess with a slogan like that, it should not be any surprise that she won handily. In 1992, she was elected to the Senate. She stood no chance to win. Everybody told her that--all of the editorials, not only of the California papers but all over the country. Barbara Boxer was in with the big time, and things were going to change for this upstart Member of the House of Representatives. She had tried to move too quickly. She should have stayed in the House, but she won by a really nice margin. This surprised everybody except her. In 1992, she was elected to the Senate--the year that was popularly referred to as the ``Year of the Woman,'' and rightfully so. She was part of the memorable class that came here in 1982: Dianne Feinstein, Patty Murray, Carol Moseley Braun, and, of course, the underdog, Barbara Boxer. In the Senate, Barbara and I have worked together on matters of importance to Nevada, California, and our Nation. I have watched Barbara Boxer lead on so many important issues. I am going to name only a handful of them. She worked to designate more than 1 million acres in California as a wilderness, keeping that land in a pristine condition for our children, our grandchildren, and generations to come. I say ``our'' because the wilderness in California or in Nevada does not belong to California or Nevada, it belongs to the people of this country. She fought for the Pinnacles National Monument to become America's 59th national park. It became such. She helped lead the fight to stop drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and, of course, along the California shoreline. She has spoken about that so many times. It succeeded. We have had no oil spills on the coast of California because of a number of reasons, but there is no one more responsible for that nondegradation than Barbara Boxer. She advocated to eliminate government military waste as a Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was her first breakthrough where she exposed the outrageous, exorbitant cost of purchases made by the military. She did that while she was in the House. Why was she taking on the establishment? Well, that is who she is; that is who she was. She discovered that our military paid defense contractors unbelievable amounts of money: for a hammer--a claw hammer--$430; for a toilet seat, $640; for a coffee maker, $7,622. That is quite a coffee maker. For an aluminum ladder, which must have been one that would get you over the fence that Trump is going to build between Mexico and the United States, it cost $74,165. It is legendary what she has done with the military. Ever since she did that, the military was no longer untouchable. Barbara Boxer proved that. She put an end to all of the wasteful spending. Yes, she did-- Barbara Boxer--not all of it; some things slipped through the cracks, but she sure headed everyone in the right direction. Maybe of lesser importance, but something we all watched very carefully in the House--it did not happen overnight, but she caused the all-male House gym to admit female Members of Congress. She went up against some big people to do that--the very well-known Dan Rostenkowski, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and others--but she won. Barbara and I have worked together to protect Lake Tahoe. We share that. The States of California and Nevada share that alpine glacial lake. There is only one other lake like it in the world, and that is in Siberia, Lake Baikal. We feel good about what we have been able to do to promote the richness of this beautiful national treasure, Lake Tahoe. She has also promoted clean energy. I can remember her going after a substance that was in gasoline to put in a car that ruined the environment. She came out strongly against that. Again, she prevailed. We no longer do that. She has also done a lot to protect our public lands. I mentioned just a little bit of what she has done. I can say without any hesitation that Barbara Boxer has been one of the best and most effective environmental leaders in the history of this country. That says a lot. She has made California and the entire country a cleaner, healthier, and a better place, especially as chair and ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works. I loved that committee. It was a committee I was placed on when I first came to the Senate. I had the good fortune to be chairman of that committee twice. She has done so much in her advocacy. For a lot of the things she was not able to declare a legislative victory, but she certainly declared a victory in the minds of the American people because she took on the big guys without any fear. Barbara is also a champion of women. She has been a groundbreaker on issues like sexual harassment and women's rights in the workplace, access to women's health, and clinic violence. She took that on. Barbara Boxer has worked to protect women's access to health care and make sure that Planned Parenthood continues to help millions of women who depend on their services every year. I lament the fact that Barbara will not be here because, as you know, the new Republican majority has threatened to do away with Planned Parenthood. I don't know what they expect to do with the 2 million women who go there every year for help, but that is what they have said they are going to do. I can remember, oh so clearly, because it was such a difficult time, working on the Affordable Care Act in my office just a short distance from here. Barbara was there the better part of 2 days. We were facing incredibly contentious issues regarding women's health, and this required close attention. But it worked out. We were able to accomplish this in spite of some people who said we couldn't do that. Barbara has always been ideological, pure but with a sound mix of pragmatism on ObamaCare and other issues relating to women. I told her personally--and I said it publicly, but I wish to say it again--that I have enjoyed working with her. She has helped and mentored me and led me to understand issues important to the women of America like no one else, and I appreciate it very much. I can remember writing her a letter in my longhand, my cursive. In that letter I told her a number of things, but this is something I said--a direct quote: Barbara, I have three brothers. I've never