Jeanne Shaheen

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN.--patients who need health care, I vote no.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. On behalf of hundreds of thousands of New Hampshire--

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam Clerk, how am I recorded?

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am here to join so many of my colleagues to oppose efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Outright repeal without a replacement plan will hurt hundreds of thousands of people in New Hampshire as well as millions across this country. The estimate is anywhere from 20 million to 30 million people who will lose their health insurance coverage. There are all kinds of reasons why this is a bad idea. Many of those have been addressed by my colleagues very eloquently. I wish to speak about a couple of those reasons. The first is one Senator Durbin alluded to earlier; that is, what repeal of this law will mean for the heroin and opioid epidemic that is facing New Hampshire and so many States across this country. Repeal will dramatically worsen that epidemic because it will deny treatment for people who are abusing substances, and it will also deny them access to mental health services. That will mean a surge in overdose deaths, and it will reverse so much of the progress we are beginning to make. I understand that sweeping health care reform is not easy. We all know the Affordable Care Act is not perfect. It needs work. The way to address it is not to repeal it, it is to work together to make it better. Rather than rush to destroy the Affordable Care Act with no replacement in sight, we should be working together, on a bipartisan basis, to make commonsense improvements to the law. It can be done. I know, because Tim Scott and I worked together to pass the PACE Act last year to make it easier for us to control health care insurance increases and to allow States to make the determination about group size for health insurance plans. One of the things I am hopeful about is that President-Elect Trump, in the course of many visits to New Hampshire over the last year, again and again pledged to take robust action to combat the opioid epidemic in New Hampshire and across America. Yet, by repealing the Affordable Care Act, President-Elect Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress will make the opioid crisis so much worse. This would be a broken promise to communities all across this country that are struggling with addiction. The Affordable Care Act has given millions of Americans access to treatment and recovery and saved countless lives, and repealing it would deny treatment to people suffering from substance use disorders. It will cost lives. It will take a terrible toll on communities across America. In New Hampshire alone, health care reform has helped over 100,000 people gain access to health care coverage--people like Keith from Rindge, NH. Keith was one of the thousands of Granite Staters able to access quality, affordable health insurance through our State's Medicaid expansion program. Keith told my office that the Medicaid expansion literally saved his life. Keith was suffering from several health issues when he went to see his doctor after he signed up for the New Hampshire Health Protection Plan, which is what we call our expansion of Medicaid. He told us that had he not had insurance, doctors likely would not have caught his kidney cancer early like they did, but because he had that health insurance, Keith was able to afford and quickly access treatment for his cancer. He is thankfully now cancer-free, and he credits having insurance through Medicaid expansion with saving his life. As I said, New Hampshire is in the midst of a heroin and opioid epidemic. We have talked about the grim statistics frequently in the last year as we have come to the floor. In 2014, we lost 47,000 Americans due to heroin and opioid overdoses. In New Hampshire, when all of the analysis is in for 2016, we are expecting to have lost almost 500 people due to overdose deaths. As Senator Durbin pointed out, we have one of the highest percentages of overdose deaths in the country. It doesn't have to be that way because addiction is an illness. It is an illness that doesn't have a cure, but we have made progress in treating it. The Affordable Care Act ensures that substance misuse services are covered by insurance. As a direct result of the Affordable Care Act, many of those suffering finally have access to counseling and therapy like medication-assisted treatment. In addition to covering substance misuse counseling, the Affordable Care Act is also built on mental health parity provisions that require group health plans and insurers offering coverage of mental health services to provide comparable coverage to what they provide for other medical care when it comes to substance misuse. The Affordable Care Act extended these parity goals by requiring mental health services to be covered as essential health benefits, and it also helped expand access to these services by insuring more patients. We worked very hard, in a bipartisan way, over the last year in this Chamber to pass the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act and to pass the 21st Century Cures Act that provided $1 billion to address heroin and opioid problems in this country. Both of those bills provide significant benefits to people who are suffering from substance misuse. If we repeal the Affordable Care Act, we are going to undo all of the progress we have made through these supplemental pieces of law because it would reverse the treatment access so many people in New Hampshire and across this country have. Why would we deliberately take away access to this lifesaving treatment from so many people who are struggling to overcome addiction? Repealing the Affordable Care Act will affect people like Ashley Hurteau of Dover, who said her access to health care as a new Medicaid enrollee was critical to her addiction recovery. She told our newspaper, the Union Leader: ``I am living proof that, by giving individuals suffering with substance use disorders access to health insurance, we, as a society, are giving people like me the chance to be who we really are again.'' I had the opportunity last Friday to visit a program called Hope on Haven Hill in Rochester, NH. It provides help for women with substance misuse issues who are pregnant or who have just delivered babies. It works because these young women are enrolled in our Medicaid expansion program. Without that, they would lose any opportunity for treatment for their substance misuse. When I visited them, they talked about what it was like to be in a place where it was like a home, where people wanted to help them so that they could provide a better life for themselves and their children. Without access to lifesaving addiction treatment, many people like Ashley and like those young women at Hope on Haven Hill would succumb to their addiction. Again, what is so frustrating about this situation is that it is completely preventable. It is not only the right thing to do, but it is the economic thing to do because the cost of failing to provide treatment for people who have substance misuse disorders is to make sure that they cannot become profitable, taxpaying members of our society. One other benefit of the Affordable Care Act that, as Senator Murray said, is so critical to 50 percent of our population is access to health care for women. Before the Affordable Care Act, women paid more for health insurance, and contraceptives were something that made insurance cost more. Particularly for women who don't have the economic means, the Affordable Care Act has, for the first time, made contraceptives available to women without cost-sharing requirements like copays, deductibles, and coinsurance. Study after study has shown that access to contraceptives is one of the greatest indicators of success for women. When women are able to plan their pregnancies, they are more likely to graduate from high school, to enroll in college, to have stable and higher paying jobs, and to make sure that their health outcomes are better for themselves, their children, and their families. It is especially frustrating that last week our Republican colleagues in the House leadership announced that they are going to use the budget processes not only to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the help that it provides to women for contraceptive coverage, but they are also going to use this vehicle to defund Planned Parenthood. This is not only irresponsible, it is dangerous. Just this morning, Senator Hassan and I visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Exeter, NH. We talked with women who have benefited from the vital services this center provides to thousands of Granite Staters. They talked about how 94 percent of the services provided in New Hampshire Planned Parenthood clinics are related to prevention. This is what one of the volunteers said in talking about the women with whom she had met who had come to Planned Parenthood clinics: What they tell me is that Planned Parenthood saved me. For so many women who have economic challenges, for low-income women who need access to services in New Hampshire and across the country, they don't have any other place where they can get services if we close down Planned Parenthood clinics. Two counties in New Hampshire don't have community health centers and a place where women can readily go. So defunding Planned Parenthood, closing the doors to Planned Parenthood health centers--in New Hampshire and across this country-- would put millions of women in a situation where they have nowhere to go to access basic health care services. This will cost women and their families access to preventive care, and, ultimately, it is going to cost the lives of women. Repealing the Affordable Care Act is going to actively worsen health outcomes. It will provide less access to care for our most vulnerable populations. It will increase unplanned pregnancies. It will mean that people who have preexisting conditions will not be able to access health insurance in the future. The list goes on and on. The repeal of the Affordable Care Act will not only throw millions of people off their health care, but it will also impact the coverage of millions of others because millions of Americans will see their premiums rise. They will see reinstatement of lifetime limits. They will see reinstatement of expensive cost-sharing requirements, higher deductibles, a reinstatement by health insurance companies of coverage denials, or sky-high premiums because of preexisting conditions. Why would we go back to those exclusionary and detrimental practices? Why would we go back to a time when we had over 20 million fewer people in this country who had access to health insurance? Now is the time for us to come together. Instead of scrapping this law, we should be working together to improve it, to make it work for all Americans. Make no mistake, repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan, stripping away health insurance for tens of thousands of Granite Staters and over 20 million Americans is not only counterintuitive but it is dangerous. We can do better in America. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues Senator Heitkamp of North Dakota and Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota. I represent New Hampshire so I think we have three major regions of the country represented to talk about why we need to make the appointments to allow the Ex-Im Bank to continue to do their transactions. As my colleagues have said, Ex-Im has a five-member Board of Directors. In order to consider transactions that exceed $10 million, they have to have a quorum--three people. Right now, again, as Senator Klobuchar and Senator Heitkamp explained, there isn't a quorum so they cannot continue to do transactions worth over $10 million. That is having a real impact on companies across this country. After a period where Ex-Im was not reauthorized in 2016, where they were not able to do business, we finally got that legislation through. They were able to begin operating again. In 2016, they were able to support about 52,000 U.S. jobs by authorizing more than $5 billion in transactions--2,000, almost 3,000 export transactions. At the same time, Ex-Im returned $283.9 million to the U.S. Treasury and maintained a default rate of 0.266 percent. That is a pretty good record, but, by comparison, the last year that Ex-Im was fully operational, they authorized more than $20 billion in almost 4,000 transactions in 2014 when they were fully operational. Those transactions supported 164,000 U.S. jobs and returned $674 million to the Treasury. So one might ask: What is wrong with this picture? Why is the Senate Banking Committee holding up the person who would allow Ex-Im to continue to operate at its full capacity and allow it to continue to help with job creation? We have seen this very directly in New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a small State. We are a small business State. Yet we are the State that Ex-Im chose when they rolled out their small business program to help small businesses with the financing they needed to export. One of those first people to take advantage of that program was Boyle Energy Services & Technology. Their CEO, Michael Boyle, says that without Ex- Im, he would have to consider offshoring production in order to continue to grow his business. Now, BEST does 90 percent of its business overseas, and it relies on Ex-Im for working capital guarantees. They are not doing a lot of transactions over $10 million, but we have a lot of companies in New Hampshire that are doing transactions over $10 million and that are subcontractors to big companies that are doing those transactions. So in New Hampshire, we have General Electric, which is very dependent and needs those exports and that financing. We have a growing aerospace industry that includes companies like New Hampshire Ball Bearings, and it includes companies like Albany Engineered Composites, which worked on the Dreamliner with Boeing. I talked to the CEO of Albany after he came back from the Paris Air Show a couple of years ago. He said: The people who are getting the jobs, getting the accounts, are the companies that can provide financing around the world. We make a lot of things in New Hampshire. We have a robust manufacturing industry because we have companies such as Boyle Energy Services & Technology, New Hampshire Ball Bearings, GE, and BAE. Yet we are hamstringing those businesses and their ability to continue to grow jobs, to continue to grow their business because we are not willing to make one appointment to the Ex-Im Bank that would allow us to create jobs in this country and that sends money back to the Treasury. For all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are so concerned about the fiscal health of this Nation--and I think we share that concern on the Democratic side--why would you not reauthorize and make sure that an agency like the Ex-Im Bank is fully operational, can create jobs, and can return money to the Treasury? It boggles my mind that, because of this ideological battle, we are not willing to do what is practical, what is in the interests of our businesses, of job creation, of making sure that we can compete around the world with other companies that are making things. So I share the concern we heard from Senator Heitkamp and from Senator Klobuchar, which is that the longer we delay in approving the nomination of Mark McWatters, the longer we delay in making sure that Ex-Im is fully operational, the more jobs will be lost, the more difficult it will be for companies to compete, and the more money that will be lost to the U.S. Treasury. So I hope that under the new administration there is more of a willingness on the part of my colleagues to actually approve these nominations and to move government forward so that we can create jobs and we can address the economic challenges that too many people in this country are facing. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased that I could be here for Senator Ayotte's farewell address and honored to have had the opportunity to serve with her over the past 6 years. Six years ago, I stood on this floor to recognize another departing Senator from New Hampshire, Judd Gregg. I said then about my relationship with Senator Gregg something that is also true about my relationship with Senator Ayotte: that we always managed to disagree without being disagreeable. I am grateful to Senator Ayotte for this, and I am proud that we have been able to maintain that civility and bipartisanship even in the course of two very close and very tough election cycles. That is the New Hampshire way--putting partisanship aside whenever possible and seeking practical, pragmatic solutions to address people's critical needs. As she said, time and time again, Senator Ayotte and I have teamed up to advance legislation of special importance to the Granite State, including strongly advocating for veterans, for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and for the New Hampshire National Guard and that new KC-46 tanker. Together, we fought to secure more resources for law enforcement and treatment professionals who are on the frontlines of the opioid crisis, including this week important new funding in the 21st Century Cures Act. I want to publicly express my gratitude to Kelly for her dedicated service to the people of New Hampshire and, more broadly, the people of the United States. Over the last 6 years, Senator Ayotte has earned respect on both sides of the aisle in this body and in New Hampshire. I know that her husband Joe and their two wonderful children, Kate and Jacob, are very, very proud of her service in the Senate. Looking to the future, there is no question in my mind that she will continue to serve the State and the country she loves. Kelly, I wish you and your family all the best in the years ahead. Thank you.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

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

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the resolution to allow Montenegro to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I am here this afternoon to urge that the full Senate take up this issue and give a prompt vote to the accession before we bring the 114th Congress to a close. A top priority of the historic NATO summit that happened in Warsaw in July was bolstering the alliance's resolve and capacity to deter Russian aggression against the Baltic States and the rest of NATO's eastern flank. Also at the Warsaw summit, NATO formally invited Montenegro to become its 29th member nation. All 28 member states must now ratify the accession protocol according to our own procedures. In the United States, that means the Senate must ratify the protocol. In the decades since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been a tremendous force for stability, democratization, and freedom in Europe. That is exactly why more countries, including those created by the breakup of Yugoslavia, are eager to join. Montenegro has worked hard to prove its commitment to NATO, including by strengthening its democracy, making significant progress in fighting corruption, and improving its defense capabilities. Montenegro's membership in NATO would have significant impact, including completing the alliance's unbroken control of the Adriatic coast. It will serve to further anchor the Balkan region in the security framework of NATO. It speaks volumes that Vladimir Putin has fiercely opposed Montenegro's accession to NATO. During Montenegro's general election in