had a sister. You are the sister I've never had. That was what I said. To this day, we still refer to each other as brother and sister. Stew and Barbara are an exemplary team. They are partners in every sense of the word ``partner.'' Landra and I have been guests in their Southern California home. We have been together many times in Nevada. For decades, Barbara and I have worked together politically, campaigning in different parts of the country, different parts of California, and different parts of Nevada. We have raised money together for the cause of Democrats. We have raised money for each other. It has always been a pleasure to work with her on this and other issues. Barbara and I came to Washington together in 1982, 34 years ago. Barbara and I will be leaving Washington together after 34 memorable years together. Senator Barbara Boxer, congratulations on your historic career as a Senator for 40 million Californians and 300 million citizens of the United States. Barbara, remember, you are and always will be my sister. Godspeed, Barbara.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, as the Republican leader mentioned a minute or two ago, the Senate has some important work to do before this Congress can come to a close. One of the pieces of legislation that has to be addressed is the Cures Act, a scaled-back version of the 21st Century Cures legislation the House is scheduled to consider tomorrow. The staffs of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee have worked countless hours on this bill. For more than a year, they have missed time with their families and given up vacations in the hope of reaching bipartisan agreement. There are many priorities in this bill to address funding for opioids, which has been an ongoing problem with all of the deaths occurring on a daily basis. We have done nothing to help with that--nothing. Of course, we are concerned about cancer and the advocacy of Vice President Biden and the so-called moonshot, as well as important provisions for the National Institutes of Health. There are other issues outstanding that will need to be resolved in this matter. It is my understanding that the committee work continues in the House, and we can expect a managers' amendment in the House Rules Committee sometime tonight. We are all eager to see what that is going to be. We know it is different from the Senate bill, which we felt very good about. By the end of next week, we are going to have to pass new legislation to ensure that the government does not shut down for lack of funding. But we also have to be concerned about what happens with that Cures Act. Is this going to be put over again, as we have put over opioid funding time and again over the past several years, or are we going to move forward with something that is constructive in nature? Right now, there is some angst in my caucus about what we should do. Now, on funding, I am very disappointed that the Republican leadership appears unwilling to pass a comprehensive bill that reflects the careful and considered judgment of the Appropriations Committee. With only days left in this Congress, we should be working on a bipartisan bill, in a manner that is bipartisan, to set out our priorities. But that is not happening. We should be funding initiatives that serve important needs and eliminate others that are wasteful and have a lower priority. Instead, it appears that we are going to pass another continuing resolution that just sets the government on autopilot, potentially for many months. The exact months we don't know. I guess there is some dispute among the Republican leadership as to how long the CR is going to be. But this isn't governing. That is punting, for lack of a better description. They are trapped, and the only thing they can do is punt and see what happens later. It is irresponsible, it is wasteful, and it is not the way we should be doing the business of this Congress. Mr. President, will the Chair announce the business of the day.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday an amazing thing happened at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and it deserves some attention here this morning. I will take just a brief time to talk about that. The students who operate that newspaper made the bold decision to change the name of the newspaper. It has been going on and has been somewhat controversial now for quite some time. The newspaper will no longer be called the Rebel Yell. There were many who felt that was a disparaging name for the paper. The Civil War ended a long time ago. We should not harken back to the Civil War and the Confederacy for that newspaper. Now UNLV's newspaper will be called the Scarlet & Gray Free Press. I am happy to have with me today Brian Ahern, who is an able member of my press staff. He was the managing editor of that newspaper. He helped run the newspaper when he was at UNLV. I am proud of these students who did this. Seven months ago, when the students announced their intention to change the name of the paper, I publicly supported them. Now that they have followed through, I am all the more amazed by their leadership and courage in doing the right thing. The name change was not easy. There was a lot of debate swirling around this issue on campus and throughout the State. These students were more interested in unifying the student body and rejecting hateful symbols of a racist and divisive past than in hiding behind tradition. Now it is time for the university's administration to do the right thing and get rid of the ``Rebel'' mascot. What these young men and women have done is a lesson for all of us. Some politicians, State legislators, and the National Football League can learn a thing or two from these students. I applaud the Scarlet & Gray Free Press for doing the right thing. They have long been an independent voice for the students at UNLV. I congratulate my able staff member, Brian, for urging me to move forward on this matter for many months now.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, has had some trouble with this. I spoke to her last night. She said to go ahead and let this go. She is totally in agreement now that there would be time for debate on this issue and a vote. We understand that. So I am not objecting to this matter.