October, authorities arrested 20 people suspected of plotting, with support from Russia, to overthrow the Cabinet and assassinate Montenegro's Prime Minister, Milo Djukanovic. While NATO is purely a defensive alliance, Russia has warned Montenegro of retaliation if the country continues to pursue NATO membership. By quickly approving the resolution on accession, the Senate can demonstrate that it stands firmly with Montenegro and that we will not allow Putin to bully European states with impunity. Montenegro's membership would reaffirm that NATO's door remains open to aspirant nations that share the values of all NATO members and stand ready to contribute to NATO operations. NATO must stand firm on the principle that the decision to seek membership in the alliance cannot be blocked by a third party. NATO is the most ambitious and successful alliance in history. Across nearly seven decades, it has risen to every challenge: deterring the Soviet Union during the Cold War; integrating former Soviet bloc countries into a Europe whole and free; restoring peace in the Balkans after Yugoslavia's breakup; invoking article 5 in defense of the United States after September 11; and most recently, taking the fight to the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria and Iraq. Montenegro is a small nation with big strategic importance. Its accession to NATO would strengthen the alliance. In turn, membership in NATO would bolster Montenegro's democracy and independence. As I said, today the Foreign Relations Committee approved the resolution of accession. I hope the full Senate will bring the resolution to the floor for a prompt, favorable vote. The United States has always stood strong for freedom and democracy in Europe, and it is time to stand strong for freedom and democracy in Montenegro. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am here, along with a number of my colleagues, to applaud the 21st Century Cures Act as a major milestone and a long-overdue initial investment in combating the opioid epidemic. In particular, I applaud the inclusion of $1 billion in funding over 2 years that will address this crisis. For treatment providers on the frontlines of the epidemic, I am pleased to say help is on its way with this bill when it is passed by the Senate-- and I believe it will be. Make no mistake, these resources are badly needed. This remains an uncontrolled epidemic and unfortunately is still gaining strength. A staggering 47,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2014--more Americans than died in car accidents. Sadly, in New Hampshire, we are a bull's-eye for the highest percentage of drug overdoses per populace of any State in the country so I am pleased this bill includes language to prioritize the allocation of these new resources to the most heavily affected States, and I intend to work with the current and incoming administration to get this funding out to States as quickly as possible. More than a year ago, I introduced legislation to help stem the tide of the opioid crisis by providing emergency funding to States, first responders, and treatment providers. I joined with other Senators in working to include funding in the Cures Act to provide at least an initial infusion of funding to fight the opioid epidemic. I am relieved these efforts have led to the bipartisan agreement we will soon vote on. Last month, the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued a landmark report and an urgent call to action. He said 21 million Americans have a substance use disorder--far more Americans than have cancer--yet only 1 in 10 is receiving any kind of treatment. My State of New Hampshire, and New England overall, has been especially hard hit, but make no mistake, this is a nationwide epidemic, and it doesn't discriminate. It is impacting young and old, urban and rural, rich and poor, White and minority, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. This fall I met with Susan Messinger of Holderness, NH. Her son Carl experimented with heroin at a party and quickly became addicted. He got treatment, was in recovery, and was doing great, but he came down with a respiratory infection and was prescribed medicine that unknown to him, included an opioid--just simple cherry cough medicine. Carl relapsed, and he died of a fentanyl overdose days before his 25th birthday. This chart entitled ``Drug Overdose Deaths Across America'' shows very vividly the extent of the problem. It was compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It shows the inexorable spread of the opioid crisis and the disease it causes from 2003, here where we don't see as much bright red, to 2008, where it is growing, to 2014, where it is almost the entire country. We can see that in the Presiding Officer's section of the country, in the Southwest, it is particularly challenging, as well as in the Appalachian region of the East. According to the CDC, mortality trends in the opioid epidemic are now similar to the trends in the HIV epidemic at its peak in the late 1980s and 1990s. The second chart shows drug overdose deaths across New Hampshire. It shows a parallel spread of the opioid epidemic in New Hampshire, with especially devastating effects in the northern part of the State--what we call the north country. In 2003, we see no orange and no red. In 2007, we are beginning to see patches of orange. In 2011, they have turned red, and by 2014, it is particularly affecting the entire State, and here--the northern part of New Hampshire--is where it is hardest hit. In his landmark report last month, the U.S. Surgeon General said: ``It is time to change how we view addiction--not as a moral failing but as a chronic illness that must be treated with skill, urgency and compassion.'' Yet what we are seeing in New Hampshire and across the country is that treatment centers are completely overwhelmed. Certainly, the new funding in the Cures Act will be welcome news to Friendship House in Bethlehem, NH, which is a treatment center I visited on Friday. It is up here in the northern part of the State in New Hampshire's north country, which has one of the highest overdose rates per capita in New Hampshire. Friendship House is the only treatment center within a radius of 65 miles. Back in April, Kaiser Health News reported on the case of Eddie Sawyer. Eddie overdosed and died while he was waiting for his turn to be admitted to Friendship House. When police found Mr. Sawyer, on the table next to his bed was a list of treatment facilities. There were checkmarks next to the name of each facility. Mr. Sawyer had called every place on the list, and he had not found one that could take him for treatment. The Surgeon General's new report states that nearly 9 out of 10 people with substance use disorders do not receive treatment. They are being turned away. They are being denied treatment due to a chronic lack of resources. Hopefully, this legislation is going to help that because over the last year, I visited treatment centers in every part of the Granite State. These centers are staffed by skilled, dedicated treatment professionals. They are saving lives every day, but they tell me that for every life they save, others are being lost for lack of treatment capacity, facilities, and funding. When people with substance use disorders are turned away, this means they remain on the streets, desperate, often committing crimes to support their addiction and at constant risk of a lethal overdose. Last year, a promising young woman named Molly Alice Parks died of a heroin overdose in Manchester, NH--New Hampshire's largest city. Her father wrote her obituary which appeared in the Union Leader newspaper. He wrote openly about Molly's addiction, and the obituary included this plea to readers: ``If you have any loved ones who are fighting addiction, Molly's family asks that you do everything possible to be supportive, and guide them to rehabilitation before it is too late.'' I admire the courage of Molly's father, his willingness to warn other families, and talk openly about his daughter's addiction, but what if a family persuades a son or daughter to seek treatment and no treatment is available? Sadly, that is the case in so many communities across America where treatment centers are overwhelmed. That is why the additional resources in the Cures Act are so important. This new funding will make a real difference for treatment providers in each of our States. Make no mistake, this legislation will save lives. The funding in the Cures Act is a welcome initial investment in combating the opioid epidemic. President-Elect Trump, during dozens of visits to New Hampshire over the last year, pledged aggressive action to fight the opioid epidemic. When the new Congress convenes in January, we must come together with our new President, on a bipartisan basis, to address the opioid crisis in a comprehensive fashion, including continuing resources for policing, prevention, treatment, and recovery. As Surgeon General Murphy says, ``How we respond to this crisis is a test for America.'' With so many lives at stake, it is a test we must not fail. With the 21st Century Cures Act, Congress is providing urgent new funding for treatment on the frontlines--professionals who have been doing truly heroic, lifesaving work. Our message in passing this legislation is: Help is on the way. I urge my colleagues to give strong bipartisan support to this important bill. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I came to the floor this afternoon to talk about our failure, once again, to go through a regular appropriations process. I share what I know is a disappointment on the part of many of our colleagues that this Congress is choosing, once again, to disregard the regular appropriations process and resort to a short-term continuing resolution. This will have serious negative impacts on our country's national security and on the economy. As ranking member on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, I applaud the chair of that subcommittee, Senator Hoeven, who was just on the floor, for the bipartisan work that has gone on. But as I look at the potential impact on homeland security, our failure to get an appropriations bill will have serious negative consequences for our Nation's emergency preparedness, for our transportation security, and for cyber security, just to name a few. Closer to home in our local communities, it will hurt law enforcement as well as efforts to combat the opioid epidemic. At the beginning of this 114th Congress, the majority leader pledged to return the Senate to regular order. Now, translated into simple English for people who may be watching, regular order means doing our job and doing it the right way when it comes to the budget process. It means meeting our Constitutional responsibility to produce an annual appropriations bill for the American people--legislation that will allow government at all levels and people from all walks of life to plan, to invest, to build, and to move our Nation forward. But instead, we are again being presented with an inadequate short-term stopgap bill, a continuing resolution that does not get the job done for the American people. I applaud the Appropriations Committee chair, Senator Cochran, and our vice chair, Senator Mikulski, and the great work that has been done by all of the members of the Appropriations Committee. Senators Cochran and Mikulski have led the committee in a diligent good-faith effort to craft appropriations bills that meet our Nation's current needs and challenges, but unfortunately all those efforts will now be cast aside. As Vice Chair Mikulski said yesterday, Republican leaders have decided to ``procrastinate rather than legislate.'' This has brought us to the final days of the 114th Congress with no regular order and no annual appropriations bills. This has very serious consequences nationally as well as in our States and local communities. For example, just on homeland security, over the last year the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security has crafted a bipartisan bill to ramp up emergency preparedness at the local level to meet the rising threat of cyber attacks and to address challenges in transportation security, including at our airports. All of these improvements and gains will be lost for the time of the continuing resolution. Over the last year, we have seen terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, and sadly, just this last week, in Columbus, OH. Yet, because of the continuing resolution, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be unable to award more than $2 billion in homeland security preparedness grants to State and local governments. These are grants that allow States and local communities to plan and to practice their emergency response before disasters happen. That is how we cut response time, and that is how we save lives, but because of Congress's failure to do our jobs and pass annual appropriations bills, these preparedness grants will not be able to go forward. Another area that is a critical national priority is cyber security. Last year Federal agencies reported more than 77,000 cyber security incidents. Local businesses that own and operate much of the infrastructure, from banks to sewage systems, are under greater threat of cyber attack. Late last month hackers attacked the New Hampshire- based company of Dyn, which is part of the backbone of the Internet. This attack on Dyn took down large swathes of Internet all across the globe. Dyn responded admirably to the attack, but there will be more and more sophisticated attacks in the future. To address these challenges, our appropriations bill in Homeland Security tripled the number of Federal cyber security advisers, and it increased cyber security funds to harden systems in Federal agencies. But, again, because of the continuing resolution, all of these advances will be put on hold for the duration of the CR. Of course, our Nation faces ongoing challenges in transportation security. To address increasing airline passenger volume and long security wait times, we have added nearly 1,400 transportation security officers, converted about 3,000 part-time officers to full-time status, funded 50 new bomb-sniffing K-9 teams, and added new screening equipment. To sustain these efforts through fiscal year 2017, the Transportation Security Administration needs a funding increase, but under the continuing resolution, these funds will not be available. This increases the prospect of staffing shortfalls, and it means that more and more Americans will be standing in long lines, angry and frustrated at airports across this country. The damage done by the continuing resolution will be felt in each of our States and in communities all across America. This week I heard from the executive director of New Hampshire's Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Lyn Schollett. She and her colleagues across New Hampshire are very troubled by the prospect of the continuing resolution. She told me that crisis centers, which are critical to help victims of domestic violence, will be stretched. They will have unpredictability that will make it even harder for programs to train and retain competent staff. It will affect their ability to serve victims of domestic violence across New Hampshire. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I am also very aware--as so many of us on that committee are--of the harmful effect of continuing resolutions on our military. Just yesterday I joined with other members of the Senate Navy Caucus to hear from the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM John Richardson. He pointed out that the Navy and all the other services have lived with 9 years of continuing resolutions. I want to say that again. Nine years of continuing resolutions. Nine years of not being able to count on a budget process that would allow them to plan. He talked about how this chronic budget chaos has been very costly. He said that military planners now operate from the assumption that there will be a CR and that any planning for the first quarter of the fiscal year is rendered unreliable. Year after year, this has resulted in project delays, multiple contracting actions for the same work, and it winds up costing more. It winds up costing the taxpayers more, it winds up costing our military more, and it winds up having an impact on all of the missions we have asked our men and women in uniform to take on. During the current continuing resolution period running through December 9, the Navy had planned to award $24 billion in research and development contracts, but now, because of the CR, it will award only $16 billion in contracts. In my home State of New Hampshire, the CR limits the ability of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard--one of the four premier public shipyards in the country--to award contracts for critical infrastructure projects. This can interfere with submarine maintenance schedules, which then impacts the readiness of the submarine fleet. Again, I think it is important to point out that this costs us more. It doesn't save money to have a continuing resolution. That is a whole misunderstanding on the part of some people. It costs more. Every Senator understands that our failure to pass a full-year appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017 will do serious harm to people in communities all across America. As I just said, as we have seen in past years, it is going to cost us more money. The Constitution vests in Congress the profound responsibility to appropriate funds to meet the Nation's needs. We have a duty to do so in a timely and responsible manner. I appreciate--I understand, based on news reports, that the reason we are going to a short-term continuing resolution is because the incoming administration says they want to put a stamp on government spending. Well, that is not the way the process is supposed to work. In future fiscal years, there will be the opportunity for the new administration to put their imprint on government spending. They will have a lot to do in the coming months of the new administration with the nominees and the process of vetting and approval of nominees and with new legislation. Why set up a budget battle 3 months into the new administration when we don't need to, when we have appropriations bills that have been through committee, in most cases have been agreed to by House and Senate negotiators, and we could move forward with that process, just as leadership of this body has committed to do? At the beginning of this Congress, the Senate's Republican leaders pledged to restore regular order to the appropriations process. Instead, once again we are presented with a short-term stop-gap funding bill that shortchanges critical national needs and priorities. I believe the American people deserve better. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, as he requests a unanimous consent vote to pass the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act. Passage of this bill marks a momentous day for survivors of sexual assault, and it really is a testament to the important progress we can make in Congress when we work together on a bipartisan basis to address the needs of the American people. The Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act for the first time establishes a set of codified, court-enforceable rights to address unique issues faced by sexual assault survivors. It also ensures survivors the opportunity to enforce these rights in Federal court. Last February, I introduced this legislation, but the real inspiration for the bill came many months earlier when I first met with Amanda Nguyen, a young sexual assault survivor who faced heartbreaking challenges after reporting her assault. As Senator Grassley said, she was really the moving force behind this legislation. Amanda told me about the repeated battles she fought to prevent her rape forensic kit from being destroyed, and she recounted the grueling legal process that she and other survivors have endured in order to win justice. Well, I was deeply moved by Amanda's experience, and soon after that initial meeting, I got to work with staff. We worked through multiple drafts, and with invaluable counsel from Amanda, as well as dozens of nationally recognized experts and organizations, we produced the final bill that was introduced in February. I thank Senators Blumenthal and Leahy for their counsel throughout the process and for serving as original cosponsors. As I said earlier, I also thank Senator Grassley and Senator Schumer, who helped moved the bill through the Judiciary committee in April. It passed the full Senate in May. The same legislation, sponsored by Representatives Wasserman Schultz, Lamar Smith, Mimi Walters, and Zoe Lofgren, was unanimously passed by the House earlier this month. Following the introduction of the bill, there was a groundswell of nationwide support for the rights set forth in this legislation, including more than 90,000 people who signed a petition urging Congress to act. Clearly the bill resonated with the American people, especially survivors of sexual assault because so many survivors feel intimidated by the legal process and they choose not to go forward. That is one reason sexual assault is among the most underreported and unpunished crimes nationwide. Nearly 70 percent of attacks go unreported. Many survivors who initially file charges become frustrated by the legal obstacle course, and they give up before their cases are resolved, or, for many of them, their cases simply slip through the cracks. The rights set forth in this new law will apply only in Federal cases, but we know from experience that when Congress makes reforms to Federal statutes, it often serves as a model and catalyst for States to improve their own laws. The goal is to create a standardized, transparent process that reassures survivors they will be supported and protected as they pursue justice. The Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act, as Senator Grassley said, will establish fair procedures with regard to rape forensic kits, including the right not to be charged any fees related to the forensic medical examination; the right to have sexual assault evidence preserved for the entire statute of limitations period; the right to be informed of the results of medical exams; and the right to written notice prior to destruction of a rape kit. These and other rights are basic and essential protections that all survivors ought to have regardless of where they live. In drafting the legislation, we wanted to make clear that by establishing these rights for survivors, without precondition we ensure that survivors' interests are legally protected, regardless of how or if they choose to move forward with an official report to police. We know that sometimes in the immediate aftermath of an attack, many survivors are not prepared to face the additional emotional challenges of confronting their attacker in the legal system. We also know that after survivors have a chance to heal, they are often more prepared to seek justice. States around the country are recognizing this fact and extending their statute of limitations on sexual crimes. The rights in this legislation, hand in hand with that process at the State level, ensure that even if a survivor only seeks a medical forensic exam or reports an assault anonymously, even if a survivor is not ready to immediately move forward with the criminal process, the survivor will have enforceable rights in our legal system and can be assured that evidence is preserved for the future. I thank all my colleagues in both the Senate and the House who have come together on a bipartisan basis to create a reform process that ends the silence surrounding sexual assault, that brings it out of the shadows, and that gives survivors a fair shot at justice. When the President signs this bill into law in the days ahead, it will send a powerful message to survivors all across the country: You do have rights. We do care about you. And if you choose to come forward, we are going to ensure a justice system that treats you with dignity and fairness. Again, I thank all my colleagues. I know Senator Grassley is going to be requesting unanimous consent that this legislation go forward. Mr. President, I would like to be recorded as present and voting yes on that unanimous consent request, and I am pleased to be able to join Senator Grassley as he makes this momentous request. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am pleased to join Senator Blumenthal on the floor this afternoon as a cosponsor of his resolution. I share his concerns that Merrick Garland has not yet gotten a hearing nor a vote in this body on his nomination to be on the Supreme Court of the United States. Since the beginning of our Nation, the U.S. Senate has respected an important, bipartisan tradition of giving timely and fair consideration to Supreme Court nominees, even during the years when there is a Presidential election. Sadly, this year the majority party has broken that tradition by refusing even to hold a hearing on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to serve as a Justice. The current vacancy was created more than 200 days ago. President Obama nominated Judge Garland more than 7 months ago. I am joining my colleagues on the floor this afternoon to urge the majority party and the leadership of this body to give Judge Garland a hearing, to give him a vote. It is time to extend to Judge Garland the same fair treatment the Senate has given to every other person previously nominated to the Supreme Court by an elected President during a Presidential election year. The majority party's refusal, to date, to consider the nomination of Judge Garland is a shocking break with Senate tradition. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution is unambiguous about the respective duties and responsibilities of the President and the Senate when there is a Supreme Court vacancy. I do not believe the Founders intended that these rules should be optional or should be something that could be disregarded. Article II states that the President ``shall hold this office during the term of four years''--not 3 years, not 3 years and 1 month, but 4 full years. Time and again, Senators have done their constitutional duty by considering and confirming Supreme Court Justices in the final year of a Presidency. Most recently, Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in the last year of President Reagan's final term in February of 1988. Indeed, it was a Senate with a Democratic majority that confirmed President Reagan's nominee, Justice Kennedy, and they did it unanimously--97 to 0. The Senate Committee on the Judiciary began holding public confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominees back in 1916. In the 100 years since then, never before has the committee denied a hearing to a nominee to be a Justice of the Supreme Court. So never before in our history have we seen this happen, that the majority party in the Senate has refused to conduct a hearing. Since 1975, the average length of time from nomination to a confirmation vote for the Supreme Court has been 67 days because our predecessors in the Senate recognized just how important it is for the Supreme Court to be fully functioning. This bipartisan tradition regarding the Supreme Court has been put at risk by the majority's actions this year, but the Senate will have another opportunity to act on the nomination of Judge Garland when we reconvene after election day during the lameduck session. Once we get through this election, I hope that the majority party will honor the Senate's tradition, that it will do the right thing, that it will give Judge Garland the hearing and the floor vote he deserves. We all know that, as Senators, we have sworn to support and defend the Constitution. Our oath doesn't say: Uphold the Constitution most of the time or only when it is not a Presidential election year. The American people expect us, as Senators, to be faithful to our oath of office, and they also expect us to do our jobs regardless of whether it is an election year. So let's respect that oath of office. Let's do the job we were sent here to do by the American people. Let's follow the Constitution. As former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor--a Justice nominated by a Republican President--said just days after the current vacancy occurred back in February, ``I think we need somebody [on the Supreme Court] now to do the job, and let's get on with it.'' Well, let's get on with it. It is time for us to do our jobs. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Massachusetts, who has seen the same tragedy we are seeing in New Hampshire. I am sad to have to come to the floor again today to join my colleagues, Senator Markey and Senator Klobuchar, who have spoken so passionately about our need to address the ongoing heroin and opioid crisis. Like them and many others, I have been coming to the floor for many months to describe the terrible toll this crisis is taking on communities across the country. I know the Presiding Officer must see it in his home State because it is happening all across America. It is ironic that we are here during Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week to once again call on this Congress and the Senate to pass emergency funding to address what is the most pervasive, most destructive, and, I believe, most urgent public health crisis that faces this Nation. I certainly don't want to minimize the gravity of the other health challenges we are facing in America, especially the Zika outbreak, which I believe is absolutely critical, but by any objective measure, these challenges are dwarfed by the destruction and loss of life that is being inflicted every day by the uncontrolled epidemic of heroin and opioid abuse. This epidemic is raging in all 50 States. It is an uncontrolled public health epidemic of staggering dimensions. In 2014, some 47,000 people died from drug overdoses--far more than the number of Americans who died in motor vehicle accidents the same year. I am sad to say that New Hampshire is at the epicenter of this epidemic because we have the highest percentage of overdose deaths in the Nation. This year, at the rate we are seeing overdose fatalities, we will lose over 500 people in New Hampshire, a State of about 1.3 million. Estimates are that over 100,000 people in New Hampshire have some sort of substance abuse/misuse issue. The statistics don't even begin to describe the heartbreak and the trauma that is experienced by those who have drug misuse issues and their families. Yet, despite this appalling death toll, despite what the statistics tell us, the Senate has failed to provide emergency funding to first responders and to treatment providers on the frontlines of this crisis. In July, Congress passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, CARA. I applaud Senator Klobuchar and the other sponsors of that legislation. It is a good, bipartisan bill that passed this Chamber with overwhelming support. I was a cosponsor, and I voted for it. But, as we all know very well, CARA is an authorizing bill, it is not an appropriations bill. The public may not know that because I think there is a lot of confusion about the difference between authorizing and appropriating, but the fact is, we know here in this Chamber that CARA is an authorizing bill and it does not provide one penny to fight the opioid epidemic. We need to fund CARA. That is probably not going to happen this year and may not happen for several years. We need to put actual resources behind all of our talk about stemming this crisis. Earlier this year, I introduced emergency funding that would provide an additional $600 million for policing, prevention, treatment, and recovery. I offered this legislation as an amendment to the CARA bill but sadly it was defeated. The legislation looks at all of those aspects: prevention, treatment, recovery, and policing because I believe there isn't one magic bullet solution for this issue. We definitely need more treatment. We need to acknowledge that addiction is a disease. That is a critical part of it, but we also need to do the policing--the long-term recovery. I was at a recovery center in New Hampshire several weeks ago, and one of the women I met there who was in recovery said: You know, getting clean was easy. It is staying clean that is the hard part. Our Nation has addressed our public health crises with emergency funding bills far larger than the one I proposed. In 2014, Congress passed nearly $5.4 billion--billion with a ``b''--in emergency funding to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The Ebola outbreak killed one person in America. The heroin and opioid epidemic is killing more than 128 Americans every single day. We know treatment is the only effective answer to addiction, but people are being turned away from treatment due to lack of resources. Nationwide, in 2013, nearly 9 out of 10 people needing drug treatment did not receive it. It is the same story on the law enforcement side of the equation, a chronic lack of resources. As Senator Klobuchar pointed out, and as my colleagues from Vermont-- who just came to the floor--and Massachusetts understand very clearly, heroin traffickers expressly target rural States and counties where law enforcement is spread too thin and lacks the resources to respond effectively. Meanwhile, as Congress fails to act, the opioid epidemic is on the verge of expanding dramatically. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid that is used to tranquilize elephants. It is now available on the streets, blamed for a record surge of drug overdoses in the Midwest. Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl, which, in turn, can be up to 50 times more deadly than heroin. It is one of the synthetic additives to heroin that is causing so many overdose deaths in New Hampshire. Until recently, Hamilton County, OH, had four to five overdoses a day. Now, because of carfentanil, the county is reporting 20 overdoses, 30 overdoses, and sometimes even 50 overdoses a day, completely overwhelming first responders. Some public health officials say the United States has reached a disastrous inflection point in the opioid epidemic. Going forward, we may be seeing more and more synthetic opioids on the market--cheaper, more potent, more addictive, and even more deadly. This is just one more wake-up call. As I travel across New Hampshire and talk to Senate colleagues from across the country, again and again I hear about the lack of resources to marshal an effective, well-coordinated response. As new and more dangerous opioids hit the streets, this crisis could become exponentially worse. Our failure to act is having tragic consequences. At long last, let's give law enforcement, let's give treatment providers, and let's give recovery centers the resources they so desperately need. At long last, let's come together. Let's pass an emergency funding bill to combat the opioid epidemic. If we can spend billions to fight Ebola on a distant continent, surely we can allocate $600 million to combat a raging epidemic right here at home. When the Senate comes back into session after the election, we will have another opportunity to consider emergency funding to combat this crisis. For tens of thousands of Americans, this is very literally a matter of life and death. Let's put politics aside. Let's do the job the American people sent us to do. At long last, let's give law enforcement and treatment providers on the frontlines the resources they need to effectively address the opioid crisis. Thank you to my colleagues from Massachusetts and Minnesota for coming to the floor to once again point out the need we so desperately have.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to once again urge that we extend the Special Immigrant Visa Program for Afghan interpreters who put their lives on the line while serving alongside Americans in Afghanistan. Unless we act, Congress is going to let this program lapse in just a matter of months. We will abandon thousands of Afghans who helped our men and women on the ground during the long conflict in Afghanistan. It is no exaggeration to say that this is a matter of life and death. Afghan interpreters who served the U.S. mission are being systematically hunted down by the Taliban, and we must not abandon them. The United States promised to protect these Afghans, who served our mission with great loyalty and at such enormous risk. It would be a stain on America's national honor to break this promise. It would also carry profound strategic costs. U.S. forces and diplomats have always relied on local people to help us accomplish our mission. We continue to need this assistance in Afghanistan. We need the support in other places in the future. So we have to ask why anyone would agree to help the United States if we abandon those who have assisted us in the past. That is exactly why the former commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, GEN David Petraeus, and his predecessor, GEN Stanley McChrystal, have pleaded with Congress to extend the Afghan SIV Program. In a recent letter to Congress, more than 30 prominent generals, including Gen. John Allen, the former commander in Afghanistan; GEN George Casey, the former commander in Iraq; and two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN Richard Myers and GEN Hugh Shelton, also urged the Congress to extend the program. In addition, our soldiers and marines are very interested in protecting the interpreters who served with them in Afghanistan. Many of them owe their lives to the interpreters who went into combat with them. In recent years, I have gotten to know former Army CPT Michael Breen. He is a Granite Stater who served with the infantry in Iraq and led paratroopers in Afghanistan. He speaks with admiration about one interpreter in particular, an Iraqi woman in her early twenties named Wissam. On one occasion, Captain Breen and his soldiers were at a small forward operating base in Iraq. A man approached them, frantically pointing to his watch and indicating an explosion with his hands. The Americans didn't speak Arabic, so they couldn't tell if the man was trying to warn them or threaten them. Wissam hurried toward Captain Breen to assist. Wissam was beloved by her American comrades, always cheerful and always willing to help. She listened to the man and said that he was warning of an IED on the main road. Captain Breen later said: ``A trusted interpreter can be the difference between a successful patrol and a body bag.'' He noted that every night he and his fellow soldiers would hunker down in their heavily guarded perimeter, but Wissam would leave the compound and go home. One evening after she left the American compound, three gunmen ambushed her car. She was killed--one more interpreter who paid the ultimate price for serving the American mission. Captain Breen later said: One day there will be a granite monument with the names of all the American servicemembers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wissam deserves to have her name on that monument because she took great risks and gave her life while serving the United States. As many of our colleagues know, the SIV Program allows Afghans who supported our mission and faced grave threats as a result to seek refuge in America. To be eligible, new applicants must demonstrate at least 2 years of faithful and valuable service on the ground with Americans. To receive a visa, they must also clear a rigorous screening process that includes an independent verification of their service and then an intensive interagency security review. A typical example is an Afghan interpreter who served with U.S. forces from 2008 to 2015. Because he is in danger, I am not going to use his name. Last December, he was gravely wounded in an IED attack that robbed him of one eye and it destroyed his vision in the other. He applied for a special immigrant visa after being wounded, and he is in the early stages of the interagency vetting process. But unless Congress acts, there may not be a visa available for him once he completes that vetting. We know that the service of these individuals has been critical to our successes in Afghanistan. In some cases recipients of special immigrant visas have continued to serve the U.S. mission after arriving in this country. One promptly enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces and later worked as a cultural adviser to the military. Another graduated from Indiana University and Georgetown. He has worked as an instructor at the Defense Language Institute. A third, who worked as a senior adviser in the U.S. Embassy, now serves on the board of a nonprofit, working to promote a safe and stable Afghanistan. These many contributions help explain why senior U.S. commanders and diplomats have urged Congress to extend the Afghan SIV program. Appearing last week at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Army Chief of Staff GEN Mark Milley added strong support. Speaking of Afghan interpreters he said: ``Those are brave men and women who have fought along our side and there are American men and women in uniform who are alive today because a lot of those Afghans put their lives on the line.'' At that same hearing, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller also stressed the importance of the program and the need for Congress to extend it. Their view is shared by our senior diplomats. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who served in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 recently wrote: Taking care of those who took care of us is not just an act of basic decency; it is also in our national interest. American credibility matters. Abandoning these allies would tarnish our reputation. Well, I agree. Indeed, I think there is overwhelming bipartisan support in both houses of Congress for extending the Afghan SIV program. Yet, because of the opposition of a handful of Members, Congress, by default, could allow this program to expire in a matter of months. This would put in jeopardy the lives of thousands of Afghans who have served alongside our fighting forces. Make no mistake, it would also jeopardize our reputation as a country that keeps its promises and stands by those who assist our missions. In past years, Senators have overwhelmingly supported the authorization of additional special immigrant visas for Afghan interpreters. On both sides of the aisle, we have agreed that it is important to make good on our promise to these Afghan allies. But sadly, this year has been different. Several Members have objected. It is evident to me that the anti-immigration passions that have been stoked during this Presidential campaign by Donald Trump have contributed to this impasse. The irresponsible rhetoric about immigrants is offensive to American values and it ignores what makes America great. Across nearly four centuries, immigrants have brought their energy and talents to our country, building the most successful and dynamic economy on Earth. Our Nation has always been welcoming to immigrants. In fact, all of us here are immigrants, unless we are Native Americans. We should be especially welcoming to those who served alongside American soldiers and marines in combat and have been so essential to carrying out our mission in Afghanistan. The Iraq and Afghan Veterans of America and other organizations representing hundreds of thousands of veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces recently addressed a letter to Members of Congress. In that letter, they respectfully but forcefully urged Congress to reauthorize the special immigrant visa program. I want to quote from this letter, because I think it reflects the words of these American veterans: Military service instills in a person certain values: Loyalty. Duty. Respect. Honor. Integrity. . . . Breaking our word directly violates these values. Many of us can point to a moment when one of our foreign allies saved our lives-- often by taking up arms against our common enemies. . . . Since our first days in boot camp, we accepted and practiced the value: ``leave no one behind.'' Keep our word. Don't leave anyone behind. If we fail to extend the SIV program, Congress will have one more opportunity and only one more opportunity this year. That opportunity will come in the session following the election. We must seize this opportunity to do the right thing for our country and for the Afghan interpreters whose lives are at risk. We would never leave an American warrior behind on the battlefield. Likewise, we must not leave behind the Afghan interpreters who served side by side with our warriors and diplomats. We made a solemn promise to these brave people. I am going to do everything I can to ensure that we keep this promise. I urge my colleagues, when Congress returns in November, to join me on a bipartisan basis for a program that has had bipartisan support. We can extend the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program. We must do that. It is in our national security interests to keep this promise that we have made. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am on the floor today to raise my concern about another nominee who has been on hold in this body for months. I am sad to say that this has been an ongoing issue with the Senate. People have been nominated--good people who are very well qualified--and then their nomination doesn't get acted upon. One of those people is Douglas Wilson, who has been nominated to serve on the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. This is probably a Commission that most people don't even know exists, and yet Mr. Wilson has been on hold since June 13, when his nomination was referred to the floor. He actually was nominated by the President in March. He is eminently qualified. He is a noncontroversial nominee. The Republican Vice Chairman of the Commission, William Hybl, has urged the Senate to confirm Mr. Wilson, and yet his confirmation remains blocked for reasons that seem completely unrelated to the nominee or his qualifications. I believe it is time for the Senate to confirm Mr. Wilson so that the Commission can be fully constituted to carry out its important mission. Surely, these days when there are so many hotspots around the world, when there is so much going on, it would be helpful to have the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy in place and fully staffed up to be able to help advise on so many of the conflicts that we see going on in the world. Doug Wilson has had a distinguished career of more than three and a half decades in the public and private sector. After graduating from Stanford University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Doug became a Foreign Service officer serving in posts throughout Europe and later with senior positions with the U.S. Information Agency. During the Clinton administration, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Secretary Cohen. Most recently, from 2010 to 2012, he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, serving as a principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense. He is a three-time recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award, the Pentagon's highest civilian honor. Since 2013, he has been a senior fellow and chair of the board of advisers at the Truman National Security Project. In 2009, he was the founding chair of the board of directors at Harvard's Public Diplomacy Collaborative. I think there is no question that Doug Wilson is extremely qualified. He has worked in a bipartisan way over the years. I have had the great pleasure of knowing Doug for more than 30 years. When I first met him, he was a foreign policy adviser to then-Senator Gary Hart. He worked in that role again when Senator Hart ran for President in 1984. The fact is that the work of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy has never been more important and urgent. One of the great foreign policy challenges of our day is countering the poisonous ideology of violent extremist groups. Another is countering Russian propaganda and Russian meddling in Europe and central Asia. The Commission plays an important role in helping our Nation address these challenges, and we need people with the right experience and the right judgment to serve on that Commission--people like Doug Wilson. I am disappointed that this nomination of someone so eminently qualified--someone who has support on both sides of the aisle and from the Republican Vice Chairman of that Commission, Mr. Hybl--continues to remain on hold before this body. I don't know why. For some reason someone has objected to this moving forward. We don't know who that is. We don't know what their objections are. That is one of the challenges we have in this body that needs to change if government is going to operate the way the people of this country expect. So I am going to keep coming to the floor. I am going to keep trying to move Doug Wilson's nomination, as I have since June. I am hopeful that at some point the majority will hear these concerns and agree that we should approve him and make sure that this Commission is fully functioning. I yield the floor.

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

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, Georgia is a trusted friend and steadfast partner of the United States. I firmly support Georgia's sovereignty, security, and prosperity, and I wish to congratulate Georgians on the remarkable democratic and economic progress they have achieved in 25 years of independence since the fall of the Soviet Union. I would particularly like to call attention to our unwavering security partnership with Georgia, whose Armed Forces participate in international missions worldwide, including the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, where Georgia is contributing more personnel than any other non-NATO member. I know the United States deeply appreciates Georgia's contributions to these missions and honors its sacrifices. Our important security relationship with Georgia continues to grow. Through ongoing regional efforts like the European Readiness Initiative and expanded bilateral cooperation, as laid out in the new defense agreement signed in July, the United States and Georgia are working ever more closely to boost our mutual security, build Georgia's resilience and self-defense capabilities, and create a safer region and world. In this context, I remain deeply concerned about Russia's continued occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and believe Russia must fulfill its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire agreement. The United States is steadfast in our support for Georgia's sovereignty and remains committed to helping Georgia achieve its goal of NATO and European Union membership and full integration into European institutions. Georgia is preparing for parliamentary elections in October, an important test of the country's civic institutions and democratic practices. Georgia's continued democratic maturation depends on free and fair elections contested in a pluralistic media environment. I also believe it is critical for Georgia to sustain progress in enacting its reform agenda, particularly in the justice sector, which will both further strengthen our bilateral partnership and prove to Georgians that their government is working for them. Progress has not come without difficulty, but the commitment of the Georgian people has made Georgia a true standout in a difficult region and an important partner of the United States. Again, I would like to congratulate Georgia on reaching this significant milestone and recognize the importance of our continued close partnership.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Now it is time to put politics aside and work together, to stay here and do what the American people need.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am joining with the others who are here on the floor today who have called on the majority leader of the Senate to stay here and to take action on matters of critical importance to the American people. On the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court will begin its new term, and it will do so with a vacancy that has remained unfilled for the last 6 months. Regrettably, the President's nominee to the Court, Judge Merrick Garland, has not even been given the courtesy of a nomination hearing. This is the first time in the history of this country--in the history of the country--that the majority party in leadership has refused to have a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. It is unconscionable. No wonder the people of America are frustrated with the Congress. Likewise, the Senate has failed to act with urgency to address the Zika outbreak. I will have more to say about this shortly. First and foremost, I wanted to come to the floor today to discuss the Senate's failure to provide appropriate emergency funding to address the heroin and opioid epidemic. This epidemic is raging in all 50 States. It is an uncontrolled public health epidemic of the first order. In 2014, some 47,000 people in this country died from drug overdoses--far more than we lose in motor vehicle accidents. Yet despite the staggering death toll, the majority in the Senate has failed to pass legislation to provide emergency funding to first responders, to treatment providers, to law enforcement, and to those who are on the frontlines in this crisis. In July, Congress passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA. It is a good bipartisan bill. It is a bill I cosponsored and I voted for. But as we all know here, if we are being honest with the public, CARA is an authorizing bill. It is not an appropriations bill. It doesn't provide one penny to fight the opioid epidemic. Even if Congress approves the funding necessary for CARA, it will be about 2 years before New Hampshire and other States see that additional funding. In New Hampshire we have the highest percentage of overdose deaths in the country. Everywhere I go in the State, I hear that what people need is the resources to address this crisis. That is why early this year I introduced an emergency funding bill to provide an additional $600 million for policing, prevention, treatment, and recovery. I offered this legislation as an amendment to the CARA bill, but it was defeated with only five of our Republican colleagues voting for it. Again, this is unconscionable. Our Nation has addressed other public health crises with emergency funding bills far larger than the one proposed to address the heroin and opioid epidemic. Last year, about a year and a half ago, Congress passed nearly $5.4 billion in emergency funding to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The Ebola outbreak killed one person in America. He wasn't an American. The heroin and opioid epidemic is killing more than 128 people every single day. We know that treatment is the only effective answer to the opioid addiction and that people are being turned away from treatment due to lack of resources. Nationwide in 2013, nearly 9 out of 10 people needing drug treatment didn't receive it. It is the same story on the law enforcement side of the equation. There is a chronic lack of resources. Heroin traffickers expressly target rural States and counties where law enforcement is spread too thin and lacks resources to respond effectively--places such as northern New Hampshire and northern New England. My legislation would provide $200 million in emergency funding for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, which is the flagship crimefighting program that has been cut year after year in a process that has been penny-wise and pound-foolish. It is budgeting at its very worst. Meanwhile, as Congress fails to act, as Senator McCaskill has shown so well, as we have not been here to work, the opioid epidemic is on the verge of expanding dramatically. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid that is used to tranquilize elephants. It is now available on the streets and is blamed for a record surge in drug overdoses in the Midwest. Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl. Fentanyl is an additive that we have seen turning up in New Hampshire and in so many other places that makes heroin 50 times more deadly. Until recently, Hamilton County, OH, had four or five overdoses a day. Now, because of carfentanil, the county is reporting 20, 30, or sometimes even 50 overdoses a day, completely overwhelming first responders. Some public health officials say that the United States has reached a disastrous inflection point in the opioid epidemic. Going forward, we may be seeing more and more synthetic opioids in the market that are cheaper, more potent, more addictive, and even more deadly. This is just one more wake-up call. The hour is late, and as I travel across New Hampshire and talk to Senate colleagues from across the country, again and again I hear about the lack of resources to marshal an effective, well-coordinated response. As the new and more dangerous synthetic opioids hit the streets, the crisis is becoming exponentially worse, and Congress's failure to act, the fact that we are, again, going home very soon means that more people will die before we take action. If Congress can spend billions to fight an Ebola outbreak in a distant continent, surely we can allocate $600 million to combat a raging epidemic back home if we stayed here and if we worked together to get this done. I also want to raise the issue of the Zika outbreak, as my colleagues have--again, this is one more area--because, while the Senate has been out of session, while Congress has been out of session, while we have been at a standstill, Zika has been on the move with tragic consequences. Local transmission of Zika is now taking place in the State of Florida. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1,750 pregnant women in the United States and Puerto Rico have tested positive for the Zika virus, and that means their babies are at risk. We are not even sure exactly what all their babies might be at risk for because we are still trying to get the research to determine what all of the impacts of Zika are. We know microcephaly is one of the birth defects that results from the Zika virus. Since January, I have joined with other Senators in calling for a robust response to the Zika outbreak because we need Congress to act. In fact, the Senate did act. We acted before we went out in August with a bipartisan vote of 89 people, but then we saw the House----

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I have a motion to instruct which is at the desk, and I ask for its consideration.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am thankful to my colleague from Arizona. I am pleased to be here on the floor because in a few minutes I am going to be offering a motion to instruct the conferees for the NDAA to extend the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program and to authorize additional visas for deserving applicants. For those of us who remember the debates we had on the floor during the NDAA, we will remember that we had come to an agreement. The opponents of this program had agreed with John McCain and me that we needed to keep the promises we had made to so many of those Afghan interpreters who made a life-and-death difference in helping our service men and women on the ground in Afghanistan as they fought the Taliban. This is a program that Senator McCain and I have worked on for several years. We have been successful in previous years in getting this extension and keeping the word--the promise we made to those Afghan interpreters and keeping the word of the American Government that we are going to help those who helped us. Yet we go into this NDAA conference without an extension of the Special Immigrant Visa Program. Without congressional action, the Afghan SIV Program will largely sunset around December. It will leave thousands of Afghans who stood alongside our men and women and other government personnel at severe risk. I talked to a woman this morning who told me the story of an Afghan interpreter who just arrived in the United States last night. She said he had been waiting 3 years to get his special immigrant visa. During that time, he was so worried about his family that he slept in another room at night when he went to bed so that if the Taliban found them, they would kill only him and not the rest of his family. This country owes a great debt to the Afghans who provided essential assistance to our mission in Afghanistan, the thousands of brave men and women who, like this man who just arrived in the United States, put themselves and their families at risk to help our soldiers and our diplomats accomplish their mission and return home safely. Congress must not turn its back on these individuals. That outcome would be a moral failing, and it would also carry significant national security strategic costs going forward. So I would hope that when we have this vote on the motion to instruct that my colleagues will agree with Senator McCain and I that this is something we need to do. We need to make sure one of the things that comes out of that NDAA conference is an agreement to extend those special visas to those individuals who were still in the pipeline. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleague from Arizona for all of his work to try to get this done, and I hope that by working together, we can make this happen.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of my motion to instruct the Senate National Defense Authorization Act conferees to extend the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program and authorize additional visas for deserving applicants. The SIV Program allows Afghans who supported the United States mission in Afghanistan to seek refuge in this country because they face grave threats as a result of helping our men and women on the ground there. I just wish to point out that when we had the debate on the NDAA, we had an agreement on what an amendment to extend the Special Immigrant Visa Program would look like. That amendment would have allowed for 2,500 additional special immigrant visas to cover those people still in the pipeline who are facing threats because of helping American soldiers. And while we had agreement from the majority of the body, unfortunately, because of an unrelated issue, we were not able to get this amendment passed. This is an opportunity for us to come back at this and do what is right, do what our commanders and our diplomats say we need to do for the national security interests of America. So I hope all of my colleagues will join me in supporting this motion to instruct. I would like to now ask my partner in this effort, Senator McCain, if he would say a few words.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Point of order, Mr. President.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, may I ask for a clarification? The vote we are having is not on a particular piece of legislation; is that correct? This is on a motion to instruct the conferees so it does not deal with the particular piece of legislation Senator Sessions has suggested.